wednesday november 30, 2005
tax cuts for everybody
Chart from Polipundit, who notes:
In addition to dramatically growing the economy, the “tax cuts for the wealthy” have also resulted in anuual federal revenues increasing by hundreds of billions of dollars, thereby reducing the federal budget deficit.
Unemployment is down to 5 percent - near the giddiest levels of the 1990s, and far better than the “full employment” levels of previous decades.
swiss snub science
...and enact five year ban on genetically modified food. HT: Instapundit.
leaky lips sink ships
So said the wartime poster warning civilians not to discuss possibly sensitive information. Lately we've heard Democrats complain they did not have the same access to prewar intelligence as President Bush.
Maybe, maybe not. We do know that Senator Kerry missed 76% of his Senate Intelligence Committee meetings, so his dimness was self inflicted.
Now comes news that Sen. Harry Reid may have blabbed a secret to the media: that Osama was killed in the recent earthquakes in Pakistan. (Ironic, if true, given that Osama saw every natural disaster to strike the US as evidence of God's wrath on us wicked infidels.)
Betsy Newmark has a nice roundup of Reid's leaky lips and those of other Democrat big mouths.
Now, let's think about this story that Reid leaked. He says that he has heard that Osama was killed in the earthquake. I imagine that there are two possibilities here. One possibility is that we have suspicions that Osama was killed - perhaps we've intercepted some "chatter" or just haven't heard anything about him since the earthquake. In that case, we don't really know that he's dead and, if he's not, he's probably happy for us to be guessing. And, as Fund says, we'd look stupid if it turns out that he is alive and our much vaunted CIA has made another intelligence error.
The other possibility is that we have solid information that he's dead. Might it not be possible that we would want to keep that information secret for a whole host of reasons? We could have sources or methods of gathering information that we're protecting. And now Senator Blabbermouth has blown it.
tuesday november 29, 2005
Here's one way to say thanks to our military.
bacteria = mucho megapixels
The “living camera” uses light to switch on genes in a genetically modified bacterium that then cause an image-recording chemical to darken. The bacteria are tiny, allowing the sensor to deliver a resolution of 100 megapixels per square inch.
sen. joe lieberman is a mensch
Why can't there be more Democrats like Joe Lieberman? He writes:
I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood--unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.
Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is progress.
There are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing. And Sunni candidates are actively campaigning for seats in the National Assembly. People are working their way toward a functioning society and economy in the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war against the civilian population and the Iraqi and American military there to protect it.
Read it all.
la times on abortion
Today's Column One article focuses on an abortion doctor in Arkansas:
Harrison opened an obstetrics and gynecology practice, but after the Supreme Court established abortion as a constitutional right in 1973, he decided to take on an additional specialty. Now 70, Harrison estimates he's terminated at least 20,000 pregnancies.
If Roe vs. Wade were overturned, each state would determine the legality of abortion, so:
Harrison warns every patient he sees that abortion may be illegal one day. He wants to stir them to activism, but most women respond mildly.
"I can't imagine the country coming to that," says Kim, 35, in for her second abortion in two years.
Why not stir "Kim" into responsibility? Why not tell Kim about birth control?
I'm a moderate on abortion (I can't find a position I like, frankly) but the idea of sloppy people using abortion as birth control is offensive.
Against the fuzzy black-and-white screen, he sees the curve of a head, the bend of an elbow, the ball of a fist.
"You may feel some cramping while we suction everything out," Harrison tells the patient.
The "everything" had unique DNA and a unique destiny.
Jim Bass
specter: please myob
Sen. Arlen Specter accused the National Football League and the Philadelphia Eagles of treating Terrell Owens unfairly and said he might refer the matter to the antitrust subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he chairs.
Specter said at a news conference Monday in Harrisburg it was "vindictive and inappropriate" for the league and the Eagles to forbid the all-pro wide receiver from playing and prevent other teams from talking to him.
"It's a restraint of trade for them to do that, and the thought crosses my mind, it might be a violation of antitrust laws," Specter said, though some other legal experts disagreed.
Restraint of trade? T.O. is still getting paid. He has no right to play, you RINO putz. Remember when petulant Al Davis used Marcus Allen as a third string back during his prime years? Should the Feds stick their nose in NFL rosters, too?
mao killed 77 million
Next time you see someone with a fashionable Mao item (poster, t-shirt, book) give them this news:
A noted expert in calculating the number of deaths caused by authoritarian regimes says the late Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-tung's policies and actions led to the deaths of nearly 77 million of his countrymen, surpassing those killed by Nazi Party founder Adolf Hitler and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin.
R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science and a Nobel Peace Prize finalist who has published dozens of books chronicling so-called "democide," or death by government, said the new Chinese figure – nearly double his previous estimate of about 38 million – was based on what he believes was Mao's duplicity in China's great famine of 1958 to 1961.
Eric Hoffer once observed:
The monstrous evils of the twentieth century have shown us that the greediest money grubbers are gentle doves compared with money-hating wolves like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, who in less than three decades killed or maimed nearly a hundred million men, women, and children and brought untold suffering to a large portion of mankind.
plump rumps pose problem
Women may have to be given injections with longer needles - because their bottoms are getting too big.
Researchers say too much padding down below means jabs are not having the desired effect on the average female.
Too often the medicine is left stuck in the flab because the needles are unable to reach the muscle.
Growing obesity appears to be the problem - or put simply, plump rumps.
florists should cash in on this
A new nasal spray aphrodisiac for women that works in minutes may soon hit the market, according to a Local 6 News report.
Doctors said women who used the drug PT-141 in test studies felt a tingling or throbbing followed by a strong desire to have sex immediately after spraying their noses.
Just add a few squirts to a bouquet, and voila!
torture logic
Charles Krauthammer writes a sensible column about torture:
For the purpose of torture and prisoner maltreatment, there are three kinds of war prisoners:
First, there is the ordinary soldier caught on the field of battle. There is no question that he is entitled to humane treatment. Indeed, we have no right to disturb a hair on his head. His detention has but a single purpose: to keep him hors de combat. The proof of that proposition is that if there were a better way
to keep him off the battlefield that did not require his detention, we would let him go. Indeed, during one year of the Civil War, the two sides did try an alternative. They mutually "paroled" captured enemy soldiers, i.e., released them to return home on the pledge that they would not take up arms again. (The experiment failed for a foreseeable reason: cheating. Grant found that some paroled Confederates had reenlisted.)
Because the only purpose of detention in these circumstances is to prevent the prisoner from becoming a combatant again, he is entitled to all the protections and dignity of an ordinary domestic prisoner--indeed, more privileges, because, unlike the domestic prisoner, he has committed no crime. He merely had the misfortune to enlist on the other side of a legitimate war. He is therefore entitled to many of the privileges enjoyed by an ordinary citizen--the right to send correspondence, to engage in athletic activity and intellectual pursuits, to receive allowances from relatives--except, of course, for the freedom to leave the prison.
Second, there is the captured terrorist. A terrorist is by profession, indeed by definition, an unlawful combatant: He lives outside the laws of war because he does not wear a uniform, he hides among civilians, and he deliberately targets innocents. He is entitled to no protections whatsoever. People seem to think that the postwar Geneva Conventions were written only to protect detainees. In fact, their deeper purpose was to provide a deterrent to the kind of barbaric treatment of civilians that had become so horribly apparent during the first half of the 20th century, and in particular, during the Second World War. The idea was to deter the abuse of civilians by promising combatants who treated noncombatants well that they themselves would be treated according to a code of dignity if captured--and, crucially, that they would be denied the protections of that code if they broke the laws of war and abused civilians themselves.
Breaking the laws of war and abusing civilians are what, to understate the matter vastly, terrorists do for a living. They are entitled, therefore, to nothing. Anyone who blows up a car bomb in a market deserves to spend the rest of his life roasting on a spit over an open fire. But we don't do that because we do not descend to the level of our enemy. We don't do that because, unlike him, we are civilized. Even though terrorists are entitled to no humane treatment, we give it to them because it is in our nature as a moral and humane people. And when on rare occasions we fail to do that, as has occurred in several of the fronts of the war on terror, we are duly disgraced.
monday november 28, 2005
democrats second bush
Two weeks ago, Democrat Sen. Harry Reid said this with a straight face: "Staying the course is not a strategy, it's a slogan." In truth his sound-bite was a slogan.
More than a year ago, President Bush laid out a simple strategy for Iraq: we will stay until the Iraqi government is strong enough to stand on its own, then we'll leave. Or in words that Jesse Jackson might like, "When the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down."
And despite all the doom saying, that strategy is working.
Now, after all this, says David Broder, the Democrats have unveiled their big idea:
Biden, the committee's senior Democrat, said in New York that it is time to scale back U.S. ambitions in Iraq and reduce troop commitment while shifting security responsibilities to the Iraqis. The next day, Obama, a freshman member of the committee, made many of the same points in Chicago.
Both said that an immediate or precipitous American withdrawal is out of the question, because, as Obama put it, "having waged a war that has unleashed daily carnage and uncertainty in Iraq, we have to manage our exit in a responsible way -- with the hope of leaving a stable foundation for the future, but at the very least taking care not to plunge the country into an even deeper and, perhaps, irreparable crisis."
...
What must happen to make it possible, they agree, is a significant acceleration in the training of Iraqi security forces and in the civil reconstruction projects needed to give Iraqis a sense of hope -- both of which will require a change in priorities and an improvement in operations by U.S. forces.
Freshman Obama would benefit from reading Michael Yon (especially his Battle for Mosul, which covers a year of progress in detail) or StrategyPage, or any number of milblogs. What do they think the military has been doing all this time?
first 300 days
Jayson at Polipundit brings some perspective.
cindy's 15 minutes are over
A pathetic picture, but was it not ever thus?
UPDATE: "Jagged Little Pill"
can't fool all the people
Democrats fumed last week at Vice President Cheney's suggestion that criticism of the administration's war policies was itself becoming a hindrance to the war effort. But a new poll indicates most Americans are sympathetic to Cheney's point.
Seventy percent of people surveyed said that criticism of the war by Democratic senators hurts troop morale -- with 44 percent saying morale is hurt "a lot," according to a poll taken by RT Strategies. Even self-identified Democrats agree: 55 percent believe criticism hurts morale, while 21 percent say it helps morale.
The results surely will rankle many Democrats, who argue that it is patriotic and supportive of the troops to call attention to what they believe are deep flaws in President Bush's Iraq strategy. But the survey itself cannot be dismissed as a partisan attack. The RTs in RT Strategies are Thomas Riehle, a Democrat, and Lance Tarrance, a veteran GOP pollster.
Their poll also indicates many Americans are skeptical of Democratic complaints about the war. Just three of 10 adults accept that Democrats are leveling criticism because they believe this will help U.S. efforts in Iraq. A majority believes the motive is really to "gain a partisan political advantage."
what's right with this picture?
Ireland used to be an economic basket case. Now it's one of the hot economies across the pond, a place people move to for jobs.
What happened? Hint: it has something to do with low taxes, and why "tax cuts for the rich" have kept our economy grooving, too.
Read the full analysis from Brussels Journal here.
poster child
This post from Mohammed at Iraq the Model brought back memories:
The other battlefield of electoral campaigns can be seen in the posters war. Tearing posters of other parties has become so common that there are specialized contractors who get paid to do this! And they either tear the posters or paste their client’s poster over them.
One man who works in this field said to me “there are no more walls left in Baghdad and we had to buy a new set of tall ladders in order to reach the highest spots possible…” while a taxi driver felt sorry for the “money being wasted on these posters” and added “if they used this money to offer free clothes to the poor in this winter I’d give them my vote”.
In 1972, while living in Manhattan, I literally moonlighted as a poster boy. My crew leader got the gigs from somebody (probably disreputable) and we'd set out across town at 3 am with a van full of posters and buckets of wheat paste.
Any flat surface was fair game. Usually, we were advertising Broadway shows. Since most surfaces had already been postered, we were covering someone else's work, maybe even a job we'd done a few nights before for another customer. In places, posters accumulated like barnicles an inch thick. I'm surprised no pedestrian was ever injured in a freak poster peeling accident.
Ah, memories...
Jim Bass
sunday november 27, 2005
german TV honors the Berlin airlift
With a made-for-TV movie. The website is quite nice. Wish my German was sharper. Thanks to Joerg Wolf for the tip.
germany winks at darfur genocide
From AtlanticReview:
The German media is very critical of any wrong doing by the US government, a few US soldiers and many US companies. Hedge funds were not just characterized as bloodsuckers, but as American bloodsuckers. German companies receive less criticism. Sometimes they even receive government support for doing business with rogue states.
The Sudanese government is complicit in the genocide in the western province of Darfur, but the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Labor sponsored a "German Pavilion" at a trade fair in the Sudanese capital in February 2005 and will do so again in February 2006 due to "the positive feedback from the German participants," according to one chamber of commerce.
Neokomplott has exposed another chamber of commerce, which calls the genocide "political disturbances," praises Sudan's dynamic oil industry and the improved business climate and mentions the German government's support of the fair.
al gore hypocrisy # 2308
Remember Al Gore? He once ran for president. He once campaigned against the policies of President George H.W. Bush for being too soft on Saddam.
But lately he's been a shrill critic of Bush the son, especially about Abu Ghraib, which he called a "gulag." Gore said:
He promised to "restore honor and integrity to the White House." Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon.
But when he was VP, it was another story, as Tigerhawk found this passage in Richard Clarke's book:
Snatches, or more properly "extraordinary renditions," were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgement of the host government.... The first time I proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said, "That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass." (pp. 143-144)
greed is not good
by Burt Prelutsky
As a rule, I get my back up when some people start accusing other people of being greedy. Generally, all that really means is that some people are jealous of everybody who has more money than they do. As a result, these fools spend an inordinate amount of time resenting and bad-mouthing folks like Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump, Steven Spielberg, Rupert Murdoch, and Sumner Redstone, for no other reason than they happen to be very rich.
For my part, I never begrudge what others have -- whether they’ve earned it by the sweat of their brow, through sheer brilliance, or simply because they were lucky enough to have wealthy ancestors. This isn’t to suggest I don’t recognize the existence of greed, but that it doesn’t make me angry or envious; rather, it saddens me.
Being a huge fan of Buster Keaton, for instance, how can I help but feel sorry that he didn’t set aside a few of his millions for a rainy day? I suppose that Keaton, when he was riding high and spending money like a fleet load of drunken sailors, simply assumed silent films would never give way to sound and that his own career would roll merrily along. He wasn’t the first person or the last to believe the gravy train would never pull into that final depot.
But poor judgment isn’t the same as greed. My idea of greed is best exemplified by two of the greatest humorists America has ever produced. The first of these was Mark Twain, the other was Preston Sturges.
Most people are aware of the former, but only a handful can identify the latter. Writer-director Sturges was a comet who blazed through the early 1940s, turning out such classic comedies as “The Great McGinty,” “Christmas in July,” “The Lady Eve,” “Sullivan’s Travels,” “The Palm Beach Story,” “The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek,” and “Hail the Conquering Hero.” An amazing career made all the more amazing because it was accomplished in a mere five year span.
Whether it would have continued if he’d stayed at Paramount we’ll never know. Instead, he was lured away by Howard Hughes and the promise of untold wealth, to be a partner at a new studio called California Pictures. The ink on the contract had hardly time to dry before the bizarre partnership dissolved.
Sturges made only a few more unsuccessful pictures around town before moving to Europe, where he survived pretty much on pipe dreams and memories.
For me, it wasn’t his joining up with crazy Howard Hughes that I find greedy. After all, it probably wasn’t money alone that made him leave Paramount. Like most creative people, he dreamed about being the boss. Which, I’m convinced, is something that writers, even those who also direct, should never, ever be.
Sturges was already the highest-paid writer in Hollywood when he opened his own restaurant, The Players. So, obviously the man had a self-destructive streak a mile wide to begin with. Everybody knows, after all, that restaurants are very risky, very expensive, enterprises, unless you open one with the idea of torching it for the insurance, or you happen to be in the Mafia and are looking to launder a ton of cash.
But not satisfied to lose his shirt with The Players, Sturges blew his entire wardrobe financing his inventions -- the most expensive of which was a diesel engine that he planned to call the Silent Sturges. Before he finally stopped shoveling money into it, it turned him into the insolvent Sturges.
Two generations earlier, Mark Twain, not satisfied with being the richest writer in the world, decided that enough was not nearly enough. In an insane quest to be as wealthy as the robber barons, Twain, over a period of four years, sank most of his hard-earned royalties into developing a printing machine. That was such a bad idea that it forced him to venture forth on an exhausting lecture tour in his 50s simply to make enough to hang on to his home.
So, as I look at it, it’s greed when you foolishly risk your wealth and your family’s future in an attempt to turn a good-sized fortune into one that would make Midas drool.
When more than plenty still doesn’t suffice, you’re suffering from the fatal sickness known as greed. And, sadly, when such comic geniuses as Twain and Sturges are infected with the virus, the end result isn’t comedy, but tragedy.
saturday november 26, 2005
the confusion of joe biden
You may remember Joe Biden fretting during the early day of the Afghanistan war that "America might look like a high-tech bully" for bombing the Taliban. Captain's Quarters takes Biden to task for his weak grasp of the essentials of the war on terror.
Senator Joe Biden writes an op-ed for today's Washington Post that gets the entire war on terror fundamentally wrong -- and demonstrates why the Democrats have entirely failed to provide any leadership on Iraq and the wider war. Along the way, Biden slices off half-truths out of context to argue for the worst possible spin on Iraq, and ignores the tremendous progress that has been made by Coalition forces in developing Iraq into a democracy.
First, Biden postulates that the primary issue of a military deployment is when it will end:
The question most Americans want answered about Iraq is this: When will our troops come home?
We already know the likely answer. In 2006, they will begin to leave in large numbers. By the end of the year, we will have redeployed about 50,000. In 2007, a significant number of the remaining 100,000 will follow. A small force will stay behind -- in Iraq or across the border -- to strike at any concentration of terrorists.
That is because we cannot sustain 150,000 Americans in Iraq without extending deployment times, sending soldiers on fourth and fifth tours, or mobilizing the National Guard. Even if we could, our large military presence -- while still the only guarantor against a total breakdown -- is increasingly counterproductive. A liberation has become an occupation.
There is another critical question: As our soldiers redeploy, will our security interests in Iraq remain intact or will we have traded a dictator for chaos?
...
The third goal is to transfer authority to Iraqi security forces. In September, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. acknowledged that only one Iraqi battalion -- fewer than 1,000 troops -- can fight without U.S. help. An additional 40 can lead counterinsurgency operations with our support.
The president must set a schedule for getting Iraqi forces trained to the point that they can act on their own or take the lead with U.S. help. We should take up other countries on their offers to do more training, especially of officers. We should focus on getting the security ministries up to speed. Even well-trained troops need to be equipped, sustained and directed.
Well, by those standards, the liberation of Europe failed, too. As our intervention in the Balkans proved, the nations of Europe cannot do much about the defense of their own perimeter without US military aid, either.
France could not even transport her own army to the Balkans without hitching rides on American planes and ships. Does anyone think that Germany, Poland, Italy, or any of the NATO nations (or Japan, for that matter) could defend itself entirely without American logistical help -- and even for those who might, why would they? That's why we have NATO, for God's sake.
Why wouldn't we provide the same kind of long-term partnership for a rebuilt Iraq? It certainly suits our security interests more than keeping our forces in Germany and France.
john mccain as a new teddy roosevelt
A look at what's good and not-so-good about John McCain as a potential president.
building a better apc?
A group of e-military men decided to build a vehcile than can withstand IEDs (roadside bombs.) It's nicknamed the Rock.
oh, that brute!
Following intense US pressure, the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday issued an unprecedented condemnation of Monday's Hizbullah attacks on northern Israel.
This condemnation - slamming Hizbullah by name for "acts of hatred" - marked the first time the Security Council has ever reprimanded Hizbullah for cross-border attacks on Israel. The condemnation followed by two days a failed attempt to get a condemnation issued on Monday, the day of the attack, when Algeria came out against any mention of Hizbullah in the statement.
When asked what changed from Monday to Wednesday, one diplomatic official replied: "John Bolton," a reference to the US ambassador to the UN. Bolton lobbied vigorously for the passage of the statement.
alibis for sale
Living a lie just got easier with these folks. Technology knows no limits.
friday november 25, 2005
research shows i never quarterbacked for the raiders
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, former ambassador to the UN under Clinton, has long claimed to have been drafted by the Kansas City Athletics baseball team in 1966. Someone dug into the matter and proved Richardson lied. His answer:
"After being notified of the situation and after researching the matter ... I came to the conclusion that I was not drafted by the A's," he said.
Researching the matter? How Clintonian.
bad acts
It's tempting, watching Democrat leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid perform their outraged statesman act for the media, to laugh off their lame performances. But then you notice not everyone gets the joke, and a chill descends as you fear their schtick is actually playing in Peoria.
One expects a certain amount of cynicism in politics. But there's always hope that when it comes to the big issues--and what is bigger than national security?--that pettiness will bow to patriotism. Or as they used to say, "politics ends at the water's edge."
Alas, Democrat despair over loss of power has blinded them to their own depravity. In Nov. 2003, we got a peek at that desperation via a leaked memo written by a staffer for Sen. Jay Rockefeller laying out a scheme to politicize the debate about Iraq intelligence.
Now there's evidence the schemers have begun in earnest. Donald Sensing writes:
The attacks on the administration by the Democrats have consisted of two prongs. First the accusations that the president lied about the prewar intelligence in order to game the country into war. I wrote about that here.
The other prong is to demand that the troops be brought home immediately. Rep. John Murtha was not the first Democrat to demand it, but he has gotten the most attention.
Indeed. Despite having voiced the same position for over a year, Rep. Murtha's call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq was treated as fresh by the media, like it was a tipping point.
Both factions [within the Democrat party] insist that “staying the course” is unacceptable. Murtha, incredibly for someone of his experience, insists we are actually losing in Iraq and that there is no recourse but to skedaddle.
But Murtha isn’t that stupid. He’s talked to too many senior military officers not to know what staying the course really means. More and more I see Murtha’s impassioned speech as less passion and more stage acting, part of a deliberate effort to promote his party in the coming year leading to the mid-term elections.
So, Murtha and the Democrat leadership know we are really winning in Iraq, and that's bad for them in the 2006 elections. They need Americans to believe in a failed Iraq.
Barring any major surprises in Iraq, the Pentagon tentatively plans to reduce the number of U.S. forces there early next year by as many as three combat brigades, from 18 now, but to keep at least one brigade “on call” in Kuwait in case more troops are needed quickly, several senior military officers said.
Pentagon authorities also have set a series of “decision points” during 2006 to consider further force cuts that, under a “moderately optimistic” scenario, would drop the total number of troops from more than 150,000 now to fewer than 100,000, including 10 combat brigades, by the end of the year, the officers said.
So, knowing that the plan was to redeploy troops beginning next year, the Democrats decided to get in front of the wave: Demand the troops be sent home NOW and then when the Pentagon announces the plan to redeploy, take credit for it.
The two prongs of the attack serve two purposes. The “Bush lied us into war” wing satisfies the huge numbers of the party’s base suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome. The “declare victory and go home” attack preserves, however weakly, the party’s appeal to traditionally patriotic Democratic voters, of which there are also huge numbers. Doubtless the Dem leadership sees the attacks as a two-fer.
The appeals to both wings are intended to garner huge dividends in November 2006.
With any president but George W. Bush, they’d be wrong. But GWB is the easiest president to blind side that I have seen in my life. The fact is, the Dem plan is working like a dream for them. GWB has been simply flattened by this one-two punch. For someone whose allies say can play rope-a-dope politically better than M. Ali could in the ring, he and his advisors have been amazingly inept in meeting this strategy.
In fact, I wonder whether the “Bush lied” attacks were intended simply to be diversionary all along. While the White House was ducking and weaving that powerful left-hand punch, then trying to hit back, it got caught flat-footed by the roundhouse right, led by Murtha.
Read it all.
The Democrat shorthand on Bush has always been that he's a malleable dope with no sense of geopolitics, but with a great political operation (Rove). In fact, Bush has pursued ambitious, transformative policies in the mideast, but he's lousy at playing the political game at home.
Given a choice between bad actors-- those motivated by cynicism or those who trip over their own lines-- I'll take the latter every time.
Jim Bass
tookie goes hollywood
by J.C. Phillips
Standing outside the walls of San Quentin prison, the rapper Snoop Dogg urged California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency to convicted murderer Stan “Tookie” Williams. Williams, the co founder of the notorious street gang the Crips, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1979 slayings of Albert Owens, Yen-I Yang, his wife, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, and their daughter, Yu-Chin Yang Lin. Barring intervention by the governor, he will die by lethal injection on December 13. Speaking before a thousand young people and supporters, Snoop lectured the governor: "Stanley `Tookie' Williams is not just a regular old guy, he's an inspirator…His voice needs to be heard."
Snoop, Mike Farrell, Danny Glover, Jamie Foxx and the other celebrity voices now raised in support of Williams offer a clear picture of the distorted moral vision of the Hollywood left. It is a vision that finds virtue contemptible and props up homicidal maniacs who write bad children's books as role models for the masses.
The argument for commutation of Tookie’s sentence centers on all the good work he has done since going to prison. The series of children's books he has written and his work to stop gang violence is proof of his redemption. His death, they say, will only serve to rob those youth currently in gangs or considering joining gangs, of hope. Witness that his supporters do not claim that Tookie is innocent of his crimes. They are not seeking that Williams be released, only that his sentence be commuted. Williams, however, has never admitted guilt. That little inconsistency suggests the great “inspirator” is not only an unrepentant murderer, but a liar as well.
The portrayal of Williams as some pied piper of peace for the gang community also holds very little water. A quick review of Book Scan shows the Tookie series of books have hardly been blockbusters. His top seller, “Gangs and Violence” has sold 330 books. Another book “Gangs and Wanting to Belong” sold exactly two copies. No one is reading his books, least of all his two sons, one of whom is serving time in San Quentin. The other was just arrested on charges of aggravated rape. Poor book sales are not reason to send someone to the execution chamber, but then Williams was not convicted of lackluster book sales. He was found guilty of shooting four innocent people in cold blood, a fact his supporters continue to forget.
Here again, wealthy celebrities are telling hard working, law-abiding citizens that the example offered by them is inadequate to save their communities; the models of competence, creativity and virtue that are alive in these neighborhoods is simply insufficient. No matter that hundreds of young people find the strength of character – the hope -- to resist the gang life. No matter that many of the stars have themselves found the strength to rise out of the tough streets. All that means nothing as compared to the words and example of Tookie Williams.
On Sunday November 13, one week before the “Save Tookie” rally at San Quentin, fourteen-year old William Cox and a friend were attending a neighborhood carnival when they were gunned down by a man who mistook them for rival gang members. Cox, who was not in a gang, was struck in the chest and died at the scene. That is the evil wrought by Stanley Williams!
Of course Snoop and Danny Glover did not hold a rally for William Cox. His death went unnoticed by the Hollywood commissars of compassion. They were too busy trying to save the life of a cold-blooded killer to notice one more young life snuffed out by gang violence. That tells you all you need to know about the corrupt vision the Hollywood left has for America.
an iraqi view
"With all transparency and clarity brother, first we ask the occupation forces to put a schedule for pulling out to their countries and next we ask for a timetable for the withdrawal of Iraqi army and police, government officials and members of parliament members to their homes and then we can come back to bring the good old days."
Mohammed at Iraq the Model:
I never had doubts in the hidden intentions of those in Iraq who keep saying that multinational troops must leave Iraq soon; they say their demands are essential for national sovereignty coming out of their patriotic feelings for Iraq while I see them as far as they could be from patriotism.
If those people put Iraq’s and Iraqis’ interests first, they wouldn’t have asked the US to leave Iraq while the troops missions are yet to be accomplished and the Iraqi national forces are still not capable of protecting the country and the citizens.
We all know why some insist that US must leave or keep calling the presence of these troops an occupation. The problem is that the ordinary citizen here cannot talk about this in public for fear of being labeled as an agent or collaborator with the occupation and what can an unarmed citizen do to face such an accusation coming from this or that militia.
What pushes these politicians and militias to take this attitude is their dream of regaining sovereignty but not national sovereignty; it is their sovereignty over Iraq.
thanksgiving november 24, 2005
putting my foot into the thanksgiving prayer
by J.C Phillips
The last thing I am concerned about is the meal. I can roast a turkey in my sleep. My stuffing is sublime. I will put my mac and cheese up against any in the world and my cranberry relish has received standing ovations! I am not worried about the meal. I am, however, having anxiety over the blessing.
The dinner blessing is the transformative element of the occasion. Through prayer, we transcend the narrow confines of ego and give the credit for our bounty where it is properly due. However, the Thanksgiving prayer is not solely an acknowledgment that the good things in life are gifts given through God’s grace. We are also beseeching God to give us more than we have. We offer the benediction in order to open our homes, and our hearts to the continued presence of the divine. It is the conduit through which the occasion moves from the purely sensual to the sacred. It puts the Holy in the Holi-day.
However, not everyone can prepare world-class mac and cheese and not everyone is skilled at delivering a good thanksgiving prayer.
There are those folks who power pray. Once these folks get going, there is no stopping them. They begin praying on Thursday and end sometime Friday afternoon. You may have a “Power Pray-er” in your family. Long after the peas have begun to shrivel and past the point that God is listening, Uncle Bubba is still offering praise.
There are those who offer comic prayers. A bit of humor is always nice, but too much levity robs the moment of the weight it should have and the prayer becomes insincere. Full bellies and a bounty of life and laughter to share with one’s neighbors is no trifle.
Then there are those who simply pray too briefly. If you clear your throat you are likely to have missed it. Like prayers that reach for humor, a prayer that is too brief seems a bit flippant for my tastes. Almost as though the moment is not worthy of much effort or attention.
My prayer to be “just right” must fall somewhere between long enough to give glory to the maker, but be short enough so the food is still hot when I finish. It must be light enough to maintain the festive mood, but also substantive enough to convey the true heartfelt thanks I will be offering for God’s divine intercession in my life and the lives of my family and friends.
If you are like me, on this day you are better able to express yourself through the mountains of food you prepare for your family and guests than you are through the words offered before the meal. However, it is worth remembering the secret ingredient that transforms an ordinary meal into something special is love. The greatest compliment a cook can receive is to be told: “You put your foot into it.” It acknowledges that the chef put everything he/she had into the dish. On Thanksgiving, it is equally important that we put our all into the prayer we offer, and like in every dish we prepare, love will be the secret ingredient.
Thursday afternoon, I will resist the urge to rely on a stand-by prayer that has grown stale over the years. I will keep it simple. My family and friends will gather round the feast. I will close my eyes, take a deep breath, unlock my heart, open my mouth and see what comes out. If I put my foot into it, the words will be beautiful and full. And like the rest of the meal, they will be perfect.
how to handle iraq debates with relatives
Hugh Hewitt has a practical guide.
UPDATE: James Lileks calls into Hugh's show and they role play the dinner table debate. Read the transcript here.
be thankful -- you're living large
Monty Python may seem like an odd choice for Thanksgiving inspiration, but this sketch has always amused me. The four Yorkshiremen top each other for most miserable childhood :
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN: Aye, 'e was right.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: Aye, 'e was.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN: I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN: House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
wednesday november 23, 2005
the big lie
We've added a whole section devoted to the Bush Lied issue (use the Navigator at left).
You'll find original documents, video clips, quotes, commentary and lots of links. Heck, we even looked into whether Clinton hyped the intelligence in the Balkans to justisfy his war.
This section is a work in progress. If you have suggestions, links, gripes etc., please fire away.
playing the news
Yesterday the LA Daily News headline screamed that Iraq was demanding a timetable for withdrawal of American forces. It shocked at first, at least until I read the details.
Instead of a rejection of the US, the story seemed to be about political maturation in Iraq: majority Shiite and Kurds offering the minority Sunnis a concession. No firm deadlines were mentioned.
Omar at Iraq the Model believes the US was actually behind the concession:
That’s why I think that Iraqi officials wouldn’t have agreed to the opposition’s demands if not for pressure from the US administration and I have a strong feeling that the US will announce a timetable for withdrawing the troops soon.
I think the US administration kind of drove the Sunni insurgency leaders to ask for this in a way that allowed the Iraqi and US government the chance to win a good deal of time while they can reach a reasonable progress in building Iraq’s army and police forces.Everyone wants to see an end for violence but this violence comes from more than one group of fighters; one (al-Qaeda) can be dealt with only by military means but what about the other two? The local Islamic extremists, tribal fighters and former Ba’athists are also tired of fighting and they do want the power they lost (at least some of it) back and they had realized that there’s no way to do that with violence but they kept carrying out attacks as a way to voice their demands and to pressurize the US and Iraqi government to respond positively.
the crying game
The president misled us." "Still no WMDs." "If I had only known then what I do now…"
This is the intellectual level of Democratic wartime criticism about the Bush administration as we near the third Iraqi election — the one that will finally give faces to the first truly elected parliamentary government in the Arab world.
So what is behind this crying game at home — when we are so close to achieving our goals abroad?
Bad polls and far-worse casualties. With over 2,000 American dead in Iraq, the politicians think their own brilliant three-week war was ruined by George Bush’s 32-month failed reconstruction.
...
...these wiser ones wait and hedge their wagers. They give full rein to the usefully idiotic and irresponsible in their midst, but make no move yet to undo what thousands of brave American soldiers have accomplished in Iraq.
What exactly is that? Despite acrimony at home, the politics of two national elections and a third on the horizon, and the slander of war crimes and incompetence, those on the battlefield of Iraq have almost pulled off the unthinkable — the restructuring of the politics of the Middle East in less than three years.
And for now that is still a strong hand to bet against.
dense and denserer
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote:
...the unhinged right wing has now invented the myth that Democratic members of Congress have called President Bush "a liar" about Iraq. An extensive computer search by myself and a Post researcher can come up with no such accusation.
One need not use the word liar to call someone one. For example:
"I will be a commander-in-chief who will never mislead us into war." John Kerry.
--or--
"I can pledge you this: John Edwards and I would never think about sending young America's sons and daughters into harm's way anywhere in the world without telling the American people the truth."
--or--
"George W. Bush betrayed his country" -- Al Gore.
--or--
The Iraq war was a "fraud made up in Texas for political gain." Ted Kennedy
--or--
"...the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq..." Harry Reid
-- or --
The incessant demands for further investigations about prewar intelligence aimed at "getting at the truth" all assume a lie has been told.
I am not unhinged. And lacking the research tools of the WaPo, it took me only five minutes to shred Cohen's column. He ends with this:
[Bush] went out there and told the American people things that were not true. Does that mean he lied? Maybe not. Maybe he was just repeating the lies of others.
Or, Mr. Cohen, intelligence is never perfect. Yet life-and-death decisions must be decided on said intelligence. So consider for a moment that nobody lied. Not then, at least.
Those who insist today that Bush lied, in those or other words, are lying. So venomous is that untruth that we've created a whole section, The Big Lie, on this website as antidote.
Jim Bass
tuesday november 22, 2005
politician reid cries politics
Sen. Harry Reid, fresh from his political stunt of forcing the Senate into a closed session to demand completion of the umpteenth review of pre-war intelligence, a report that was nearly complete, finds himself being skewered in a new GOP ad. Reid's response:
"These negative ads do nothing to get the job done in Iraq. Instead of giving our troops a plan for success or answering the serious questions of the American people, the Administration has decided to start up its political attack machine."
How does accusing the President of being a liar promote success in Iraq?
How does reviewing prewar intelligence over and over and over (see our Big Lie Library for the Robb-Silverman report) help win the war we are fighting?
Reid knows there's a plan for success in Iraq (kill all terrorists who show their faces, build up Iraqi security forces, hand over the country.) If he doesn't recognize the successes of that effort, he's willfully ignorant.
Much as we like to see our name in the paper, no attack machine was started up. Harry should be man enough to stomach hearing his own conflicting statements without crying like Blanche Dubois.
Senator Reid says he's disappointed in Republicans, but he won't stop working with them to find real solutions in Iraq.
Oh, how big of him. Fact is, Reid's biggest help would be to steer his "exit-strategy" party to the nearest corner, sit them down and shut up.
U2, bush and african aids
If you saw Sunday's 60 Minutes segment on the band U2, you heard singer/activist Bono say that 250,000 Africans are alive today because of drugs sent by the United States. This was Bush's doing. Clinton talked the talk. Bush walked the walk.
This is an excerpt from Bush's 2003 State of the Union address:
Today, on the continent of Africa, nearly 30 million people have the AIDS virus -- including 3 million children under the age 15. There are whole countries in Africa where more than one-third of the adult population carries the infection. More than 4 million require immediate drug treatment. Yet across that continent, only 50,000 AIDS victims -- only 50,000 -- are receiving the medicine they need.
Because the AIDS diagnosis is considered a death sentence, many do not seek treatment. Almost all who do are turned away. A doctor in rural South Africa describes his frustration. He says, "We have no medicines. Many hospitals tell people, you've got AIDS, we can't help you. Go home and die." In an age of miraculous medicines, no person should have to hear those words. (Applause.)
AIDS can be prevented. Anti-retroviral drugs can extend life for many years. And the cost of those drugs has dropped from $12,000 a year to under $300 a year -- which places a tremendous possibility within our grasp. Ladies and gentlemen, seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many.
tough times for the head-hacker
On Friday, the allegedly explosive "Arab street" finally exploded, in the largest demonstration against al-Qa'eda or its affiliates seen in the Middle East. "Zarqawi," shouted 200,000 Jordanians, "from Amman we say to you, you are a coward!" Also "the enemy of Allah" - which, for a jihadist, isn't what they call on Broadway a money review.
The old head-hacker was sufficiently rattled by the critical pans of his Jordanian hotel bombings that he issued the first IRA-style apology in al-Qa'eda's history. "People of Jordan, we did not undertake to blow up any wedding parties," he said. "For those Muslims who were killed, we ask God to show them mercy, for they were not targets." Yeah, right. Tell it to the non-Marines. It was perfectly obvious to Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari and his missus what was going on when they strolled into the ballroom of the Radisson Hotel.
Still, Mr Zarqawi has now announced his intention to decapitate King Abdullah. "Your star is fading," he declared. "You will not escape your fate, you descendant of traitors. We will be able to reach your head and chop it off."
Read it all.
swift response to jfk lite
Senator Kerry, supposedly defending Rep. John Murtha, said, "I won't stand for the Swift-Boating of Jack Murtha!" As one of the 254 members of Mr. Kerry's unit in Vietnam who belonged to Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth, I found Mr. Kerry's comments most ironic.
To us, Mr. Kerry's comments meant that no one should do to Mr. Murtha that which Mr. Kerry did to all of us and our fellow Vietnam veterans, living and dead. Mr. Kerry's disgraceful comments on many occasions in 1971 (while we were locked in combat), claiming falsely that we were "murdering" hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and committing rape and mayhem on a daily basis, are a part of the public record for which he has never apologized. This might be called "Kerrying" our soldiers.
In his own strange way, in his recent comments, Mr. Kerry was trying by implication to compare himself to Mr. Murtha - the gravest of insults to Mr. Murtha, who was given a standing ovation by the House of Representatives (which then properly buried his immediate pullout suggestion 403-3). Mr. Murtha's long military record stands in stark contrast with Mr. Kerry's continuous self-promotion of his short and controversial service in our unit. More importantly, Mr. Murtha has never compared our troops in the field - now or then - to the "Army of Genghis Khan" or claimed our adversaries, whether the bloody communists and Khmer Rouge or the butchers of Al Qaeda, were simply democratic reformers. Can anyone - even in the cocoon of Washington or the incestuous world of Mainstream Media - imagine either side of the aisle spontaneously rising to clap for anything that Mr. Kerry ever did or said?
michael yon photo essay
Nice photographs of sweet Iraqi school kids. If you haven't read his post about the Deuce Four bash in Spokane, check it out.
gutting vonnegut
James Lileks on statements by author Kurt Vonnegut about suicide bombers:
"They are dying for their own self-respect," he [Vonnegut] said. "It's a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It's like your culture is nothing, your race is nothing, you're nothing."
Personally, I think it’s a worse thing to deprive someone of their own self-life. While I grant that people who go to a wedding party in a Jordon hotel are just asking for it (Insert obligatory come-back about the US mistakenly bombing a northern Iraqi wedding party here) you have to admit that it’s better to be alive, even if you have to deal with VOA satellite transmissions telling you your race is nothing – so worthless, in fact, that it deserves a democracy like Iowans and Britons and Japanese.
Oh, we could just nuke your cities and take your oil, but we hate you so much we’re going to stay here and bleed and force your warring factions to hold subcommittee meetings on the constitutional process. It's bored our people to tears; now it's your turn.
Vonnegut suggested suicide bombers must feel an "amazing high". He said: "You would know death is going to be painless, so the anticipation - it must be an amazing high."
Mr. Vonnegut – again, a patriot whose dissent is being cruelly ground into the nurturing earth before your eyes – seems to think that suicide bombings literally happen in a vacuum, an unpopulated space where the bombers just pop like soap bubbles. It may be painless for them – alas – but it is not painless for the victims. You’d think such an obvious observation would go without saying, but we are dealing with an intellectual. What Vonnegut calls brave – blowing yourself up so you can fly up to the great Bunny Ranch in the sky and rut with fragrant houris blessed with self-regenerating hymens – does not exactly compare to the bravery required of the survivors.
Read it all.
monday November 21, 2005
nobel prize fyi
Crips founder Tookie Williams is scheduled to end his 24 year residence on California's death row on December 13. His advocates remind everyone that he's been nominated for a Nobel Prize five times. What's that worth? Eugene Volokh says:
Any social science, history, philosophy, law, and theology professor, judge, or legislator in any country (plus a few others) can nominate anyone for a Nobel Peace Prize (past nominees, just in 1901-1951, included Hitler, Stalin, and Molotov). Any literature or linguistics professor can nominate anyone for a Nobel Prize in Literature.
For further perspective, recall that Jimmy Carter actually won a Nobel prize.
chris matthews: evil is just another point of view
The broadcaster with a voice perfect for print sprinkled these pearls of wisdom:
Four years after 9/11 and the "crazy zeitgeist" that permeated the United States, most Americans have still not learned to know their enemies instead of just hating them, U.S. political journalist Chris Matthews says.
The zeitgeist was righteous anger and determination. Matthews apparently wanted kumbayah.
In a speech to political science students at the University of Toronto yesterday, the host of the CNBC current affairs show Hardball had plenty of harsh words for U.S. President George W. Bush, as well as the political climate that has characterized his country for the past few years.
"The period between 9/11 and Iraq was not a good time for America. There wasn't a robust discussion of what we were doing," Matthews said.
Huh? 18 months elapsed between 9-11 and the Iraq war. Op-eds debated all sides of the issue. Picketers marched in major cities. Bush personally went to the UN. Every trained monkey in Hollywood weighed in. Congress debated (and many Democrats today are trying to take back their words).
Besides, Matthews had a nightly yap show. Was he silent on the war?
"If we stop trying to figure out the other side, we've given up. The person on the other side is not evil -- they just have a different perspective."
Beheading aid workers. Blowing up children in line to receive candy from soldiers. Using mentally retarded people as suicide bombers. Blowing up weddings. Etc. If that isn't evil, what is?
Lemme guess. Canceling Hardball, that Matthews would find evil.
how to lose: quit
QUIT. It's that simple. There are plenty of more complex ways to lose a war, but none as reliable as just giving up.
Increasingly, quitting looks like the new American Way of War. No matter how great your team, you can't win the game if you walk off the field at half-time. That's precisely what the Democratic Party wants America to do in Iraq. Forget the fact that we've made remarkable progress under daunting conditions: The Dems are looking to throw the game just to embarrass the Bush administration.
Forget about the consequences. Disregard the immediate encouragement to the terrorists and insurgents to keep killing every American soldier they can. Ignore what would happen in Iraq — and the region — if we bail out. And don't mention how a U.S. surrender would turn al Qaeda into an Islamic superpower, the champ who knocked out Uncle Sam in the third round.
Read it all.
bush in mongolia
Nice roundup with photos from Gatewaypundit.
crappy times: you blanche, me stanley
"I always rely on the kindness of the Times when that brute (sniff, sniff) questions my patriotism." |
Despite still being a subscriber, I've lost the habit of reading the LA Times. I was reminded why when picking up yesterday's "Current" section. Consider this:
LIKE AN ALBATROSS that castaways hope will not alight on their raft, the question of who misled America into the war in Iraq hovers above Washington, flapping its wings, but so far choosing not to land on either CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., or the White House.
If there is any question, it is "whether" not "who." Assuming that the nation was misled, by anyone, is patently dishonest. (This is what "begging a question" really means.)
The debate over prewar intelligence reemerged with last month's indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who is accused of lying about his role in the leak of the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame, the wife of an administration critic. Democrats pounced on the indictment, saying the real issue it raised was the administration's manipulation of intelligence.
They can say I'm a millionaire, but it won't make me rich. Patrick Fitzgerald specifically said Libby's indictment was not about pre-war intelligence. The real misleaders are Democrat hacks and their media bootlicks.
So I stopped reading that column two grafs in. Next, Jonathan Chait, who distinguished himself two years back with a column that itemized all the things he hates about Bush. Sample:
I hate the way he walks--shoulders flexed, elbows splayed out from his sides like a teenage boy feigning machismo. I hate the way he talks--blustery self-assurance masked by a pseudo-populist twang. I even hate the things that everybody seems to like about him.
Such intellectual bona fides came in handy for this:
An effective war leader could rally the country behind shared goals. Bush obviously thinks that his only chance is to rally his own base against a common domestic enemy. The speeches by Bush and Cheney were laced with unmistakable attacks on the patriotism of his Democratic critics.
Attacks on patriotism, eh? Having been called a liar for years by the Democrat fringe and for several weeks by the Democrat honchos (the two seemingly having undergone a mind-meld), the President finally struck back.
But Bush defended the cause, not himself.
Reasonable people can disagree about the conduct of the war -- but it is irresponsible for Democrats to now claim that we misled them and the American people....
Some of our elected leaders have opposed this war all along. I disagree with them, but I respect their willingness to take a consistent stand. Yet some Democrats who voted to authorize the use of force are now rewriting the past. They are playing politics with this issue and sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy. That is irresponsible.
It is irresponsible to play politics in full view of Al Jazeera. In a war for hearts and minds, what gets said here counts a lot. From Democrat lips to Zarqawi's ears.
This prompted the usual hissy fit, which brought to mind Stanley Kowalski and Blanche DuBois. Blanche, the twisted, passive-aggressive sister-in-law, pecks and pecks and pecks away at Stanley until finally he explodes in rage. Then she shifts into victim mode.
But Bush didn't rage. He calmly spoke the truth.
The Democrats have been in an extended tantrum since 2000. Sore losers, they've resorted to ugly behavior and name calling. They peck and peck and peck, and when they hear one contradictory word, they pout about their patriotism.
I dunno about you, but the caveman in me wanted Stanley to shut Blanche's taunting mouth with a knuckle sandwich. Likewise my heart would swell if Bush ever did call Harry Reid and Ted Kennedy, et al unpatriotic.
Of course, the Times would rush to their defense against such a brute. Which explains my recent reading habits. Stella!!!
Jim Bass
suicide-murder
A Sun City couple died last week when the man shot himself and the bullet passed through his head and hit his wife in the forehead, Riverside County sheriff's deputies said Saturday.
The woman was standing about 8 feet away, authorities said. "It's strange," said Deputy Juan Zamora. "I have never seen something like that, and I've been a deputy for almost 10 years."
upside down xmas trees?
You'd expect these would come from down under:
New Yorkers are dreaming of a topsy-turvy Christmas. The latest craze to hit the city is to decorate homes with upside-down Christmas trees.
Shops and mail-order firms are finding that the plastic inverted spruces, which come fully wired with fairy lights and all the tinsel trimmings, are a sell-out in a city where floor space is always at a premium. "We have three on display and they are in enormous demand," said Cynthia Sayed, the manager of the Heart to Heart florist on Third Avenue, Brooklyn.
sunday November 20, 2005
bush attends church in china
It may seem like a small thing, but it carries big significance. Story with video.
troops vs. media
The news media reflect reality like a funhouse mirror:
Few of the troops understand that the news business is driven by dramatic events, not the tedious kind of process the troops go through every day to defeat the terrorists. To the troops, the war is being won. They see bad guys killed in large numbers, and few Americans getting hurt (it’s fairly common for their to be about twenty enemy dead for each American loss). The troops see tangible evidence, every day, of Iraqis having a better life. The troops cannot understand why that is not news, and why journalists always seem to be looking for a negative angle...
American troops are developing a hate-hate relation with journalists. The basic problem is that soldiers and marines in Iraq have access, usually via the Internet, to what the mass media is saying about what they think is happening in Iraq. These news reports, all too often, do not reflect what the troops experience. It gets uglier when the troops realize that reporters are spending most of their time in the Green Zone or some well guarded hotel, leaving it to local Iraqi stringers to collect information and photos for the reporters stories.
linguini triangle
Mark Steyn unloads:
I know what Bush believes: He thought Saddam should go in 2002 and today he's glad he's gone, as am I. I know what, say, Michael Moore believes: He wanted to leave Saddam in power in 2002, and today he thinks the "insurgents" are the Iraqi version of America's Minutemen. But what do Rockefeller and Reid and Kerry believe deep down? That voting for the war seemed the politically expedient thing to do in 2002 but that they've since done the math and figured that pandering to the moveon.org crowd is where the big bucks are?
If Bush is the new Hitler, these small hollow men are the equivalent of those grubby little Nazis whose whining defense was, "I was only obeying orders. I didn't really mean all that strutting tough-guy stuff." And, before they huff, "How dare you question my patriotism?", well, yes, I am questioning your patriotism -- because you're failing to meet the challenge of the times. Thanks to you, Iraq is a quagmire -- not in the Sunni Triangle, where U.S. armed forces are confident and effective, but on the home front, where soft-spined national legislators have turned the war into one almighty Linguini Triangle. ...
The only difference between Bill Frist's mushy Republicans and Harry Reid's shameless Democrats is that the latter want to put a firm date on withdrawal, so that Zarqawi's insurgents can schedule an especially big car bomb to coincide with the formal handover of the Great Satan's cojones.
now zarqawi's tribe dumps him
Via Powerline:
The family of al-Zarqawi, whose real name is Ahmed Fadheel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, reiterated their strong allegiance to Jordan's King Abdullah II in half-page advertisements in the kingdom's three main newspapers. Al-Zarqawi threatened to kill the king in an audiotape released Friday
"A Jordanian doesn't stab himself with his own spear," said the statement by 57 members of the al-Khalayleh family, including al-Zarqawi's brother and cousin. "We sever links with him until doomsday."
The statement is a serious blow to al-Zarqawi, who no longer will enjoy the protection of his tribe and whose family members may seek to kill him."As we pledge to maintain homage to your throne and to our precious Jordan ... we denounce in the clearest terms all the terrorist actions claimed by the so-called Ahmed Fadheel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, who calls himself Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," the family members said.
global village
Funy video of two Chinese students lipsynching Backstreet Boys. For all their emoting, I couldn't take my eyes off the third kid in the background busy playing a game on his computer.
HT: Polipundit.
murtha word games
Don't listen to what I said, but what I said I said. Or sumpin' like that. More here.
...here is the lede of the NYT article by Eric Schmitt that appeared, according to a Google News search, about 12:30 PM Friday afternoon:
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 - The partisan furor over the Iraq war ratcheted up sharply on Capitol Hill on Thursday, as an influential House Democrat on military matters called for the immediate withdrawal of American troops and Republicans escalated their attacks against the Bush administration's critics. [Emphasis added]
Here is the lede of the version of the Schmitt article that appeared about 7:30PM Friday night:
WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 - House Republicans are attempting to split the ranks of the Democrats tonight by offering a resolution to withdraw American troops from Iraq immediately. The Republican-controlled House is expected to defeat the measure in a vote that the Republicans hope will leave the Democrats in disarray.
So, you may well ask, what's the problem? The "newspaper of record" says, initially, that Rep. Murtha proposed "immediate withdrawal" and in a following version that the Republicans, albeit with the motive of splitting the ranks of the Democrats (how dare they!), offered a resolution "to withdraw American troops from Iraq immediately."
But an evening of Democrats howling foul changed the tone of Schmitt's next version, which according to Google news appeared about 10:30PM Friday night. Here is the description of the partisan conflict that appears there:
The battle on Friday came as Democrats accused Republicans of pulling a political stunt by moving toward a vote on a symbolic alternative to the resolution that Mr. Murtha offered on Thursday, calling for the swift withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Democrats said the ploy distorted the meaning of Mr. Murtha's measure and left little time for meaningful debate. [Emphasis added]
So, after an evening of Democrats accusing Republicans of "a cheap political stunt and a personal attack," the New York Times description of Murtha's proposal shifted from "immediate withdrawal" to "swift withdrawal."
the case against adultery
by Burt Prelutsky
Not being religious, I don’t feel comfortable discussing other people’s sins. Even where the Ten Commandments are concerned, I’m probably only batting about .650. However, one of the thou-shalt-nots I seem to take more seriously than a lot of other people, including those in the church-going crowd, is number seven on the hit parade, the one dealing with adultery.
Having been divorced twice, I recognize that all marriages are not made in heaven. Some, in fact, seem to have been cobbled together in Dr. Frankenstein’s basement. Speaking from experience, there are perfectly good reasons for certain unions to be dissolved. But, for the life of me, I can not come up with a single decent excuse for adultery. Frankly, I regard adulterers as lying, contemptible, sleazebags. I can’t begin to imagine how they live with themselves, let alone their mates. Even the terminology is distasteful, unless, unlike most of us, you don’t mind being a cheater.
I recall hearing that Chicago’s mayor, the late Richard Daley, who was one of the last of the big city bosses, when once asked why, with all the women available to him, he remained faithful to his wife, replied, “If I can’t keep my word to my wife, why should anybody else trust me?”
Now the story may be apocryphal, and, for all I know, Mayor Daley may have been a worse hound than Bill Clinton, but the point is still a good one. If before man and God, you pledge your troth, and, first chance you get, you hop into the sack with someone you’re not married to, you’re nothing but a four-flusher.
What truly confounds me are cheating couples who eventually wind up married to each other, and are then astonished that their partner is now cheating with somebody new. Anybody who believes they are so special, so beautiful, so fascinating, so charismatic, that they can trust their adulterous spouse to remain faithful is not only terminally narcissistic, but more gullible than the hayseed who pays good money for the deed to Brooklyn Bridge.
After giving it some thought, I am convinced that there are motives for adultery that have little or nothing to do with sex. I believe the first of these is based on resentment. Either the husband or the wife feels neglected because kids, work, hobbies or booze, seem to have supplanted them in importance. The adultery not only provides them with a temporary ego-boost, but it gives them the feeling that they’re extracting a measure of well-deserved revenge.
That is why after the initial excitement of the illicit affair wears off, the adulterer begins to resent the fact that his or her mate doesn’t even suspect anything. Their attitude often changes from one of “Oh, aren’t I the clever one to be pulling the wool over the fool’s eyes!” to “The damn fool doesn’t notice because he/she doesn’t think I’m sexy enough to attract anybody.” Ultimately, it’s vanity, rather than a guilty conscience, that leads them to confess all.
Another reason that people risk destroying their marriages, hurting their children and damaging their reputations, is because their lives are so darn boring, and I’m not even referring to their sex lives. The truth is that most people live lives, not necessarily of quiet desperation, but filled with tedious activities spent with boring, mind-numbing, dullards.
What makes it even worse is that every time they turn on the TV or pick up a magazine, they’re confronted by gorgeous celebrities, male and female, living the way they’d like to -- a mad whirl of parties and premieres, vacations in exotic locales, private jets, limousines, servants, and, yes, tacky affairs. Well, chum, with your income, your humdrum job and your ordinary looks, you can forget about everything on the list except that last item. But even you can meet George or Helen the second and fourth Tuesdays of every month at the Bide-a-While Motel.
And aren’t you, for about an hour or so, every bit as sexy and glamorous as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie? Sure, if you say so.
But when you drive home afterwards, saddled down with a load of guilt and self-contempt, can you honestly say the lay was worth the lie?
one headline you never expected to see
"Japan radish in intensive care after murder attempt."
TOKYO (Reuters) - A giant white radish that won the hearts of a Japanese town by valiantly growing through the urban asphalt was in intensive care at a town hall in western Japan on Thursday after being slashed by an unknown assailant.
The "daikon" radish, shaped like a giant carrot, first made the news months ago when it was noticed poking up through asphalt along a roadside in the town of Aioi, population 33,289.
This week local residents, who had nicknamed the vegetable "Gutsy Radish", were shocked -- and in some cases moved to tears -- when they found it had been decapitated.
TV talk shows seized on the attempted murder of the popular vegetable and a day later, the top half of the radish was found near the site where it had been growing.
A town official said on Thursday the top of the severed radish had been placed in water to try to keep it alive and possibly get it to flower.
Asked why the radish -- more often found on Japanese dinner tables as a garnish, pickle or in "oden" stew -- had so many fans, town spokesman Jiro Matsuo said: "People discouraged by tough times were cheered by its tenacity and strong will to live."
Godzilla... Mothra...is Radisha next? The monster that made a whole city burp!
HT: Jonah Goldberg
saturday November 19, 2005
a pulitzer for obtuseness?
A special prize should be created for Tim Rutten, the LA Times media critic. He puts the news that Bob Woodward withheld information in the Plame/NadaGate affair into a twisted context:
"...the Bush administration's unprecedented — and largely successful — effort to bend Washington-based news coverage to its ends."
If you just spit up your coffee laughing, take a moment to recover. He's serious.
Far from being skillful at media management, the Bush administration has been inept. Any disinterested observer would agree that the news media has been uncommonly hostile to Bush.
For a perfect example, look no further than the coverage of the Plame affair.
Here's the story most Americans have been fed: a ruthless Bush administration, bent on covering it tracks over deceiving the nation into war, smears a brave and honest whistleblower (Joe Wilson) and in the process ruins his wife's career. That version of the story has been told and retold.
The truth is that Joe Wilson is a documented liar. And the likely--and far more intriguing story--is of a covert operation within the CIA to wreak political damage on a sitting president via leaks and lies. The news media that were "bent" (to use Rutten's word) were the New York Times/ Washington Post columnists and reporters who eagerly swallowed Wilson's leaked lies and gave them credence.
In that context, whoever outed Joe Wilson and his wife was the honest whistleblower.
Tim Rutten is personally invested in Joe Wilson the Great. Last year he wrote a glowing review of Wilson's polemic, "The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity: A Diplomat's Memoir."
Today's column prompts the kind of exasperation that convinces me the Times is hopeless. If its media critic is this tone deaf, journalistic standards are no standards at all.
Jim Bass
zarqawi losing his street cred
AMMAN, Jordan -- At least 200,000 persons demonstrated yesterday against the recent bombings of three luxury hotels, while a new online statement attributed to terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi defended the attacks and threatened to cut off the head of Jordan's King Abdullah II.
An anti-terrorist demonstration of such size is unprecedented in the Arab world, where Zarqawi, his mentor, Osama bin Laden, and their al Qaeda organization have attained folk-hero status among Muslim masses."Zarqawi, from Amman, we say to you: 'You are a coward,' " protesters chanted while brandishing banners with the names of their tribes from every part of Jordan.
dept. of unlikely art
Elements of Style done as an opera? Yes.
glowing pork chops
This can't be kosher.
The NSW Food Authority today moved to reassure consumers about the safety of their food following a number of media reports about "glowing pork chops".
NSW Food Authority Directory-General George Davey reassured consumers that the micro-organism responsible, Pseudomonas fluorescens was harmless.
“The Food Authority understands that many people would be alarmed to discover their food glowing in the fridge, but we can assure NSW consumers that the bacteria responsible is totally harmless if consumed,” Mr Davey said.
“Pseudomonas fluorescens is normally present on meat and seafood at low levels and proper cooking kills it.
why did the gnome cross the road?
Gnome pranks in Australia.
spiegeldygook
Germany's Der Spiegel mocks Bush's call for more freedom in China by saying:
He has very little credibility in Asia on issues such as human rights. Torture scandals in Iraq and elsewhere involving the US military, coupled with what is seen as blatant disregard by the Bush administration for the Geneva Conventions, are making it very difficult for Washington to lecture Beijing or backward countries like Myanmar.
Said "scandals" were largely ginned up by the likes of Der Spiegel and its media fellow travelers. To equate the humiliation (not torture) of prisoners at Abu Ghraib with the human rights abuses in China and Myamar demonstrates their inability to reason clearly.
I wonder if they even catch the irony of this admission:
Of course, the vast majority of Chinese weren't even aware of Bush's call for greater freedom. The government mentioned his speech in Japan in official state media, but left out the more controversial parts. One popular Beijing daily newspaper devoted an entire page to his visit to Kyoto, however, there was nothing about Bush mentioning Taiwan as a democratic and prosperous example for China.
Bush comes from a nation where news media are free to slander him, and yet he has no credibility from Chinese people, whose government filters what news they get?
fighting words
This statement, from Rep. Jean Schmidt (R), enraged Democrats last night:
"He asked me to send Congress a message - stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message - that cowards cut and run, Marines never do," Schmidt said.
These statements by Democrats are apparently perfectly okay:
- Al Gore referring to Republican "digital brownshirts"
- Various Democrats claiming Bush lied about the threat posed by Saddam
- Democrats calling Bush a draft dodger
- Ted Kennedy calling the Iraq war a "fraud made up in Texas for political gain"
- Howard Dean, "This is one of the least truthful groups of people to run the country. These guys are just lying through their teeth."
- Howard Dean: "Bush administration likes burning books more than reading books"
- Dean: "..The most interesting theory that I've heard so far -- which is nothing more than a theory, it can't be proved -- is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis. Now who knows what the real situation is?"
- Various Dems: Bush exploited fear of terrorism in order to turn the USA into a police state.
- Al Gore said Bush runs a "gulag" in Iraq
I define a pussy as someone who dishes it out but can't take it.
Jim Bass
friday November 18, 2005
words from a weapons inspector
From Frontpage magazine, a meaty interview with Bill Tierney.
...Litigation depends on evidence, intelligence depends on indicators. Picture yourself as a German intelligence officer in Northern France in April 1944. When asked where will the Allies land, you reply “I would be happy to tell you when I have solid, legal proof, sir. We will have to wait until they actually land.” You won’t last very long. That officer would have to take in all the indicators, factor in deception, and make an assessment (this is a fancy intelligence word for an educated guess).
The Democrats understand the difference between the two concepts, but have no qualms about blurring the distinction for political gain. This is despicable. This has brought great harm to our nation’s credibility with our allies. A perfect example is Senator Levin waving deception by one single source, al-Libi, to try and convince us that this is evidence there was no connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda, as though the entire argument rested on this one source. Senator Levin, and his media servants, think the public can’t read through his duplicity. He is plunging a dagger into the heart of his own country.
Read the whole thing.
murtha murk
Watch news media manipulation at work:
As reported by the Media Research Center’s Brent Baker, the network evening news broadcasts tonight all lead with Congressman John Murtha’s (D-Penn.) call for the removal of American troops from Iraq.
Yet, they seemed disinterested in focusing much attention on Rep. Murtha's “denouncement” of the Iraq war more than a year ago. (Please see a May 10, 2004 CNN story stating, “Rep. John Murtha, D-Pennsylvania, in a news conference with Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said the problems in Iraq are due to a ‘lack of planning’ by Pentagon chiefs and ‘the direction has got be changed or it is unwinnable.’") Maybe most important, the networks totally ignored the fact that Rep. Murtha has been expressing disgust with the Bush administration’s prosecution of this war since six months after it started.
picturing los angeles
A deep photo archive of Los Angeles sites for the web, created by a German citizen. News of this comes from an item in LA Observed, which is worth a read.
on "le take"
One of France's most distinguished diplomats has confessed to an investigating judge that he accepted oil allocations from Saddam Hussein, it emerged yesterday. Jean-Bernard Mérimée is thought to be the first senior figure to admit his role in the oil-for-food scandal, a United Nations humanitarian aid scheme hijacked by Saddam to buy influence.
The Frenchman, who holds the title "ambassador for life", told authorities that he regretted taking payments amounting to $156,000 (then worth about £108,000) in 2002.
make the world go away
If you believe the findings of a new Pew Research poll, isolationism is growing in America.
Some 42 percent of Americans surveyed say the country should "mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own," according to the Pew Research Center and the Council on Foreign Relations survey, conducted every four years. That's up from 30 percent in 2002.
In a way, this is nothing new. The law authorizing the draft for World War II passed by only one vote. George Washington was preaching to the choir when he warned against "foreign entanglements."
But the global village is here. Try buying something in your local store that was 100% made in America. Viruses and ideologies respect no national borders. We're in each other's business, like it or not.
Democrats are promoting and exploiting war fatigue. Votes this week in Congress show wobbly politicans reaching for flags that are shades of white.
But what's the cause of the fatigue? For most Americans the Iraq war is a mere news item. Few have had their lives, their families or their jobs personally affected. We are not carrying ration cards. We're being asked to be patient, to hold our water. To shut up and let the serious people do the serious work. Because the freedom we enjoy is not free.
Last month, Alaa, who blogs as the Mesopotamian wrote:
Here we have the U.S.A. and Great Britain and their smaller friends, an alliance that has defeated Nazi Germany and the mighty Reich, and have had the stomach to obliterate Japanese cities with atomic bombs.
Here we have the Americans, the descendants of those who wrested a whole continent by shear obstinacy and fought for every inch of land with blood and sweat. Here we have nations that have waded through rivers of blood and mud and marched through entire continents to become symbols of human perseverance and enterprise.
Yes all this history and yet we have some who think that our miserable "Sunni Triangle" poses an insurmountable problem and that one should "cut and run" and "bring home troops immediately" etc. etc.
I salute President Bush who does not care much for this kind of defeatism and treats it with the contempt it deserves.
Alaa gets it. The putz Murtha does not. Captain's Quarters has a roundup:
I listened to Murtha extensively on CNN this afternoon as Wolf Blitzer interviewed him, and the