Alternative History: Nixon wins in 1960

Alternative history is so interesting. Unfortunately, most of the names involved, can’t write for crap, or they’ll never explore certain little things just because they aren’t big enough.

Something that a group of us were discussing at work today is what if Richard Nixon had been elected in 1960 rather than Kennedy. Our thinking was that there would not have been any Cuban Missile Crisis. Nixon would have still tried to kill Castro, but since Khrushchev and Nixon were familiar with each other, Nixon may not have antagonized him with missiles in Turkey and Khrushchev may not have chosen to play chicken with a hard liner like Nixon. Nixon and Khrushchev may have tried to get a dialogue going much as Nixon did with Brezhnev and Mao in the 70’s. I doubt Nixon would have gotten as far as he did in the 70’s because of the mood of the country and he probably would not have opened up with China.

Civil rights would not have progressed as far. Nixon would not have pushed the south as hard as Johnson did. This may have resulted in race riots earlier in the decade as the National Guard and army may not have been mobilized to aid blacks in the south as quickly.

Regarding Vietnam, an incident would have been cooked up similar to the Gulf of Tonkin prior to 1965 that would have allowed Nixon to escalate the war beyond its state in 1960. But, unlike Johnson, I believe Nixon would have gone ahead with his full attack strategies that he had in the early 70’s. As such, there would probably have been a full assault on the north by the early sixties and the US might have been occupying Hanoi by the mid-sixties. There would still be a massive guerrilla movement against the US occupation that might have driven us out eventually. I’m not sure.

My guess is that Nixon would have been successfully reelected in 1964 but the combination of civil rights problems and flare up fighting in Vietnam would have started to erode his support in the second term. With his older brother incapacitated by his maladies and the treatments (which were almost as bad) John Kennedy would have been replaced with Bobby in Democratic politics. I think Bobby Kennedy would then have come into office as president in 1968. As to how his term would have been, I really don’t know.

I do think that in the new timeline we never would have heard of Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter outside of Michigan and Georgia respectively. Reagan would have come in the Nixon tradition, around 1972 or 1976. After Reagan we have the jostling between Bob Dole and George Bush on the Republican side and various Democratic governors and senators.

Difficult to say if the country would be any better or worse from this deviation, but it does make for interesting speculation.

Smelly Fish

From the “its so silly, its true” segment. Kofi Annan gave a speech the other day about increasing anti-terrorism measures. Sounds good, except that he apparently specifically mentioned increasing punishment for suicide bombers. Those of us outside the UN asked ourselves what Mr. Annan had in mind? Jail terms sound nice, but one blogger noted that you would have to make the bars real close together or the pieces of the bomber might be able to work their way through.

Also pinging on the UN radar, the organization admitted that it paid for the legal fees of UN Oil-for-Food program aide Benon Sevan. Mr. Sevan is one of the major players in the alleged dirty dealing concerning taking oil from Iraq and either pocketing the money or allowing Saddam Hussein to buy all sorts of goodies for himself rather than spend the money on food and medicine for the Iraqi people. Congress and an internal branch of the UN are investigating the incidents.

Also picking up a slightly rotten stench is the discussion of the supposed Republican Talking Points Memo. For those of you not familiar with this: ABC and the Washington Post ran a story on Monday, I think, where a memo from one Republican senator (alleged to be Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania) circulated to all 55 members of the GOP senate telling them that the Terry Schiavo case was political gold and would score the GOP points with pro-life voters back in their home states. The said memo was unsigned and apparently printed on simple paper with no letterhead, much as if someone had just typed it up in Word. All members of the GOP have denied both authorship and even seeing such a memo. ABC has published the text of the memo but apparently has not produced the actual memo for examination, possibly fearing Rathergate type implications.

But it’s already too late. The conservative and MSM watchdog bloggers have already pounced on the story, looking for evidence on either side as to the authenticity of the memo. Powerline linked to a couple of sites that have pointed out both several flaws in the memo with the facts of the bill, but that apparently the entire text was copied, verbatim from a post at the Traditional Values Coalition website. No Rather-type stonewalling has come from either ABC or the Washington Post yet but both organizations are currently still insisting that the document is authentic.

Stay Tuned.

The Devil Went Down to Indiana to Play Basketball

Well, it was not the best first and second round for me. Mrs. X had a much better weekend. She's currently sitting in first place in her office pool, although she needs some help from the underdog opponents to fully cement her in place (read Texas Tech or West Virginia in the Final 4).

I myself am still alive. I've lost 1 Final Four pick already (Wake Forest) but my remaining 3 are still alive as are both of my championship teams. Whether I beat Mrs. X or she beats me in our little head to head pool are pretty much dependent on two things: who goes to the Final Four from the Austin bracket (Duke or Kentucky) and who wins the Championship among our two picks (Illinois or North Carolina). If none of these things come to pass then Mrs. X will beat me on the simple merit of having had a better first and second round. But such is life.

On another note, much discussion has been raised about the Terry Schiavo incident. Whether she lives or dies does not really concern me. What does get me riled is that Congress decided to step in and make this a federal issue. That this even got to the courts is annoying, but as it did, this is a state issue. It should be kept within the bounds of the laws and regulations of the state of Florida. That my tax dollars are being used to score political points irritates the living heck out of me.

Lastly, the devil has been sighted on the back of a turtle that survived a pet shop fire. Opinions are mixed as to whether or not he is still in the area.

Happy Friday

You put the beer in the coconut and drink it all up.
You put the beer in the coconut and throw the can away.
HOMER!

Technically this song was sung on a Saturday, but its from the same episode as the title of my blog so I feel I can use it whenever I want.

March Madness is upon us. The Friday games have not started yet. Out of the first 16 games, I correctly picked 12 and lost 4. Those 4 losses include 2 sweet sixteen picks. But I have not lost anyone higher than that. For the record my elite eight picks are: Illinois vs. Oklahoma St., Louisville vs. Wake Forest, North Carolina vs. Connecticut, and Duke vs. Oklahoma.

Mrs. X is running just about parallel to me right now in points. She correctly picked UAB, but I correctly picked Pacific. We both got Cincinnati vs. Iowa wrong. I think she is one point up on me at the moment, but I'm not sure. I can't check until tonight.

My parents are rolling into town next weekend for Easter so we'll be spending most of this weekend cleaning the big things around the house. It'll be the first time they see it so we want to make a good impression. Saturday is supposed to be rainy around here so we'll be doing most it then I imagine.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Peril in the Skies

The blogosphere has been buzzing about a recent incident involving an Airbus A310 Air Transat. It seems that shortly after takeoff from Cuba on a flight to Quebec, the rudder broke off. For those of you not familiar with plane components, that’s the part of the tail that sticks up in the air. The pilot managed to stabilize the plane after dropping a ways from 35,000 feet. He radioed to Ft. Lauderdale to make a landing, but did not declare an emergency landing. Since it was not an emergency, Ft. Lauderdale told the pilot they could not allow him clearance because they did not have any customs agents there and suggested Miami. Had the pilot declared emergency, he would have been given clearance and landed. Instead, the pilot turned around and managed to fly back into Cuba.

The blogosphere is spinning this more against Airbus, especially since this almost exact thing happened in November 2001 to an American Airlines plane taking off in New York that then crashed into Queens. But something that’s not pinging on anyone’s radar yet is an incident that happened a few months ago.

Several months ago, an Air Transat plane took off from Miami in route to either Spain or France, I’m not sure. Because of air traffic, the plane was rerouted 50 miles south. Shortly after take off, one of the engines developed a leak in the fuel line. The crew, noting that the engine was choking and bleeding fuel, first tried to pump more gas into the thing. When that didn’t work, they cut the engine. However, because of their efforts to keep the first engine going, they no longer had enough fuel to make it to their final destination. The pilot then made the decision not to turn around but to keep going across the Atlantic. If the plane returned to Miami, the airline would be liable to the passengers and it might bring that down on the pilot and fire him. So he decided to risk everyone’s lives instead. As predicted, the plane ran out of gas. But, because of the plane had been forced to go 50 miles further south than their intended flight plan, they ran out of gas right around the Canary Islands. The pilot was able to glide the plane in to the runway without any injuries to anyone on board.

A heroic tale, but it shows some poor decision making by the Transat crew, just as in this recent incident. So while investigation of the Airbus A310 model is certainly warranted, Air Transat should also be examined as a potentially dangerous flier.

Nerdness Abounds

Mrs. X has the privilege of laughing herself silly at my expense over the course of the next few days. Last night was the debut of the new Episode III trailer. Now, I managed to avoid having to watch the OC but a portion of it is on the tape, but that's okay.

The nature of this trailer and the teaser trailer are very similar to that of the Episode I trailers. The teaser was all about minor aspects of Anakin while the main trailer was about the broad storyline in general. As a matter of fact, the way the Episode III trailer was done, it looked like the movie is going to focus more on Palpatine revealing himself as Darth Sidious and proclaiming himself Emperor. Anakin's transformation will be well represented as well as his quest to destroy the Jedi. But the broad scope looks very entertaining.

I've only seen the trailer once so far so I haven't gotten the full analysis. The Force.Net will probably have a detailed break down so I'll take a quick nip over there for some pleasure reading before too long.

Time to Tell You How to Vote

More disturbing whisperings on Capital Hill. George Will just put out a column detailing the new "Count Every Vote Act." The bill is sponsored by Sens. Boxer (D-CA) and Clinton (D-NY) and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH). It has a few provisions that I take a little bit of umbridge with. Notably:

* All states will have same day vote registration and voting (similar to Wisconsin)
* The right to regulate elections would be managed by the Federal Government rather than the
individual states
* States would be required to have no-excuse absentee voting and to conform to new federal
standards regarding mandatory recounts, provisional ballots, poll workers, early voting, voter
waiting times and many other matters.
* Convicted felons currently out of prison would be allowed to vote

As someone who believes strongly in the rules of Federalism, these acts give a great deal of pause. My firmest belief is that the individual states should decide matters of public policy in how it relates to them from elections to gay marriage to gun control. What works for the people of Maine does not necessarily work for the people in Arizona.

Someone more steeped in law, like Mrs. X, would probably also be able to point out how allowing convicted felons to vote would violate the 14th amendment. I imagine this act is being pushed as a way to "ensure that every vote is counted" but it opens the door for fraud and further consolidation of government bureaucracy. I think I can effectively stand as a no vote in this matter.