Gunning for Victory
Second Amendment voter guide by Dave Kopel

Murtha’s in Trouble
Can you hear that sound? Neither can Murdoc. Even the crickets aren’t chirping on this one.

Ohio Cop Reprimanded for Making More Arrests than Tickets
Apparently, stopping crime hampered his revenue generation.

Ukrainian Bond girl is traitor to USSR, say Russian communists
As usual, the commies are missing the fact that the USSR is no more. For now.

Mountain lion scared off with gunfire
Arizona authorities agree that a hiker did everything correctly but it didn’t work, then used a gun to protect himself. Their response includes 13 safety tips, none of which mention carrying a weapon of any kid.

Land Warrior soldier-puter to get hoverbot vid hookup
Land Warrior just won’t die. Good.

Does Embedding with the Taliban Make You a Traitor?
Is journalist Nir Rosen a traitor, for telling the Taliban’s story?

House to House by David Bellavia
Was talking about this great book about the taking of Fallujah the other day so I thought I’d point it out again.

Stop Loss Struggles On
The 2007 “Surge Force” that went to Iraq, and recently returned, is now headed to Afghanistan. Thus the continued use of Stop Loss.

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I had trouble getting the link to the numbers behind their numbers to work in Firefox, so here it is. (via Instapundit)

UPDATE: To be clear:

So far, this has been a September 10 election. Barack Obama’s current lead in the polls is largely a result of the financial crisis which reached critical mass in September and cemented the economy as issue number one. Even though it has gotten slight attention over the past few weeks, national security is more important now than ever because the economy is inextricably tied to it. Anyone who doubts that just needs to be reminded of what the stock market did following the 9/11 attacks — not to mention the individual effects on the airline, oil and other industries.

I don’t want the fact that I posted this little 401(k) widget to imply that I think the economy/financial/tax situation outranks the war in importance. Many people do, and I think that’s not good.

What happens to the economy if Iran starts sinking oil tankers? If North Korea nukes Tokyo? If Russia starts to build USSR II? If China decides to reclaim Taiwan? What if al Qaeda or someone like them somehow sets of a big bomb in LA or New York or Chicago? Those sorts of scenarios would make the housing crisis, the plight of US auto makers, and the rollor coaster stock market look pretty silly, no?

Who sat glued to their television on September 11th, 2001, and said to themselves “My retirement fund is so screwed“?

UPDATE 2: This is, of course, closely related to my post on the question What if Steve Forbes Had Won the Election?

And it’s NOT in Detroit!

Grand Rapids pair charged with voter registration fraud

Two Grand Rapids residents are facing more than a dozen years in prison for voter registration fraud.

Robin Anderson and Patty Beth Wallace face at least 14 years behind bars for felony forgery charges as they tried to meet voter registration quota for their employer.

They’ve admitted to a small number of false registrations submitted to meet quotas for the Community Voters Project, an ostensibly non-partisan organization working to register more black voters. In Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, dozens of CVP workers are suspected of election fraud, at least some of them because they’re ineligible to serve as a registrar because they’ve been convicted of a felony.

Oh. look at the pair in Grand Rapids:

Both Anderson and Wallace have criminal histories that could land them more time behind bars. In 2006 Anderson was convicted of delivery/manufacture of a controlled substance.

Wallace was convicted in 2005 of unemployment compensation fraud in Florida.

Here’s a bit of conversation with Anderson:

When asked if he had in fact registered a dead person, Anderson was evasive.

“You did not register a dead person?” Newschannel 3 asked.

“No, I am not going to say I didn’t until we can try to figure out what’s going on here,” Anderson said.

Actually, what they’re trying to figure out is if you registered a dead person, pal.

Also, here’s a video of a 15-year-old boy in Lansing who received a voter ID card in the mail. He claims that a registrar stopped him and collected his information, including his correct date of birth. When the paperwork was turned in, the DOB had been changed. There’s no record of the organization that signed him up.

It was probably John McCain himself that did it, that cheating crook.

What if Steve Forbes Had Won the Election?

I voted for Forbes in the 2000 Michigan primaries. I would have voted for him over Gore if he had somehow won the nomination. And I’ve sometimes asked myself this same question:

What if Steve Forbes had won the primary and general elections in 2000? How would the world differ from the world we live in now?

Steve Forbes would not have negotiated away the supply side tax cuts in 2001. He would not have let the Democrats insist that only tax cuts for the poor and middle class be implanted immediately. He would not have agreed to defer the tax cuts of the entrepreneurial and investor class into the indefinite future. He would have (and did) recognize that we had already entered a recession before he entered the White House and would have used that fact to push the tax cuts through. The Forbes Boom would have started in 2001, not 2003. Two years of stagnation and jobs loss could have been avoided.

Here is a list of terms I quickly searched the article for using the ‘find’ function on my browser:

• 9/11
• september
• attack
• terrorist
• afghanistan
• iraq

None of them appeared in the article. I had to type in a word I could see just to make sure the ‘find’ function was working.

No conversation about this topic really has any point if the biggest issue he would have faced isn’t made the biggest issue of discussion. (via Instapundit)

Strategy Page has a post up about the conventional vs. asymmetric warfare debate:

Inside the U.S. Department of Defense, there is a major battle going on over what the future American military should get ready for, and what kinds of wars are most likely to be encountered. This has led to two major factions. One sees the future as needing an armed force that can fight a “conventional” war (trained forces on both sides, equipped with modern weapons). The other factions sees more like Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. They point out that only one of our last four wars (Kuwait in 1991) was “conventional.”

The Marines claim to be more ready to quickly shift back to big war shape, and the Army is looking at ways to be more flexible, too. That’s good. Though we clearly need to continuously improve our peacemaking capability, the risk of over-correction in that direction seems pretty high.

I’m reminded of a suggestion I made not too long ago: Train all of the National Guard for major conventional warfare and keep the active duty military more flexible.

With limited training time, the NG units could focus on the major conflict scenario and theoretically would benefit from not splitting their resources. Part of this thinking is that the NG units would not deploy for brush wars, except maybe in a very limited role. I think this would go a long way toward fixing and stabilizing the Guard for the long term.

Since the active Army is full-time, they train up for whatever seems best at the time. If things change, they’ll be much more ready to revamp things for a new mission. Obviously, the entire active Army wouldn’t go small war, but some divisions would.

The Economist magazine has endorsed Obama:

We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead. [emphasis Murdoc's]

That’s their definition of a “wholehearted” endorsement? I’d hate to see what they say about halfhearted endorsements.

3 Firms Win JLTV Contract

The U.S. Army has chosen three industry teams to receive $60 million, 27-month contracts to develop technology for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle: BAE Systems-Navistar, General Tactical Vehicles (GTV), and Lockheed Martin-BAE Systems, according to an Oct. 29 DoD press release.

The choice of these three to further develop plans for the blast-resistant, off-road-capable vehicles will not disqualify other bidders when it comes time to award System Design and Development (SDD) contracts, Army officials have said.

The Dutch submarine HNLMS Walrus (S802) prepares to moor at Naval Station Norfolk. Walrus concluded an exercise with U.S. Naval units and will enjoy a brief port and meet with U. S. Navy Sailors from local submarine commands. (U. S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Marlowe P. Dix/Released)

I hope we did some DDG vs. diesel-electric sub exercises.

A research team from the Psychology Department at New York University, headed by Professor Yaacov Trope and supported by the National Science Foundation, is investigating the cognitive causes of voting behavior, political preferences, and candidate evaluations throughout the course of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. This stage of the study focuses on the information people use to inform evaluations during the last few weeks before the election. They seek respondents of all political leanings from all over the country (and from the rest of the world) to complete a 15-minute questionnaire, the responses to which will be completely anonymous.

If interested in taking the survey, click here.