No, no, hear me out. Because it’s true.

Howard Dean will be a worthless President and a mistake for the country.

We are approaching a turning point in history; this much is clear. The decisions we make between 2004 and 2008 will be pivotal to our nation’s fate in the 21st century. We need a President who has a clear vision for America’s future — and it doesn’t have to be Bush. But it sure as hell won’t be Dean.

If there is only one reason to dislike Howard Dean, it is that he’s promised to repeal all of Bush’s tax cuts. There should be no doubt those tax cuts have boosted the economic recovery (although how much they’ve helped is a different debate). Taking that money back would deliver a shock to American markets, which would be bad for the world economy as a whole.

More worrisome is that Howard Dean has targeted Alan Greenspan for replacement, accusing him of having ‘become too political.’ This is particularly odious when you consider Dean’s motivation: he thinks Greenspan should have opposed tax cuts. Greenspan has chaired the Federal Reserve for many years, and he’s done a remarkable job. While other economists may argue over details of his decisions, Greenspan’s policies have always been rooted in his economic beliefs, not in presidential politics. That Howard Dean would attack a very capable and experienced economist, just because Greenspan’s past policies don’t fit Dean’s political agenda, is reprehensible.

Then there’s the issue of Iraq. Howard Dean has voiced his opposition to the war many times, but has yet to suggest anything on how to clean up the mess. Dean’s silence is a clear signal that the rowdy Vermonter simply doesn’t know what to do. Scream all you want, Howie, but that won’t bring stability to Baghdad and it won’t bring our troops home sooner.

Evidently, I’m not the only one who thinks that Howard Dean sucks. Seems a bunch of opponents have formed Howard-Dean-Sucks.com. While the web page is lacking substance (and seems engineered to support Kerry), it does have a good domain name.

There are a lot of things George Bush has done wrong in his four-year term. But we need a President who can fix Bush’s mistakes without stomping all over his successes. Howard Dean has promised to kick our markets in the teeth, wants to fire the economist who steered us out of recession, and hasn’t said one damn thing about American foreign policy anywhere in the world.

Some people love to hate Bush, and so does Howard Dean; therein lies much of his appeal. But when you look past the rhetoric and examine his policies, he’s a worthless candidate for President, and a sorry excuse for a leader.

Howard Dean sucks.

Many who will find this interesting already know about it; many who don’t know about it, won’t care anyways. But nonetheless, I feel like gloating.
I’ve discovered Delicious, and it is good.

“Delicious is a social bookmarks manager.” That sums it up nicely, but what the hell does that mean? Perhaps it’s better if I explain how it works.

1. I’m browsing the web, and I come across something I find interesting. Instead of saving a bookmark to my browser, I click a bookmark I already have, labeled “Post to Delicious”.
2. I am taken to a page where I can change the page’s title, write a brief description, and write some tags — one-word categories where this link belongs.
3. My bookmark is now added to Delicious, and is displayed on the front page, under my user page, and under all its tag pages.

This alone makes Delicious worth mentioning; a social network and link exchange where people can explore who else has bookmarked the same pages as they have.

But here’s the kicker: every user and tag on Delicious has its own RSS feed. That means you can use any RSS aggregator to track bookmarks in Delicious.

Why do I love this? Because now, on the right-hand side of the page, a list of my most recent bookmarks gets updated every half-hour. Call it silly and egocentric, but I find this an incredibly neat feature.

Excuse me while I go celebrate.

Philipp pointed this out first, but it’s so good I just had to repost it.

George W. Bush invaded Iraq so that The Jews, big corporations, Republicans, and white men could oppress welfare recipients.

Brought to you courtesy of the
George W. Bush Conspiracy Generator

Why can’t Americans have elections like this?

Happy New Year!

Let’s not kid ourselves: 2004 is going to be huge. America will still be at war with a faceless enemy that remains clever and lethal. Afghanistan is hanging onto stability by a thread, and Iraq will still be a mess (even if Baghdad’s “Green Zone” expands).

We’re preparing a substantial reorganization of troop deployments in Europe. Our old allies in Europe are refocusing their priorities away from us, and some new friends are moving closer to us — especially those with fresh memories of Soviet rule.

On top of all this, we will have a fiery and vicious presidential election with very different candidates.

The decisions we make in 2004 will not just change America for four or eight years; it will set in motion the reshaping of the entire world. We are witnessing a shift of powers, priorities, and allegiances, one that is fueled by the lack of a Soviet enemy, a bloated UN that lies in torpor, the rising wave of technologically-adept terrorist networks, and President Bush’s dismal failure to properly ’sell’ American policy abroad.

I may be a conservative, but I’m not a brown-nose. There are a lot of things George W. Bush has done wrong in his three years as President, and you can’t simply wave off his failures by pointing to his successes.

But what are the real alternatives? Are there any? The Democrats are caught like deer in headlights: frozen stiff, unable to move, and about to get creamed. Howard Dean is his party’s own worst enemy; I know he could win the nomination, but I have serious doubts he could defeat George Bush. Americans want stability and security, not radically different thinking.

The problem is that new thinking is just what we need — but not the kind Howard Dean is selling.

We need a President who will work for smaller government, reduced spending, and free trade. Bush made plenty of promises, but
he failed to deliver on them.

We need a leader who will tell this nation what it doesn’t want to hear: that gas-guzzling SUVs and irresponsible energy consumption is funding terrorism just as much as heroin traffickers and Syria. We need someone who won’t cut funding for air marshals while throwing away tens of billions of dollars on corporate welfare for the energy sector.

We need a President who will tell the Saudis to stop covering up for their religious leaders, who are fueling terrorism by preaching extremism and hate across the Middle East. We need a President who won’t pay lip service to religious fundamentalists, just because they feed us crude. Maybe we should buy more from the Russians; they’d love to have our business.

We need a President who can admit that mistakes were made in post-war planning in Iraq, and who is willing to correct those missteps. First on the agenda should be hiring back all the rank-and-file members of Saddam’s army, who could be guarding oil pipelines instead of grousing about being unemployed.

America needs a President who can come up with bold new strategies to fight terrorism and rebuild a broken economy. America needs a President who won’t vacillate in the face of protesters or appease the world by letting France and Germany dictate our priorities. America also needs a President who can develop a sensible energy policy that will wean Americans off Saudi oil reserves. America needs a President who will construct a viable alternative to the Kyoto Protocol, one that won’t cripple our economy in exchange for illusory benefits.

There are so many questions, and all are entwined with one another. How will we fight terrorism? How will we sell American policy to the Muslim world? How can we rebuild our damaged ties with Europe? What will the future role of NATO be? What are we doing about global warming? How can we speed the development of a 21st-century energy infrastructure? Where is our economy going, and what form will we allow it to take?

America must make some very difficult decisions in the near future. I worry that none of the candidates — George Bush included — are capable of guiding our country in the right direction.