Federalism: The answer to important questions?

As I've commented before, the continuing electoral focus on important moral and ethical questions such as abortion, same-sex marriage and others is not a reasonable litmus test for our next president as they do not affect the future of our country as whole in the way that education, defense and energy policies do.

On that note, here's a piece from the LA Times, specifically concerning Giuliani, that I found a good read. If he maintains his federalist ideas (send it to the states) on those socially important ideas, that removes the largest number of concerns from the conservative electorate on choosing him at the Republican candidate for '08. Since he seems the most likely to have a chance versus the Democrats, that seems like a good idea to me. Hilary or Obama as President, no thanks.

Great Piece on our Military and Society

Here's a link to an excellent article "On Forgetting the Obvious" by Robert D. Kaplan that was published in The American Interest, a fascinating magazine (one of the editors is Zbigniew Brzezinski) I picked up at Borders to read while traveling. Here is the premise of the article "It is obvious that a military can only fight well on behalf of a society in which it believes, and that a society which believes little is worth fighting for cannot, in the end, field an effective military. Obvious as this is, we seem to have forgotten it."

The point of the article is one I've posted before that our challenges in foreign affairs, especially in military actions, are as much due to a lack of faith and belief in ourselves as a nation as anything else. There are actually several articles in this issue of the magazine that all relate to the point that it was probably one of the most stimulating magazines, as a whole, that I have read in a long time. For some idea of the premise of the magazine, read this definition of "The American Interest".

If you can take the time, read the other articles as they are equally interesting.

Up To Speed

I am getting really bad about posting on a regular basis. I'll try to get better about it. The last 6 weeks has been busy again, lots of work then two week of vacation and back at it again. I'll summarize:

• Spent the weekend after the last post as the "Guide" for Brian's Ordeal to join the Order of the Arrow. This was my 5th time going through the Ordeal either as a candidate (once) or as a guide. It's just as meaningful each time. I really miss being a youth in the Order though. It was a lot of fun literally being chief.
• The next weekend (June 16) I rode as co-pilot and navigator with Brian out to Rice Lake, WI for a scrimmage for his football team. This was a one-day, nine-hour drive (round trip) with about 4 hours spent there. They lost, but we ate dinner at the "Thorpedo" restaurant in Thorp, WI. Excellent.
• After the game I decided to buy a new digital camera, a Panasonic TZ3, that has is 4 years newer than the one I had and has a 10x zoom and 7.2mp with a huge number of settings. It takes great pictures.
• Went to a Brewers baseball game at Miller Park with my coworkers including tailgating. Cool game. Both teams hit grand slams and the Brewers won.
• The next weekend was Day Camp at Road America. It was great weather and I really didn't have to do much but be there. That's my type of district event.
• The following weekend I went to the Fray concert with Brian and his wife at Summerfest. It was awesome. I love their album, but being a one-record band, wasn't sure what more they would do. I was pleasantly surprised by the additional songs I had not heard that they played, some of their improvs and the level of crowd involvement they encouraged. A really good live band.
• Went back to MI to see the family. I saw my sister's new place and got to hang out at home some. Pretty nice since it had been 6 months since I was last there. Here's two shots of my family and the dogs.
• Saw the new Transformers movie twice. Excellent. I now am only missing Bumblebee to have the entire set of movie Autobot toys. I was pleasantly surprised by the humor and the high-quality action sequences as well as the incredible CG animation.
  
• Saw the first of the OA guys get married in Chicago. As expected, the reception was a lot of fun and I didn't sleep much.
  
• Went to Seattle and stayed with a couple that was part of my Venturing crew just out of high school. Here's some of the 533 pictures I took while I was there. The captions fill in some of the story. It was a great trip, I saw a lot and really want to go back. Some of what I did: Science Fiction Museum, Pikes Place Market, Boeing Factory tour, Museum of Flight, Seattle Aquarium, Space Needle, walk-in clinic, Mt. Rainer, Undersea Warfare museum, and a lot of small side visits. It has moved way up my list of places I would like to live. Two side notes: concussions suck (yes, I gave myself a mild one while I was there after hitting my head on the underside of a desk...) and never fly the red-eye home, I'm still recovering from that.
  
• In between all of this, there was a lot of running and pursuing to get the youth in we needed to make our mid-year benchmark for the first time in over a decade both as a district and as a council. Despite making the goal, the interim review I had yesterday rates as the worst I've had since I've been in the profession. The points were mostly valid, but the presentation sucked. In short, my team has not performed at the level it is capable of and won through endurance not ability (true). I figure that it taking over 2 years to hit a slump isn't bad, but it needs to end.

I think that covers the highlights of the time since I last wrote. I'll work on the posting more thing.