MoonDawg's Den

My Political Transformation

2007-09-11T01:48:00.000-04:00

This post is probably pertinent to post here as well. I'm trying to get back to blogging after quite an absence.

Rethinking Things pt. 1 (Politics) posted at The Multifaceted Me

Enjoy!

So Hsu me

2007-09-08T10:05:00.000-04:00

Over at Riehl World View yesterday Dan Riehl got a threat from Hillary Clinton campaign photographer Stephen Schwartz for having this photo of the Hildebeast and that wacky now-you-see-him-now-you-don't Chinese money man Norman Hsu posted on his blog without Schwartz's permission.

Dan has taken down the offending photo, but I and other bloggers will keep posting it until the Clintonista chekists come a-calling. If I also have to remove the pic, you can still find it here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Controlling them dang internets ain't so easy, is it Mr. Schwartz?

That had to hurt...

2007-09-07T09:25:00.000-04:00

On the O'Reilly show LTC Ralph Peters (ret.) smacks down the lying POS Chuck Schumer for his vile, dishonest smear of US troops in Iraq during a speech in the Senate this week:

Ouch.

Where's Slim Pickens when you need him?

2007-09-06T11:45:00.000-04:00

As Instapundit would say, heh.

(via Op-For)

Labor Day Disaster

2007-09-03T13:48:00.000-04:00

UPDATE - This post of mine from last year's hurricane season is still relevant, especially for us folks here in Jaw-juh: And the winds fell upon them...

Most Americans don't have hurricanes on their mind as they enjoy a holiday day of barbeque & brew, even with the monster Felix the Cat 5 spinning in the Atlantic this very moment. But we are about to enter the peak period for the Atlantic hurricane season, and people on the US East & Gulf Coasts should already have their family disaster plans in place in the event they are impacted by a tropical cyclone.

On this very day 77 years ago - Sept. 3rd, 1930 - at least 4,000 people were killed in the Dominican Republic by a Category 4 or 5 hurricane that smashed into Santo Domingo with winds between 150 to 200 mph, nearly wiping out the city.

The storm traversed Cuba and appeared it was headed towards the Yucatan Peninsula when it made a hard right turn, crossed over Florida as a tropical storm, then moved back into the Atlantic and regained hurricane strength as it brushed Cape Hatteras in North Carolina. Such unpredictiablity is only partially mitigated by today's generally - but not completely - accurate computer forecasting models. Bottom line, keep your eye on the Caribbean Sea during every hurricane season because anything can happen.

All the Bird Flu news that's fit to print

2007-08-29T21:34:00.000-04:00

By the way, have been meaning to highlight the BirdFluBreakingNews.com site for a while. The BFBN site is an up-to-the-minute aggregator of not only media articles about H5N1 but also the latest blogger analysis of bird flu developments. There are also links to other pandemic resources - veritably, it's the Drudge Report of bird flu!

H5N1 H2H?

2007-08-29T12:29:00.000-04:00

This is not good news: Study confirms 2006 human-human spread of bird flu. One of the researchers involved, referring to an outbreak in Indonesia last year, said "The world really may have dodged a bullet with that one, and the next time, we might not be so lucky".

Meanwhile, bullets continue to fly out of Indonesia: One more suspected death from bird flu in Bali. "Sariasih first became sick on August 22nd but her relatives did not suspect that she might be infected with bird flu virus or H5N1 as there was no back-yard chicken or duck farming in the surrounding areas of her home."

A Politically Correct Zombie War

2007-08-09T10:35:00.000-04:00

Killing Black Zombies is Racist! At least it is if a White Man Shoots Black Zombies. If many hold such witless PC attitudes, it does not bode well for mankind's hopes of survival in the upcoming global war against the undead.

But no, surely rational human beings would not sit back and let themselves be overrun by an implacable, homocidal enemy in the name of political correctness, would they? Naw, just can't imagine such a thing ever happening.

UPDATE: I should have known - President Bush is all over the looming zombie threat (via Instapundit)

Back to BSing (Blog Stuff, that is)

2007-08-08T14:25:00.000-04:00

My apologies for the lack of posting lo these many months; it's been a busy summer (which included a summer teaching gig - my hats off to all you teachers out there, it's one of the hardest jobs I've ever had...but also one of the most rewarding). But now I have time to get back to blogging - try to contain your excitement.

We'll start off with some quick hits on current events:

Barack Obama continues to threaten to unilaterally attack a US ally (and a nuclear-armed one at that). Hillary should just stand back and let this fool bury himself.

With the US military's surge in Iraq working, it's time for a political surge: "one that comes from all directions, both from within Iraq and from the international community".

Is Korean reunification possible? Sure it's possible - but not desired by either side. In the North the Workers' Party of Korea will never willingly give up their stranglehold on the DPRK, and the South fears a post-reunification influx of economic refugees from the North that would overwhelm public services, with staggering economic costs that would make the expensive East/West German reunification look like a picnic in comparison.

Russia has been violating international airspace, assassinating dissidents abroad, blackmailing weak neighbors....ah, makes me nostalgic for the old Cold War days.

"the old definition of a nanosecond was the gap between a New York traffic light changing to green and the first honk of a driver behind you. Today, the definition of a nanosecond is the gap between a Western terrorist incident and the press release of a Muslim lobby group warning of an impending outbreak of Islamophobia," the wit Mark Steyn wrote last year. Now the definition of a nanosecond needs to be updated again: the gap between the occurence of any natural or man-made disaster in America and the Democrats hysterically blaming President Bush for it.

Well, ya basta for now. It's good to be back BSing.

R.I.P., Boris

2007-04-23T12:50:00.000-04:00

I've just heard the news that Russian ex-president Boris Yeltsin has passed away at the age of 76. I'll never forget watching CNN in the summer of 1991 as he stood atop a Soviet tank in front of the Russian parliament, shouting his defiance against the Communist apparatchiks who launched a coup against the government of Mikhail Gorbachev, putting Gorbachev under arrest and filling Moscow with troops and armor.

Yeltsin was far from perfect; he was bombastic, corrupt (but no worse than other Russian leaders), and a drunkard. He might have done a better job leading Russia during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the bitter transition from Communism to economic reform, although I'm not sure that anyone else could have done much better if they were handed the basket case economy of the former USSR to fix.

For me, my lasting memory of Yeltsin will always be the scene atop the tank during the '91 coup. The man was far from perfect, but this one moment of personal courage helped transform a nation forever.

To lockdown, or not to lockdown?

2007-04-17T11:25:00.000-04:00

When confronted with something as hideous as the Virginia Tech massacre, the mind recoils from the horror of such an event and turns to other things - like recriminations. The VT police department and the university's administration started getting heat for their actions while the smell of gunpowder still hung in the air:

John and Jennifer Shourds of Lovettsville, Va. demanded the immediate firings of University President Charles Steger and Virginia Tech Campus Police Chief W.R. Flinchum who he said "screwed up" the handling of separate shooting incidents that left 33 students dead, including the shooter.
"My God, if someone shoots somebody there should be an immediate lockdown of the campus," said John Shourds. "They totally blew it. The president blew it, campus police blew it."

But over at Townhall.com Dean Barnett makes the following point:

Virginia Tech has a student population of almost 30,000. Adding in the staff members, faculty, etc., the Virginia Tech community numbers over 35,000 people. If there was an unsolved murder in a city of 35,000, would the city go into lockdown mode until the crime was solved? Would the city authorities even consider going into lockdown mode? Given the facts that the authorities yesterday understood the motive for the initial killings and there was absolutely no reason to believe a mass murderer was on the loose, shutting down the campus would have been a bizarre reaction to the initial tragedies.

Yet Virginia Tech did go into "lockdown mode" when an escaped killer was on the loose in Blacksburg this past August:

Police have spent the day racing to sometimes widely separated locations around Blacksburg in response to reported sightings of William Morva, who is accused of shooting and killing a Montgomery County sheriff's deputy this morning and a Montgomery Regional Hospital security guard on Sunday, as well as injuring a sheriff's deputy Sunday...Access to Tech's campus has been largely shut down, with classes canceled and staff evacuated.

A killer on the loose in nearby Blacksburg was enough to prompt a campus shutdown and evacuation eight months ago, but a killer was on the loose who was actually on the campus initially prompted little more than a vague email - sent two hours after the first shooting Monday morning - that urged students and faculty "to be cautious".

Barnett contends that, given the perceived motive of the shooter (jealously), a lockdown would have been a "bizarre reaction". But the bottom line is, there's a guy running around your campus with a gun who's already shot two people, and you have no way of knowing for certain what his motives - and further intentions are - until and unless he's caught.

Now don't get me wrong - it's unfair to crucify the VT president and campus police with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, and people should wait until all the facts are in before making judgements. But in the coming days and weeks the question will be asked: why such a large difference in reaction between the August incident and the one yesterday? It's a fair question, and one that deserves an answer.

Of Occam, Oswald, Nessie, and Rosie

2007-04-16T12:09:00.000-04:00

Whenever an imbecile like Rosie O'Donnell spews forth lunatic rantings about a 9/11 conspiracy, most sane folks (like myself) tend to simply laugh it off. But in a tour de force post on conspiracy theories, Bill Whittle takes Occam's Razor in hand and tackles everything from the JFK assasination to the Moon landing to the Loch Ness monster, and explains how real damage is inflicted on our society by those who perpetrate these "diseased philosophies":

My goal here is not to bust any of these four conspiracy theories; that has all been done much more effectively elsewhere. What I am trying to do here is to build a chain of evidence to show a progressively deteriorating epidemic of world-wide insanity, of truly diseased thinking -- not just a misunderstanding or difference of opinion but real, diagnosable mental illness.

Whittle argues that it's way past time to start pushing back hard against Rosie and her ilk for their dispensing of "cultural suicide pills". Read the whole thing.

The Mullahs and the Copperheads

2007-04-09T14:45:00.000-04:00

Today's big news: Iran sharply expands uranium enrichment. And why shouldn't they? After the British sailors hostage debacle, in which the UK's European "allies" could not even bring themselves to consider economic sanctions for Iran's act of piracy, Tehran now understands that it can get away with practically anything, and the worst conseqences it will face for misbehavior will be some hand-wringing at the United Nations and in the capitals of Europe.

The mullahs also had to be encouraged by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's fool's errand (as Lebanese blogger Anton Efendi called it) to Syria, Iran's partner in terrorism. Iran can now reasonably expect Democratic leaders to react to any further provocations with the same fecklessness as the UN and the EU, and worse (or for them, better) actively subvert any administration attempts to deal with Tehran more strongly in the future.

Pelosi's illegal trip to Syria came on the heels of her disgraceful actions before the recess in preventing a Congressional vote on a simple resolution that condemned Iran for seizing the British sailors. With the EU and UN now proven useless, the only thing that stands in the way of Iran's nuclear ambitions is the United States. And now the mullahs know that a large segment of the US political class can't even bring itself to challenge them verbally, let alone militarily.

With the Democratic leadership is going down a path of cowardice and retreat, the national party has sunk to its lowest level since it adopted a "peace at any price" policy in the 1860s. Today's Copperheads are just as short-sighted - and just as dangerous to the nation's well being - as they were during the Civil War.

Just 3 Things

2007-03-30T01:02:00.000-04:00

On my way home from Kanab today, I switched my satellite radio over to right-wing talk. I do that on long trips sometimes if I'm tired because I stay awake screaming at the hosts.

Tonight, I listened to most of The Rusty Humphries Show, and I tried to keep my screaming to a minimum. While I could write a very, very long rebuttal to most of the things Humphries said (I cringe when I hear pundits say, "I've done the research, so you don't have to," which he said over and over throughout the broadcast. But, I digress.), I only want to comment on one little section that I found interesting.

Most of the show centered around the thesis that "immigration without assimilation will bring a great country to its knees." I disagree with that thesis on many levels, but I have a harder time with it because Humphries didn't define "assimilation." From his ensuing rants, it was difficult to tell what he actually meant.

Anyway, during his discussion of the topic, Humphries quoted Michael Savage (a pundit that I loath beyond belief), who said that the three things that need to be defended to keep our country great are our "borders, language, and culture." I found that conclusion to be overly nationalistic (a word that too often gets confused with "patriotic"), so I decided to write my own list.

The three things that I believe need to be defended to keep our country great are 1) Personal Freedom, 2) Economic Freedom, and 3) an educated populace.

I want to hold off discussing these three things in depth for a bit to see what others have to say. So, here is the question:

What three things do you believe must be defended in order to keep our country great? There are 2 rules: 1) You must name 3, no more, no less; and 2) You cannot use the Constitution as one of your 3 (I get to make the rules, and I think that using that grand old document is cheating. Cheaters aren't allowed :).)

The Islamic insurgency grows bolder

2007-03-22T10:53:00.000-04:00

It's being called the "Massacre in Yala":

Violence in Thailand's southern provinces has reached a level that shocked many when Muslim separatists attacked a van and killed nine passengers. As Ron Corben reports from Bangkok, experts say it appears the militants hope to drive non-Muslims out of the region, despite government efforts to bring peace.

And more sectarian butchery this week:

Suspected separatists shot dead three Buddhist women involved with a project for victims of Thailand's insurgency on Monday, AP reported.

In a post on this subject a couple of weeks ago it was noted that "the future may come as a bloody shock to the Thais". One might argue that the future is already here, but it seems that even worse atrocities are not just possible, but likely.

Community Server

2007-03-21T10:27:00.000-04:00

Apologies for the lack of blogging recently, but I've been busy running my annual March Madness Pool. This year I made an addition to the site to permit interaction between the pool players, powered by a nifty platform called Community Server. The platform, which runs on an MS SQL database through my hosting service, permits me to have an online forum, blogs, and any other content I want to include. Community Server also offers options for setting up photo galleries and other types of file sharing, RSS newsfeeds and blog syndication, and it can support thousands of individual users.

The control interface is quite user friendly, although customization is not quite as easy as the promotional copy would lead you to believe - a considerable amount of effort tweaking config files is required (no simple task for a non-techie like myself), although after reviewing tips offered by other users of CS, I was able to stumble and bumble my way through.

Besides, how can you complain when the thing is free (for the Personal Edition, that is). Powerful tools such as this that allow vast interaction and collaboration among thousands of people - coupled with virtually unlimited integration of constantly updated content - is part of what people mean when they talk about the concept of Web 2.0.

And how do I wield this mighty tool of the future? I use it to make a March Madness office pool more fun for the participants. Call it Pool 2.0...

DST2K

2007-03-11T14:09:00.000-04:00

A site of mine, MarchMadPool.com, that is hosted by GoDaddy.com is down today, as are many other sites hosted by GoDaddy. Some suspect that GoDaddy's hosting servers were ill-prepared for this morning's early change to Daylight Savings Time; Elf M. Sternberg calls it a "mini-Y2K, and says "this completely sucks". I couldn't agree more - MarchMadPool.com is a site I use for a large NCAA tournanment pool that I run every year, and today is Selection Sunday! This is inexcusable, especially since they've had nearly two years to get ready - the legislation changing DST was signed in 2005.

It appears other computers are also experiencing "DST2K" problems: Sprint phones aren't showing the correct time, and neither is my own T-Mobile Blackberry (tried powering it on and off, but that didn't help). And flights at Philadelphia International Airport have reportedly been delayed by a DST time glitch.

Fortunately, my battery-powered analog wall clock is showing the correct time, after a simple spin of the dial in the back of the clock. Sometimes simpler is better...

UPDATE: The Team Murder blog points to a PC World article from yesterday, in which GoDaddy poo-pooed concerns raised by a customer that its servers weren't prepared for the new DST:

"Thank you for contacting Online Support. As Daylight Savings [sic] does not apply to our servers, since we are on Arizona Time and our time zone does not change, our servers wouldn't update," reads one of the replies he received, and which he provided to IDG News Service.

Are. You. Effing. Kidding. Me?

UPDATE II: YawpCo! reports that "as of 3:18pm EST it appears that GoDaddy services are restored". But my MarchMadPool site is still down...

UPDATE III: See the comments at this Slashdot post for a tech geek discussion of the GoDaddy debacle.

UPDATE IV: As of 3:48pm EST my MarchMadPool.com site is back up and running - praise be! Let's just hope it stays up for the duration of March Madness...

Out of Africa

2007-03-10T10:28:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, while responding to my co-blogger Jeff about the dishonesty of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, the subject of President Bush's infamous "16 words" from the 2003 State of the Union speech came up (Bush had said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa"). Among other things, I noted this from the UK's Butler Report on Britain's pre-war intelligence, about how Iraq had sought uranium from the Congo:

There was further and separate intelligence that in 1999 the Iraqi regime had also made inquiries about the purchase of uranium ore in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this case, there was some evidence that by 2002 an agreement for a sale had been reached.

Serendipitously, today the Instapundit shares a relevant BBC news story - "DR Congo uranium ring smashed" (empahsis mine):

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo say they have dismantled an international network set up to illegally use uranium mined there.
...
DR Congo's daily newspaper Le Phare on Wednesday reported that more than 100 bars of uranium, as well as an unknown quantity of uranium contained in helmet-shaped cases, had disappeared from the centre as part of a vast trafficking of the material going back years.

In his post on the story, Glenn Reynolds notes some are speculating that the black market uranium went to Iran or North Korea. I don't think it's stretching the imagination too much to add Saddam Hussein's Iraq to that mix...

UPDATE: Chad at the KURU Lounge notes some further relevant information from the BBC on uranium smuggling from the Congo (so far the American news media is MIA on this story). Emphasis his:

Officially, no uranium at all should now be leaving the country. But the United Nations has reported that in the past six years more than 50 cases of smuggled uranium have been seized in Congo.

The last six years would cover 2002, the year that the Butler Report said Iraq had reached "an agreement for a sale" with the DRC. I'm sure that Keith Olbermann will make this news the lead item on Countdown tomorrow. NOT!

Thailand in the cross-hairs

2007-03-09T11:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday PJM's Australia editor, Richard Fernandez, analyzed the Islamic insurgency in Thailand, a subject that I wrote a post about just last week:

Their present tactical objectives seem to be to radicalize the local Muslim population, to promote feelings of Islamic solidarity and Islamic consciousness, to create a mental and emotional divide between the Muslims and the non-Muslims, mainly the Buddhists, and to prepare the ground for a sustained jihad.

A commenter on Fernandez's article provides additonal background, and offers this grim assessment of the situation: "Thai Buddhists cling to the misconception that Islam is a religion of peace, and they point to the tiny, superficially tranquil Muslim community in Bangkok as proof. The future may come as a bloody shock to the Thais. Thailand is in the cross-hairs, and if it takes two hundred years, it will be purged of its major religion (which the Koran teaches is 'worse than carnage') and become host to a flood of immigrants from the south."

Lindsey Graham on Meet the Press

2007-03-06T01:58:00.000-05:00

I posted this on my blog, and I was going to copy and paste it here, but it's really long. Go read it.

"What Lindsey Graham didn't say on Meet the Press" at The Multifaceted Me

Enjoy.

Let the Madness begin

2007-03-05T10:55:00.000-05:00

March Madness will be here next week, replete with buzzer-beaters, improbable turnarounds, and astonishing upsets. This is the time of year when college basketball equals and even exceeds the drama found in college football.

To get in the mood, here is the classic Hill-to-Laettner miracle that lifted Duke over Kentucky as time expired in the '92 East Regional Finals. Grab the remote and a cold beverage, secure a prime spot in front of the tube, and get ready - the Madness is about to begin.

Civil War?

2007-03-01T10:28:00.000-05:00

It seems we could be at a turning point here, given that the country's weak and unstable central government is under intense public pressure because of mounting terrorist attacks by Muslim insurgents. Large areas of the country are becoming a breeding ground for terrorists as the attacks grow bolder, with police officers as well as army troops regularly targeted by roadside bombs.

Thousands of civilians have been killed or wounded by the Islamic militants since the insurgency began (and some of their victims have been beheaded), with the terrorists demonstrating increasingly sophisticated organization in conducting coordinated simultaneous attacks. Car bombings, such as the one pictured here from Sept. '06, indiscriminantly maim locals and foreigners alike. In addition, international Jihadists linked to al-Qaeda are helping the insurgents carry out these terror attacks.

A majority of the local Muslim population does not support this terrorism, but fear of reprisals by the insurgents prevents them from assisting authorities. Meanwhile sectarian clashes grow increasingly violent, leading to concerns that the nation will become embroiled in an all-out civil war.

Oh, by the way, the country in question is not Iraq - it's Thailand.

Ouch!

2007-03-01T00:15:00.000-05:00

Secretary Rice might still be bleeding from this one.

A sticky wicket in March

2007-02-26T13:59:00.000-05:00

The Overseas Security Advisory Council issued a report (registration required) last week assessing safety & security for the upcoming Cricket World Cup that is being held at several venues around the Caribbean throughout the month of March. OSAC is concerned about the potentially problematic mix of cricket fans and American spring breakers next month in one of the primary venues, Jamaica:

A factor further influencing the criminal threat in Jamaica will be the presence of American college students visiting on their spring breaks. Jamaica typically attracts approximately 20,000 spring break tourists every year. Although many of the prime resorts are near Montego Bay rather than Kingston, there is still a possibility the overlap could create a dangerous mix of partying college students and cricket fans.

Drunken American students versus international cricket fans - a "dangerous mix" indeed. While cricket isn't as infamous for violent fan behavior as soccer is, they still have their moments. In addition, the State Department is concerned that the tourism infrastructure in the host nations (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago) may not be able to handle the influx of both fans and seasonal tourists: "the Cricket World Cup may strain the availability of taxis, emergency medical response, and other public services".

If you're thinking about a Caribbean vacation during March, think again.

Cavegirls gone wild

2007-02-23T11:39:00.000-05:00

In the news today: Women may have invented weapons.

Well, duh - anybody who ever saw the epic 1966 documentary "One Million Years B.C." already knew this. Yet another example of lazy journalists not doing their research...

Airline rights versus safety

2007-02-21T11:33:00.000-05:00

JetBlue Airways has rolled out a "Customer Bill of Rights" after the airline suffered a full week of weather related cancellations, including widely reported incidents of passengers being stranded on the tarmac at New York's JFK airport for six to ten hours straight. However, some are looking to the federal government to legislate a bill of rights for airline customers, apparently not trusting the carriers to regulate themselves. Kevin Mitchell of the Business Travel Coalition says that "government involvement with airline customer service" is a bad idea, and warns that "It is imprudent to mix financial incentives and penalties with airline operations, go, no-go decisions and safety judgments":

On February 19, 2005, the No. 2 engine of a Boeing 747 failed after take off from LAX on a flight to Heathrow with 351 passengers on board. The captain decided to continue anyway with 3 engines. Because it was unable to attain normal cruising speeds and altitudes, the aircraft was forced to divert to Manchester, England. Under European Union passenger rights legislation, had the plane returned to LAX, BA would have had to compensate passengers some $250,000. BA denies that the penalty influenced its go, no go decision.

Sure, a quarter of a million bucks was on the line, but that never entered into the pilot's consideration at all. Imagine this scenario being played out in thousands of marginal situations around the US each year, with flight crews and airline management having to worry about government-imposed penalties when making operational decisions.

With most carriers already drowning in red ink, it is a certainty that situations will arise where financial considerations will trump safety concerns. As Mitchell says, "It would be tragic if in an effort to re-regulate passenger service, we inadvertently undermined our airline industry’s laudable safety record."

Blackberry bloggin'

2007-02-19T20:17:00.000-05:00

Joy of joys, it seems that I can login to Blogger and post using my new Blackberry - now I can blog from any place, any time! I'm sure celebrations are breaking out all over the blogosphere at such a prospect...

Who is the enemy?

2007-02-16T23:41:00.000-05:00

I had such high hopes of productive things happening in Washington after the elections in November. I believed--naively--that with the balance of power being shared between the two major parties that they would actually have to work together and compromise. I was so wrong.

Since the elections, the congress has passed a handful of bills that they promised during their first 100 hours, and then they got to the business of Iraq, and life got much more complicated. Unfortunately, everything is breaking on party lines, and nothing will ever get accomplished, especially in the senate where 60 votes are needed to break a filibuster.

I offer 2 examples of complete partisan stupidity as proof that nothing will happen in the next two years except a lot of kvetching by both sides:

Nancy Pelosi supported the surge in Iraq until the president came out in favor of it. Then, she changed her tune. I'm opposed to the surge, but Pelosi's change of heart doesn't seem to be motivated by conviction, just by politics.
John Warner filibustered his own resolution on Iraq and the surge in order to protest the way the vote was being handled by Democrats. That's just stupid. He could have voted for cloture to not look stupid, and the filibuster still would have held. I guess that was too easy.

I'm sick to death of hearing the partisan bickering in Washington. While they fight, our soldiers are fighting a very real enemy. I know Republicans think Democrats are the enemy (listen to their rhetoric and try to disagree with me), and Democrats believe that Bush is Satan (I've probably used that metaphor myself at least once :)). But, there are much bigger issues that need to be settled. It's time for our elected officials to do their job. It's time for them to debate and come up with real solutions. It's time to come up with a plan in Iraq that will work, not a meaningless surge or a hopeless withdrawal. I'm not sure what that should be, but I bet that the brilliant minds in Washington can come up with something if they quit acting like four-year-olds.

I'm not holding my breath.

VD at the VA

2007-02-15T11:02:00.000-05:00

This week the Veterans Administration has been having its annual National Salute to Hospitalized Veterans, and as part of that program my state reserve unit went to the Atlanta VA Medical Center on Valentines Day yesterday to distribute thousands of hand-made Valentine cards that area elementary school students had made for the patients at the VA. It was hard not to choke up when a wheelchair-bound vet's eyes lit up when reading the scrawled messages of love and hope from the kids. It one of the most special Valentines Days that I've ever experienced.

Unfortunately I couldn't take a camera to the patients' rooms, but I did manage to get a pic with a couple of Atlanta Falcons cheerleaders, who were also there to hand out the cards (a volunteer experience can be rewarding in more ways than one!).

Run, you cowards

2007-02-13T22:45:00.000-05:00

Bill Roggio, reporting from Iraq, has posted an item regarding today's news that Muqtada al-Sadr, Iran's murderous proxy in the country, has fled Iraq and is now under the protection of his Iranian sponsors. In addition, Roggio writes that "Sadr's underlings have been reported to be fleeing Iraq to Iran in January" - fleeing out of fear:

Sadr's departure from Iraq indcates he takes the Baghdad security plan seriously, and fears for his direct safety.

The US troop surge and the new security strategy by Iraq's government have barely begun to be put into place, and already our enemies are retreating. But Sadr and his masters in Tehran should take heart: Democrats are still relentlessly attempting to implement an unconditional surrender.

Goodbye, Charlie

2007-02-13T14:38:00.000-05:00

I've just learned that my U.S. Congressman, Rep. Charlie Norwood, died of cancer today at the age of 65. I've had occasion to deal with Rep. Norwood and his staff in the past, and he always came across as sincere and willing to help, especially when it came to supporting our men & women in uniform.

Charlie was an outstanding representative for my district and a great friend to the military. He will be terribly missed, and I wish his family the best during this tragic time.

Balkan Bombs

2007-02-12T09:15:00.000-05:00

On Friday the US Embassy in Sarajevo issued a Warden Message warning Americans about a series of bombings in Mostar. It reminded me of when I spoke to an NCO who served on the KFOR mission in Kosovo with Task Force Falcon last year. The Sargeant was disappointed that the hardships and risks the 2,000-odd troops of TFF have endured (not to mention the soldiers from other contributing NATO countries) over the years go almost wholly unnoticed by the media. He had a point: just this weekend, for example, Kosovo was wracked by violent - and deadly - protests. A search of Google News today turns up only 337 total news items about the protests. Meanwhile, Google News shows there are about 4,000 news stories concerning the late Anna Nicole Smith. Which is really more important in relative terms?

The photo here shows a trooper with a subunit of TF Falcon, Task Force Thunder, teaching an "unexploded ordnance awareness class" to elementary school kids in eastern Kosovo earlier this month (imagine having to have such a class at your own kids' school). US troops with KFOR are doing good works that most Americans are completely unaware of - so take a moment today and remember our men and women serving in the ever-volatile Balkans.

Media Bias? What media bias?

2007-02-08T10:55:00.000-05:00

My new jarhead friend Donnie over at the Katrinacrat blog links to a fairly amusing amusing post from Radar Online about Bush's popularity ratings (or lack thereof, at 28%) as compared to the popularity of such things as the Dentist (45% popularity), in-laws (at 68%? hard to believe that one), and getting kicked in the balls (41% popularity - just who are the 41% of numb-nuts that actually enjoy a swift jolt to the nads??).

The CBS News story that generated these posts says that the low rating indicates Americans are "deeply unhappy with his performance as president", and that the public is "strongly opposed to his plan for increasing troops in Iraq" (29% favor, 66% oppose). Fair enough - but take a look at the raw data from the poll (taken pre-SOTU, Jan. 18-21), which is linked as a PDF file from the story.

Dig around the file and you will find some interesting things - for example, only 16% of people believe that "Democrats have a plan for Iraq", or that 83% of Americans believe "a stable Iraq" is at least somewhat or very important to U.S. security.

And take a look at the job approval rating for the Democratic Congress - it registers barely above Bush at 33%. It appears that folks like a kick in the balls better than either Bush or Congress. Funny how those parts of the poll never made it into the CBS news coverage...

Hollow Posturing

2007-02-07T12:08:00.000-05:00

Sen. Joe Lieberman was eloquent as ever when speaking on the Senate floor earlier this week against the putrid piece of moral exhibitionism known as the Warner-Levin resolution (which, thankfully, is stalled in the Senate at the moment):

What we say here is being heard in Baghdad by Iraqi moderates, trying to decide whether the Americans will stand with them.
We are being heard by our men and women in uniform, who will be interested to know whether we support the plan they have begun to carry out.
We are being heard by the leaders of the thuggish regimes in Iran and Syria, and by Al Qaeda terrorists, eager for evidence that America’s will is breaking.
And we are being heard across America by our constituents, who are wondering if their Congress is capable of serious action, not just hollow posturing.This resolution is not about Congress taking responsibility.
It is the opposite. It is a resolution of irresolution.

Irresolution, indeed. Sen. Lieberman goes on to point out the inherent contradictions of the Senate's position, should it pass Warner-Levin:

We cannot have it both ways. We cannot vote full confidence in General Petraeus, but no confidence in his strategy. We cannot say that the troops have our full support, but disavow their mission on the eve of battle.
This is what happens when you try to wage war by committee. That is why the Constitution gave that authority to the President as Commander in Chief.

Yes, one Commander in Chief, not 535 of them. If some members of Congress want to vote to defund the war, then have a binding vote on defunding the war. Anything else is "hollow posturing" that undermines our troops, our allies, and our credibility.

Political Compass

2007-02-07T01:18:00.000-05:00

I just took a political test, and I found the results interesting. My graph puts me as more of a social libertarian/economic moderate instead of a true liberal. Wow.

Go here to take the test. How did it turn out?

GARRY ADDS: Here's my graph, it's about what I expected - center right.

Kudos to CBS

2007-02-05T10:15:00.000-05:00

Michelle Malkin had a nice post yesterday about the Baghdad Bowl, a CBS-sponsored flag football game in which two 15-man teams composed of troopers from the 2nd "Black Jack" Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division put on Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears jerseys, serving as a "preview" to last night's Super Bowl. The Baghdad Bowl was the brain-child of All-Pro NFL veteran Randy Cross, who hoped the event would "to bring some degree of normalcy to the troops". The game was played on Feb. 3rd, and the event was indeed a nice boost to the morale of our combat soldiers:

I think it's a really great thing," said Staff Sgt. Michael Rathbun, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, who played for Team Falcon. "Many of us are living out on combat outposts, so it's the first time we've been on a FOB for a while."

During the game, t-shirts and hats provided by CBS were passed out to the crowd by Team Falcon cheerleaders, Spc. Erin Braun and Spc. Shaunette Buntain, both medics with the 15th Brigade Support Battalion....
After the game, the players once again gathered midfield, where Cross presented both team captains with a game ball. Another ball autographed by CBS' entire NFL Today crew, to include NFL greats Dan Marino, Boomer Esiason and Shannon Sharpe, was accepted by Black Jack Brigade Commander Col. Bryan Roberts on behalf of the entire brigade.

Cross himself went to Iraq for the game, and served as the referee. The Colts were represented by troops based in the International Zone, while the Bears were represented by a team from FOB Falcon, which is located in southern Baghdad. And the result? The "Colts" won the Baghdad Bowl, downing the "Bears" 32-25 - not too far off the actual result from last night of 29-17.

"It's not about us or CBS," Cross said, "It's about you guys and getting a chance to come out here and do this for you. We appreciate everything you guys do." Kudos to CBS Sports for sponsoring this event and bringing some fun and normalcy to our soldiers in harm's way.

Holy Sukhoi, Batman

2007-02-02T15:53:00.000-05:00

For many years during the Cold War era Russian tactical fighters were badly outclassed by their American counterparts, as demonstrated every so often when US-built Israeli fighters came up against MiGs supplied to Arab countries by the USSR, resulting in a turkey shoot for the IAF. That time is no more, now that the Russians have the amazing Sukhoi Su-30MK.

A friend shared a video demonstration with me of the Su-30MK's incredible performance capabilities, noting with amazement that "the fighter can stall from high speed, stopping in less than a second. Then it demonstrates an ability to descend tail first without causing a compressor stall. It can also recover from a flat spin in less than a minute. These capabilities probably don't exist in any other aircraft in the world today."

In USAF computer simulations run a few years ago, the Su-30MK beat America's F-15C, our stalwart air superiority fighter, "every time". That's remarkable, given that no enemy has ever shot down an American or Israeli F-15C in combat since the aircraft went into service in 1979. One hopes our F-22 Raptor fares a bit better against the 30MK.

It was global warming in 2005...and 2006?

2007-02-01T16:58:00.000-05:00

The multi-national gaggle of "scientists and bureaucrats" (now there's a fun combo for you) who covened in Paris for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say that "global warming has made stronger hurricanes, including those on the Atlantic Ocean such as 2005's Katrina".

Why then, is there no mention of the 2006 hurricane season, which only produced the paltry sum of five hurricanes (none of which went above Cat. 3 strength), and went by with nary a single Atlantic hurricane landfall on North America? If Katrina is evidence of global warming, then what, pray tell, was the '06 Atlantic (non) hurricane season evidence of?

......sound of crickets chirping in gay Paree.....

D'oh!

2007-01-31T10:47:00.000-05:00

Hoo-boy, Joe Biden has really stepped into it now (emphasis mine):

Mr. Biden is equally skeptical—albeit in a slightly more backhanded way—about Mr. Obama. "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man."

Meaning that other mainstream African-Americans before Obama have been inarticulate, stupid, unwashed, and ugly??

Your presidential hopes, Joe ol' boy, are now "a storybook, man" - as in a Brothers Grimm tale.

(via Drudge)

Royal farce

2007-01-29T13:21:00.000-05:00

Michael Barone has a piece in today's WSJ about the increasing "royalism" of US presidential politics, with two rival families - the Clintons and the Bushs - taking turns in the White House.

But - if the trend continues - Barone presents us with a hideous vision of the future: a 2016 presidential race between Chelsea Clinton and Jenna Bush. Noooooooooooooooo............

It's too bad this isn't a joke

2007-01-27T02:35:00.000-05:00

This is an actual t-shirt that is selling at casualconservative.com . If it was a joke, it would still scare me, but look at the text that is printed with the information on the shirt:

At this point, there are few courses of action that could
save Iran. Maybe Ahmadinejad will give up his quest
for nuclear weapons. Not likely. Or maybe the young
people in Iran, who realize what he is doing to their
country, will overthrow the little terrorist dictator and
save the day. I’m not holding my breath on that one
either. Well shoot…that pretty much leaves us with the
third option, as illustrated on this shirt!

I wish conservatives would learn from the failures in Iraq. It's not enough to talk tough. You need to talk to people as well. Diplomacy is an option, and it's one we haven't tried at all. I hope that we at least have one civil discussion before we bomb Iran. Furthermore, we need to have good intelligence, which we didn't have on Iraq and which we don't seem to have on Iran either. Why don't Bush and Ahmadinejad go have coffee and discuss the needs of the two countries? It might be beneficial; however, I don't think that Bush can pronounce Ahmadinejad. Oh well!

BTW, my blog has turned away from politics, so I plan on posting my political rants here and linking back on my blog. Since I'm on the banner, I need to hold up my end of the outhouse.

Lies, Damn Lies, and MSNBC

2007-01-25T16:58:00.000-05:00

In the past I and others have noted the problematic relationship MSNBC's David Shuster has had with the truth. Yesterday Tom Maguire absolutely destroyed what minimal amount of credibility that "reporter" had left (at least outside the fever swamp of Obermoonbatland). In analyzing Shuster's coverage of the Libby trial, Maguire leads off with:

So often I find myself asking - is it true, or is that a report from David Shuster?

Before the age of blogs, a hack like Shuster could get away with blatant bias and fabrications in their reportage. They still get away with it for the most part, but at least today such distortions of news coverage are documented and available in the public domain.

7 Weird Things

2007-01-24T10:45:00.000-05:00

I have been "TAGGED" by NoSurfGirl, which apparently means I must post 7 weird things about myself. I don't know how this got started or what it's all about, but the fiesty lass has challenged me so I must respond...

7. In 1969 I was with my family visiting relatives in San Antonio, and one night as we drove back from dinner at a pizzeria we sighted a large glowing football-shaped object moving in and out of the scattered clouds in the sky. We were able to keep it in sight all the way back to my grandmother's house; as we drove into her neighborhood we saw that dozens of people had come out into the street from their houses to watch the strange object, which remained in view for about half an hour. Cue "X-Files" music...

6. My first girlfriend in high school was named Sunday Palmer; she is the first and only person I've ever met to be named after a day of the week (ok, it would have been weirder if she'd been named Wednesday Adams, but I don't have a lot to work with here).

5. I put hot sauce (preferably Louisiana Hot Sauce) on nearly everything I eat, be it prime rib, Ahi tuna, Chicken Kiev, or pineapple pizza. I do refrain from adding it to ice cream and cold cereal, however, so again it's not *totally* weird.

4. I met former teen heart-throb Shaun Cassidy while working as an extra on a terrible TV-series spawned by the great movie "Breaking Away". The series (which only lasted 5 or 6 episodes) was set in Bloomington, Indiana, but at the time of filming Bloomington was an Arctic tundra so the show came here to Athens, GA. I could be seen for about 1.6 seconds when the episode that I worked on aired on ABC in late 1980; perhaps they will have more of me when somebody gets around to putting the director's cut of the series on DVD...

3. Speaking of TV, for most of my adult life - especially when I was younger and thinner - many people said I looked like Mr. Bean (Rowland Atkinson). On a trip to Jamaica around 1990, some people I met during a party at our resort was certain beyond a doubt that I was Mr. Bean traveling incognito; no matter how much I tried I couldn't convince them otherwise - I don't even have an English accent, for crying out loud. About seven years ago I was shopping in downtown Vienna, Austria, when a couple walking behind me on the street started talking loudly and gesturing towards me...I had no idea what they were saying since my knowledge of German is pretty much limited to the word "bier", but in about every other sentence I heard the words "Mr. Bean". Of all the famous actors I could have looked like....well, it beats being called "Danny DeVito", I guess.

2. Around 1994 I "led" a protest march in downtown London. The protest was in favor of - you'll never guess it - acid-tripping rave parties. What happened was that my friends and I were walking from our hotel to see the Houses of Parliament, and since I'd been to London before I was leading the way. As we neared Parliament, we saw hundreds of young people assembled in a small park near the street, holding some kind of rally. We didn't pay much attention to it and continued on our way. But a few minutes later as we neared Parliament, I noticed that the crowd of protestors had left the park and were walking directly behind us on the sidewalk. From their signs and chants I could see that they were protesting against recent police crackdowns on illegal rave parties, where all manner of illicit substances were apparently available ("Fight for your right to party" was on some of the placards). A moment later van-loads of police swooped in from all directions and swarms of baton-wielding Bobbies poured out to meet the protestors head-on - and there I was at the very front of the marchers, looking like I was a freaking Leader of these acid-heads. Luckily we were able to run down a side alley at the last second and avoided getting a "wood shampoo", as a friend in the Ga State Patrol likes to put it.

1. Last night I had a dream that I was one of NoSurfGirl's polygamous husbands - it was weird indeed: she was wearing a hot red jumper (which thankfully covered up her hairy legs), and she spent the whole dream cleaning the floors of my house. Can't imagine where that came from....

An Apology

2007-01-23T11:22:00.000-05:00

You may have recently heard that Robert Redford is demanding an apology. Very well, I'll be glad to give him one:

~ I am so very sorry, Mr. Redford, that you think being a Hollywood star makes your facile views on national defense worth listening to.

~ I deeply regret you are moronic enough to believe that "political diversity has been attempted to be thwarted", when every left-wing moonbat in the country has been spewing their bile unabated and at high volume during the last six years (including your own peers, Mr. Redford - Barbara Streisand ring a bell, Bob ol' chum? Michael Moore? Alec Baldwin? Susan Sarandon?).

~ I also sincerely regret you are arrogant enough to imply that people who disagree with you must not possess "a rational mind" or "a sense of decency", even as your own Sundance festival makes a mockery of the concept of decency.

~ And finally, Mr. Redford, I am sincerely sorry that you still cling to sad old '60s rallying cries like "truth to power", and that you are deluded enough to think that such bromides are still cutting edge.

So there's your apology, Mr. Redford. And no need to thank me, I was happy to help.

A Travesty

2007-01-22T10:49:00.000-05:00

An AP story lists the "major players" in Scooter Libby's perjury trial. By Richard Armitage's name we see this:

The judge wants to avoid bogging the trial down on who was responsible for leaking Plame's identity.

Say waaaa?? Finding out who was responsible for leaking Plame's name was how this whole fiasco started. Lefties like my friend Jeff considered the leak to be one of the most damaging security breaches in the annals of espionage, and any number of moonbats out there claimed the leak was nothing less than an act of treason. But now the only criminal prosecution to arise from the investigation of the leak is not going to focus on the leaker in any way?

President Bush should end this travesty and pardon Libby. Right. Frigging. Now.

Baaad Kitty

2007-01-19T10:46:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, there's been a flurry of news (all of it bad) about the avian flu during the past week or so:

~ A deadly new cluster of human cases in Indonesia left four people dead this month

~ Jakarta hospitals are being overwhelmed with patients presenting sypmtoms of the disease

~ Two people who contracted bird flu in Egypt have died even though they were treated with Tamiflu, suggesting that the Egyptian H5N1 strain is resistant to the antiviral drug

~ Over two dozen suspected human cases have been identified in Thailand

~ Thousands of commercial poultry animals have had to be destroyed after the bird flu was found in Japan

~ A new outbreak of the virus has been confirmed at duck farms in Vietnam

~ The virus is also being detected in wild fowl in Hong Kong

~ UN health experts are baffled by this month's spike in H5N1 outbreaks

Perhaps most alarming (to me, anyway) is a report from Indonesia indicating that up to one-fifth of all stray cats in Indonesia are carrying the H5N1 virus. The WHO says that no human cases have yet been linked to infected cats, but it is still worrying that the virus appears to be making the jump to mammals more easily than it has in the past. So think twice before you bring Puss Puss in from the yard...

"They want a chance"

2007-01-18T12:22:00.000-05:00

We've often seen a disconnect between mainstream media coverage of the Iraq war, and the accounts of military people who, you know, are actually there. We had another example yesterday, when Hugh Hewitt spoke on his radio show with a Chief Warrant Officer who's a three-tour veteran of Iraq. The Chief, who's with Army intel, described how the vast majority of Kurds, Sunni, and Shi'a get along together in Iraq, how there are "a lot of relations, marriages, between Sunni and Shia, Kurd and Sunni, Kurd and Shia, interrelations between the different groups".

HH: And Baghdad itself is a network of warrens that sometimes overlap, but are often…you just can’t separate them.
Chris: It’s impossible to separate them. It quite literally is impossible.
HH: All right.
Chris: And in most instances, those people get along quite well.
HH: Yup.
Chris: But we don’t see it in mainstream media, because it’s not popular, it doesn’t sell news. So those are the things that would like to be seen more by us.

The Warrant Officer also describes his strong feelings on the idea of prematurely withdrawing from Iraq:

HH: When you hear people talk about withdrawing and let the chips fall, does that strike you…
Chris: It infuriates me.
HH: Tell me why.
Chris: Because just as in America, Iraq has their bad seeds, their bad eggs, whatever you want to call them. But it’s a minority. It’s a very small percentage, but just like anywhere else, that very small percentage makes the most noise, and therefore, they’re the most noticeable. Most of the Iraqi people that I’ve dealt with would give you the shirt off their back if you ask for it, not even needed it, not wanted it. If you just ask for it, it’s yours. You show interest in something of theirs, it’s yours. They’re very giving, they’re very kind, they’re very smart, and they just, just like us, they want a chance. I’m biased, because I have spent one heck of a lot of time with the Iraqi people. And by and large, they are one heck of a good group of people.

Art imitates un-PC reality

2007-01-16T15:28:00.000-05:00

While I was watching "24" on TV last evening I started to brace myself for the onslaught we shall see in the coming weeks of outraged leftist PC police excoriating the show for having the temerity to portray some Muslims as terrorists intent on killing Americans. Never mind that the show also had Muslim characters who were trying to prevent the terrorist atrocities; in PC Land there are no bad Muslims, only "deeply paranoid" Americans.

Of course, what can one expect when there are so many leftists who cannot or will not recognize that militant radical Islam poses an existential threat to Western democratic society? They refuse to abide such a notion in real life, let alone on a TV drama.

Obviously the vast, overwhelming majority of Muslims reject violence and deplore the ideology of al-Qaeda and other radical terror groups. But the incontrovertible fact remains that while not all Muslims are Jihadists, all Jihadists are Muslims. Sometimes reality isn't as politically correct as we'd like it to be, but there are many followers of Islam who wish to "kill the Americans", and pretending otherwise isn't going to make the threat go away.

The Prince and the Pirates

2007-01-13T11:45:00.000-05:00

Today Drudge links to a strange story about a rogue file-sharing company, The Pirate Bay, which is attempting to buy its own country in order to evade international copyright laws - i.e., the "mirconation" of Sealand.

The story of Sealand is strange enough in its own right. During WWII, the British Royal Navy built a "sea fort" called Roughs Tower just off the southeast coast of Britain, and equipped it with radar, naval guns, and anti-aircraft cannons. A decade after the war ended the Royal Navy abandoned the platform and left it to rot. But in 1967 a character named Paddy Roy Bates from Essex took over the derelict sea fort, moved his family there, and set up a pirate radio station. But other pirate broadcasters also coveted Roughs Tower, and the Bates family had to fight off the invaders with "Molotov cocktails, handguns, and sawn-off shotguns".

The mini naval battles, visible from the nighttime shores of Suffolk, drew the ire of Essex authorities, and Bates was brought to book on firearms charges. But in 1968 an Essex court dismissed the charges, ruling that Roughs Tower was outside of the UK's territorial sea limit, and therefore beyond the reach of British law since it rested in international waters. The emboldened Bates declared the platform to be the sovereign Principality of Sealand, and dubbed himself and his family as the royalty of the new micronation. Eventually "Prince Roy" issued passports for Sealand, and created its own flag, currency, stamps, and even a national anthem.

Now the family of the radio pirate is looking to make a deal with modern-day digital pirates. Prince Roy's "royal heir", his son Prince Michael, is offering to sell Sealand for £100 million, and the Sweden-based Pirate Bay is trying to secure funds for the purchase. What's more, anyone who donates money to the cause can become a "citizen" of Sealand themselves - avast, ye scury Net geeks!

A mixed bag

2007-01-11T14:43:00.000-05:00

I heard some of what I wanted to hear in the President's speech last night regarding Iraq - it wasn't everything I'd hoped for, but it was adequate on the whole. I was especially glad to hear this bit (emphasis mine):

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

I only hope that deeds will follow these words...a couple of B-52 Arclight strikes against terrorist staging areas in Syria and Iran would be a good start. The following should also have been done a long time ago:

To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.

About. Frigging. Time.

I was also pleased with the sobriety of his statements regarding the impact of the changes:

This new strategy will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings, assassinations, or IED attacks. Our enemies in Iraq will make every effort to ensure that our television screens are filled with images of death and suffering. Yet over time, we can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad's residents.

However, I'd hoped for about double the announced increase in troop levels, but this is better than nothing. Moreover, he actually mentioned the very thing I was calling for a couple of days ago:

We can begin by working together to increase the size of the active Army and Marine Corps, so that America has the Armed Forces we need for the 21st century.

But when SecDef Gates announced the proposed increases, he put the number at a paltry 92,000. We need to increase the active duty strength by about 5 times that level, I'd say - but again it's better than nothing. This, by the way, is an issue wholly separate from Iraq, and if the Dems balk at this modest increase then they are even more stupid and irresponsible on national security than I'd feared.

A "moral catastrophe"

2007-01-10T11:35:00.000-05:00

In the comments of my last post below, my friend Jeff implies that the 2006 election was some kind of referendum against the Iraq war. Certainly Iraq was a major issue in the election, but myriad other issues were at play as well, including conservative dissatisfaction with the big-spending Republican Congress. To the assertion that the last election was primarily a rebuke to the Bush Administration on the war, I have two words: Joe Lieberman.

Running as an independent, the pro-war Lieberman thrashed a liberal Democrat in a liberal Democratic state who was running on a strong anti-war platform. If Americans were so intensely anti-war, Lieberman would not be returning to the Senate this month.

Speaking of Lieberman, the good Senator had an eloquent op-ed in the WaPo recently about the calamity that a premature U.S. withdrawl from Iraq would bring:

As the hostile regimes in Iran and Syria appreciate -- at times, it seems, more keenly than we do -- failure in Iraq would be a strategic and moral catastrophe for the United States and its allies. Radical Islamist terrorist groups, both Sunni and Shiite, would reap victories simultaneously symbolic and tangible, as Iraq became a safe haven in which to train and strengthen their foot soldiers and Iran's terrorist agents. Hezbollah and Hamas would be greatly strengthened against their moderate opponents. One moderate Palestinian leader told me that a premature U.S. exit from Iraq would be a victory for Iran and the groups it is supporting in the region. Meanwhile, the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have bravely stood with us in the hope of a democratic future would face the killing fields.

More troops needed...across the board

2007-01-08T11:54:00.000-05:00

At our monthy drill over the weekend I was able to meet with my friend Captain Jim, who has recently returned from a stint working with the J2 at CENTCOM in Iraq. Capt. Jim says that additional combat soldiers are definitely needed in Iraq (and President Bush is apparently going to announce a troop increase this evening). More than that, however, he noted there is an urgent need to bolster manpower across all the armed forces. Today we have less than 1.5 million men and women in active duty service; during the 1980s the U.S. had over 3.5 million uniformed active duty servicepeople.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, foolish politicans from both parties proclaimed a "peace dividend", and the military was gutted during the 1990s. Today we are still paying the price for this "holiday from history", and the present overall active duty strength (or lack thereof) has made President Bush reluctant to increase the occupation force in Iraq, since it will mean sending units for a third tour of duty in Iraq.

Tonight Bush will announce more troop deployments to Iraq, but will he call for a major increase in personnel authorizations overall? Doubtfull; he has shown no sign of doing this in the past six years, and with the Democrats holding Congress it's now even less likely to happen. Our long "holiday from history" continues...

UPDATE: Got my dates confused; Bush's address will be Wednesday evening. This afternoon I had the displeasure of catching that execrable asshat Ted Kennedy yammering on about the bill he's introducing to deny funds for any troop increase in Iraq. Well good, let's get the members of Congress on record - who is in favor of winning the war, and who is not?

New look, same ol' crap

2007-01-03T15:00:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas & New Year's. As you may have noticed, the Den is undergoing some cosmetic changes, which are still in progress. But fear not, the half-baked nonsense you've come to know and love will remain as ever. Check back during the coming week or two as the Den finalizes its new look!

Happy Holidays

2006-12-19T10:06:00.000-05:00

Blogging will be light for the next week as I'm headed for the airport shortly to fly out to San Antonio and spent the X-mas holidays with family (and doubtless have a margarita or two on the Riverwalk). Have a Merry Christmas!!

Bali redux?

2006-12-18T13:58:00.001-05:00

Last month Indian intelligence warned of a possible al-Qaeda plot in the resort area of Goa, patterned after the horrific nightclub bombings in Bali in 2002:
A few weeks ago the Union Home Ministry issued a terror alert warning of Bali-like bombing in Goa, and the danger it seems is far from over.
Sources tell NDTV that two Al-Qaeda terrorists, an Algerian and a Yemeni, carried out a recce and dry runs of attacks in Goa some time ago and are likely to return and carry out an attack, possibly with help from modules in India.
Sources say that the two terrorists conducted recces of Goa's beaches and even dry runs for attacks on popular hotels and nightclubs like Tito's and Cabana.
Their likely targets are tourists from Israel and Western Europe.
Now Israel's government is telling its citizens to get the hell out of Goa:
Thousands of Israelis visiting the popular Indian resort of Goa, many of them freshly out of the army, have been urged to return home immediately amid warnings of an al-Qaida terrorist plot.
Yet despite the warnings from Israel and from India's own intelligence services, the local government is downplaying the threat:
Chief Minister Pratapsing Rane has dismissed Al Qaeda threat to Goa and assured that the State “is safe for tourists and stringent security measures were in place to protect them. The authorities have taken all possible steps to ensure security...There is no reason to fear.
No no, musn't scare the tourists - especially at the height of the tourist season. As the Jawa Report (which is banned in India, by the way) says, "Word of advice to India: Israeli intelligence is perhaps the best in the world. When they give you a warning, take it."

Never again?

2006-12-15T10:29:00.000-05:00

Hugh Hewitt has a transcript of a chat he had on his radio show with Mark Steyn this week; as usual Steyn is both funny and sobering. Part of the discussion involved the recent "academic" conference in Iran composed of Holocaust-deniers; Steyn notes that it took anti-Semitism to an insane new level: "But to take it beyond that, as Ahmadinejad, so to say, you don't like Jews, but to deny this central event in 20th Century history, I think, is a stage beyond that, because that's not just hatred, that's also a kind of madness."

Steyn then goes on to note how hollow the words "Never again" have become:

HH: Mark Steyn, our friend James Lileks has written, "It'll all make horrible sense in retrospect."

MS: Yes, and I think that's right. I think one of the horrible and contemptible aspects of our generation is that we're posers. You know, after 1945, everybody said never again. It's chiseled on the markers in front of concentration camps all over Europe. Never again. Never again. And we thought those words meant something. And in fact, the never again event turns up all the time. It turns up in Rwanda. It turns up in Darfur. it turns up when we sit by and listen to people like Ahmadinejad pledging to wipe Israel off the face of the map. And we think that that is just like a kind of rhetorical ploy in the opening of negotiations. We don't understand that he does mean it, that he wants a world, and certainly a Middle East, but preferably a world, without Jews. And I think we are morals posers, and these are perhaps the most hollow words of our time, those words, never again.

HH: And as is, I think, increasingly hollow, the support that we had for the Cedar Revolution, as Hezbollah becomes more and more belligerent, and less and less inclined to do anything other than bring down the government of Lebanon.

MS: Yes, and I think there is a...Hezbollah is really a kind of model for the future, that you will have these institutions that prey on weak states, and take over sections of weak states, and yet have all the advantages of not being a state entity with the responsibility that imposes. One of the most disgusting things about this settlement of the Israeli-Hezbollah war, as it was, is that you had the U.N., and you have European nations, and other nations effectively treating Hezbollah as a quasi-state entity. And who's fault is that? I mean, the U.N. gave the PLO, a terrorist organization, a seat at the United Nations. In a sense, we have made this rod for our own back.

An Iranian terrorist group is in the process of destroying a democratic country, while at the same time the Iranian government denies the original Holocaust even as it sets out to create a new Holocaust - this time with the benefit of nuclear weapons. And the world does...nothing. "Never again" could well become, "Ok, never never again - we really mean it this time - honest".

International "asylum"

2006-12-12T10:31:00.000-05:00

How good it is that we are soon to be rid of that incompetent jackass at the United Nations, Kofi Annan. His execrable valedictory op-ed in yesterday's WaPo encapsulates everything wrong with his tenure as the UN's Secretary General - his bleating for "accountability" even after he and others in the UN did everything they could to obstruct any accountability in the Oil for Food scandal; his decrying of genocide without a single mention of the UN's disgraceful and deadly inaction in Rwanda and Srebrenica; his facile statements about "respect for human rights" even though under his tenure paragons of liberty such as Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and Cuba ascended to the UN's Commission on Human Rights, and his chastising of the United States for being "aloof", even as the U.S. is spending enormous blood and treasure around the world to fight an existential struggle against a fascist anti-democratic ideology. One of Kofi's lasting legacies will be the $2 billion boondoggle for the "renovation" of the UN complex in New York. Guess who will be forced to pony up the bulk of that $2 billion? Those "aloof" Americans, of course.

Just one of the many gems from Kofi's piece: "Developing countries should have a stronger voice in international financial institutions". Sure Kofi, by all means lets give corrupt third-world kleptocrats the keys to the international vault. Brilliant.

Thirty years ago Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Democratic Senator who formerly served as our UN Ambassador, described the United Nations as "a theater of the absurd, a decomposing corpse, and an insane asylum." Nothing has changed in three decades, although at least the asylum is about to lose its leading inmate.

Forgotten Heroes

2006-12-07T13:34:00.000-05:00

Few people have heard of the merchant ship S.S. Cynthia Olson, which was sunk by a Japanese submarine 65 years ago today - December 7, 1941, the day of the Pearl Harbor attack. The unarmed steam schooner was ferrying Army supplies to Honolulu, Hawaii from Tacoma, Washington when it came under attack several hours before the Imperial Japanese Navy raided Pearl Harbor. The Cynthia Olson was the first US-flagged merchantman to be sunk by the Japanese in World War II. All 33 seamen aboard were lost, along with two US Army servicemen who were riding along.

Those 33 men were not even the first among the many in the US Merchant Marines who would give their lives during WWII; over a year earlier a merchant mariner serving on the S.S. City of Rayville drowned when the ship sank after striking a German mine off the Australian coast.

Between 6,000 to 8,000 Merchant Marines became casualties of war as they carried critical supplies across hostile seas, and 11,000 others were wounded - one out of every 26 of those who served as merchant mariners died in the line of duty, making theirs the most dangerous out of all the services during that conflict.

So as we rightly remember those lost at Pearl Harbor today, also take a moment to remember the forgotten heroes aboard the Cynthia Olson.

Bull Crap Series

2006-12-04T08:48:00.000-05:00

As a Georgia Bulldogs fan, I have little love for the Florida Gators - but, they probably are more deserving of the No. 2 slot in the BCS and a trip to the national championship game than Michigan, who already had their crack at Ohio State and lost. Still, the controversy this year again highlights what an idiotically flawed system college football's Bowl Championship Series is. Pat Forde at ESPN nails it:

The voters have spoken. Between Gator chomps, here's what they said:

Never mind.

Never mind what we did the last couple of weeks, voting Michigan ahead of Florida. We've changed our minds because, hey, we can.

Because the rematch thing suddenly became too real. Because when Urban Meyer politicks, we listen. Because we thought it was time to throw the embittered SEC a bone after stonewalling Auburn's national title bid two years ago.

We thought the Wolverines were better than Florida back in November -- and even though Michigan hasn't played a down of football since Nov. 18, we've decided that we don't think so anymore. We were dazzled by the Gators' work since that date: a seven-point victory over Florida State and a 10-point win over Arkansas. And we decided that Ohio State-Michigan was not in need of a sequel.

That's our story and we're sticking to it. Now if you'll excuse us, we'd like to put our fake nose and glasses back on and return to anonymity. These publicized ballots make us more accountable than we'd prefer. Goodbye.

To put an end to this nonsense, Captain Ed proposes a 16-team tournament, using the current BCS ranking system to set the seedings. Good plan - which has about as much chance of happening as a Danish cartoonist convention being held in Mecca.

Hooterville

2006-11-30T10:37:00.000-05:00

My friend Joe Dog in the Czech Republic photoblogged a trip to Vienna he took last week. Reminded me of when I visited Vienna about six years ago; it's one of the most gorgeous cities in all of Europe, and every street bursts with history. But I remember being taken aback when I saw an unexpected piece of Americana in the middle of one of Vienna's beautiful old shopping districts, just across the Danube from the amazing Belvedere Palace - a Hooters Restaurant, for crying out loud.

Vienna gave us Mozart, the Lippizzaners, and canned sausages. America gave Vienna spicy chicken wings, cheap beer, and scantily-clad waitresses. A fair trade, I'd say...

Yackety-yack

2006-11-28T09:52:00.000-05:00

Is there anyone out there who will be even remotely surprised by this?

Women talk three times as much as men, says study

Blog Blitzkrieg

2006-11-27T12:01:00.000-05:00

I stopped by Technorati this morning and noticed that the number one search term across the entire blogosphere today is Studivz. My first thought was, "WTF is Studivz?"

The Technorati search brings up thousands of German-language blogs. Since my knowledge of German is pretty much limited to bier and Einbahn (two words that stand out in my brain from a pair of visits to Germany a decade ago - one is useful for drinking and the other for driving; just don't do both at the same time). But a little Googling solves the mystery: StudiVZ "is a German-based social-network platform for university students", according to Kasi-Blog, which offers an English-language StudiVZ Encyclopedia for the uninitiated. The website, which boasts a million members, is apparently a carbon copy of the popular Facebook networking service.

But why is StudiVZ causing such a blogstorm among our Deutsch-speaking friends? There are various reasons, mainly involving poor site performance, questionable business practices, controversial actions by the site's founders, and, most disturbingly, the discovery of a stalker group within StudiVZ composed of men who hack into the personal information of young frauleins. The administrators of StudiVZ apparently did nothing to prevent data-privacy violations by members of the group.

So now we know why German bloggers are on the rampage. And once again it shows how much faster the blogosphere can get on top of a story than the dino-media.

UPDATE: StudiVZ went offline today, apparently the victim of a worm attack.

Quick Bites

2006-11-22T09:50:00.000-05:00

Since we'll all be filling up tomorrow with a Turkey Day repast, here are some quick tidbits that won't leave you bloated before the holiday:

~ Gateway Pundit has a major roundup of news related to the appalling assassination of Lebanese leader Pierre Gemayel, who dared to raise his voice against Syria.

~ A deadly no-knock search in Atlanta - three cops shot, and a 92 year-old woman dead. As the Instapundit says, no-knock raids "should only occur when there's reason to believe that lives are in immediate jeopardy".

~ The US Embassy in Turkey warns of the "potential for violence" related to an upcoming visit to Turkey by Pope Benedict XVI. Radical Muslims are still hot about the Pope making a statement that obliquely related Islam to violence, so it looks like Turks are planning to riot in the streets during the visit - that'll show the Pope that Muslims aren't violent!

~ A Marine who disgraced his uniform is brought to justice. That's the difference between us and the Jihadists - when one of ours illegally kills an Iraqi civilian, he's thrown in prison. When one of theirs kills an Iraqi civilian, its videotaped and used as propaganda.

~ You Stargate geeks out there know that an evil alien named Apophis tried to destroy the earth. Now NASA is worried about an asteroid of the same name that could pose an existential threat to our planet in 2029 or 2036. Somebody call Jack O'Neill!

~ The major media appear to have lost interest in the bird flu, but H5N1 doesn't seem to care. Recently there have been new outbreaks of the virus in Egypt, Somalia, Indonesia, and Sudan, and a low path strain of H5N1 is now showing up in wild fowl across parts of the United States. Hope that doesn't spoil anyone's appetite for turkey on Thursday...

Dude, Here's My Draft

2006-11-20T11:13:00.000-05:00

Last month I had a post (Dude, Where's My Draft?) about a scare tactic used by the Democrats in the 2004 election - namely, that the evil Republicans were secretly planning to bring back military conscription after the election. It never happened, of course, because the whole thing was a lie to being with.

But now we have a Democratic Congress, and one of the top Democrats in the House, Rep. Charles Rangel, is planning to use his new clout as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee to bring back the draft.

The liberal scare mongering in 2004 amounted to "Vote Republican, Get Drafted". The possible reality in 2006 is "Voted Democrat, Getting Drafted".

30 Years of Hell

2006-11-17T11:01:00.000-05:00

Related to the post earlier this week about the need for able criminal defense lawyers, the NY Times today has a stomach-churning story about gross abuse of police powers by the federal government.

Hat Tip: Instapundit

A Suggestion for Fox News--Hannity and Corn!

2006-11-15T18:29:00.000-05:00

Garry's post today about Hannity and Colmes made me remember an idea I had some time ago. I meant to blog about it then, but I didn't.

The idea stems from the absolutely ludicrous pairing of Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes to do a political talking heads show. Hannity is conservative to the bone, loud, fiery, arrogant, and never wrong (just ask him!). Colmes, on the other hand, is moderate, soft spoken, not contentious, and beholden--most of the time--to Hannity's ideas.

Al Franken discusses this pair at length in his book Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, which must be experienced in audiobook, btw, and claims (I haven't gone through the trouble of checking this) that Hannity got to pick his partner for the show. If that's the case, I can see why Colmes is on the show. His quiet demeanor makes him easier to bully. However, if Franken's claim is false, FOX made a bad choice.

Why have a political debate show that is so obviously one-sided? Why have one member of the team, the liberal, be such a wimp? If FOX really wants to have a balanced show where true debate can take place, I suggest they replace Colmes with FOX analyst David Corn, a true liberal and a cocky fireball in his own right. Now that would be a debate show that I'd tune in to watch. Perhaps FOX is too worried that they would have a fist fight on the air if they left these two alone together for too long, or (and far more probable) Hannity is worried that with a loud, take-no-prisoners liberal at his side, he might not be able to push his uber-conservative agenda at will and, of course, that Corn might make him cry (*grin*).

I say we get this idea rolling around the blogs and see what happens. Maybe FOX will listen...maybe.

In Defense of Defenders

2006-11-15T10:55:00.000-05:00

While watching Hannity & Colmes on Fox News last evening (no link, couldn't find a transcript), I was aghast to witness both the conservative Hannity and the liberal Colmes lambaste a criminal defense attorney for - well, doing his job. More specifically, he's apparently doing his job too well and has had some success in getting accused pedophiles off the hook.

H&C tore into the attorney for "making the system work for the guilty". HELLO?? Our system is supposed to work especially for the guilty. In this country the burden of proof is on the state, not on the defendant, which is as it should be - if the state cannot make its case to sufficiently convince a jury of a fellow citizen's guilt, that's just too bad. Sometimes scumbags go free, but when this happens it should serve to motivate law enforcement and prosecutors to do a better job in accumulating evidence legally and presenting a more compelling case next time around. If the state starts to cut corners to imprison the guilty (rather, those believed to be guilty), it puts all of us at risk.

Criminal defense lawyers are all that stand between individual Americans and the unbridled police powers of the state, and I thank God that we have such dedicated professionals around to advocate for the accused - who are, at least in our justice system (are you listening, H&C?), entitled to the presumption of innocence.

"Women enjoy being deprived of their free will"

2006-11-14T13:45:00.000-05:00

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has posted an op-ed piece by a Saudi columnist, Maha Al-Hujailan, who finds himself at a loss to explain why many Muslim women not only embrace the abaya garment - and, by extension, the "humiliation" and "submission" that it represents - but have worked to "create new and more complicated garments which would confine her more than ever before". The male author of the article, which appeared in the Saudi newspaper Arab News last week, relates a very interesting tale about an American woman who donned an abaya as a display of solidarity with Muslims after 9/11; to her amazement she was criticized by Saudis for not displaying the properly sumbissive behavior that wearing of the abaya requires. He then asks the following:

"...how did men succeed in convincing women to transform the free personality that Allah endowed them with into enslaved characters wearing an abaya? The process was not simply a mental one. It was a combination of emotional factors which were cleverly exploited. Men used women’s weaknesses to make women believe that an important part of the male-female relationship was the man loving the weak and submissive elements of a woman’s nature. He then named these elements respect, honor and correct behavior. These do not exist objectively but can only be explained according to the individual man’s desire and will - in other words, a totally subjective conception.
What is strange is that women accepted the idea and were soon submitting themselves to the prison of the garment, the walking slowly, the looking only straight ahead - just to fulfill, it seems, what men imagined the abaya to be all about.

The author goes on to say that this apparently is "part of a strange phenomenon in which women enjoy being deprived of their free will."

While the sexist attitudes are certainly implicit in the Saudi author's reasoning, the underlying premise - that "the abaya makes women appear humiliated, submissive, and blindly obedient to men", and that this has negative social consequences - gives one hope that male attitudes towards the role of females in Saudi society could be changing.

Now if we can only keep these crazy broads from enjoying their subjugation...(joking, folks, JUST JOKING).

Shocking, offensive, disgusting...

2006-11-13T10:29:00.000-05:00

...and absolutely hilarious. Borat movie is making most glorious funny of all film this year, great success!

Wake-up Call

2006-11-08T12:44:00.000-05:00

Well, my prediction for Election Day wasn't too far off (although there are still some undecided races in the House & Senate at this moment). Lots of people will be doing post-mortems today on the Republican loss, but Glenn Reynolds did a pre-mortem last month that I think covers all the Repubs' problems pretty well.

Bottom line is that, although the Democrats really didn't deserve to win, the Republicans very much deserved to lose. I'm in agreement with Roger L. Simon, who said today that "I'm not especially looking forward to Speaker Pelosi. But then I wasn't especially impressed by Speaker Hastert either (putting it mildly)." Let this serve as a wake-up call to Republican Party: giving people the choice between a big-spending, big-government party and a big-spending, big-government party is not a choice at all.

Super Mario

2006-11-07T11:14:00.000-05:00

We had a great time at the Ft. Stewart FTX this past weekend, although I was a little surprised when I returned to see the gaggle of barking moonbats that my post from last Friday attracted. One of the highlights of the trip was getting to spend time with one of the finest men I know, my fellow PAO team member Mario de Carvalho (the mustachioed chap standing next to me). Mario is a veteran cameraman with CBS News, who has covered combat zones around the world for decades. While embedded with the 3rd ID, his CBS crew was the first news crew to reach Baghdad Airport during Operation Iraqi Freedom. His journalistic travels have spanned the Balkans war to rioting in Haiti to Hurricane Katrina, but even before that he saw combat while in the US military as a special forces operator in far flung realms. Mario has witnessed things that few people on the planet ever imagine - or even want to imagine - seeing.

But Mario never dwells on the tragic side of his job, and instead will regale you with hours of side-splitting stories. Although originally a native of Portugal, I'd put Mario's love of his adopted country, the United States, above that of any of the troopers I have ever met. His bravery is only matched by his loyalty, and I'm proud to call him my friend.

New York Times: Bush DIDN'T Lie

2006-11-03T09:51:00.000-05:00

I'm off to Fort Stewart shortly for a field exercise this weekend, but I'll have more to say on Monday about today's big story in the NYT today. Although the Times meant this article to be a slam against the Bush administration for releasing dangerous info (that's a laugh in itself - the NYT being against the release of harmful classified material), the story actually bolsters Bush's case that Saddam had extensive ties to terrorism and that Iraq's nuclear program posed a serious threat.

Captain Ed has a must read post on the subject - a sample:

[The NYT article] appears to indicate that by invading in 2003, we followed the best intelligence of the UN inspectors to head off the development of an Iraqi nuke. This intelligence put Saddam far ahead of Iran in the nuclear pursuit, and made it much more urgent to take some definitive action against Saddam before he could build and deploy it. And bear in mind that this intelligence came from the UN, and not from the United States. The inspectors themselves developed it, and they meant to keep it secret. The FMSO site blew their cover, and they're very unhappy about it.

The Right Wing and Slippery Slopes

2006-10-31T23:10:00.000-05:00

I'm going to track back to my blog a bit since I just opened it. My latest post is about slippery slope propaganda on right-wing websites.

Go have a look.

Cheers,
Jeff

Kerry disses the troops - again

2006-10-31T15:50:00.000-05:00

We really shouldn't be surprised at John Kerry's latest insult against American troops, given his decades-long animus towards the US military - going all the way back to 1971 and his Winter Soldier lies. But for him to say something so monumentally offensive just days before the critical mid-term elections simply boggles the mind. Probably the only person happier than Karl Rove right now must be Hillary Clinton.

UPDATE: In response to Kerry's non-apology apology, Dick Cheney had this very funny line: "Of course, now Senator Kerry says he was just making a joke, and he botched it up. I guess we didn't get the nuance. He was for the joke before he was against it." And via Michelle Malkin, soldiers in Iraq deliver a hilarious plea to Sen. Kerry:

Multifaceted Jeff

2006-10-30T10:47:00.000-05:00

As you can see in the post below, Jeff has a new blog home: The Multifaceted Me. I've updated my blog links accordingly. Jeff promises that the "content will be all over the spectrum–politics, books, writing, philosophy, religion, ethics, teaching, etc". Jeff's new blog features a sharp-looking layout, and he even promises some podcasting in the future!

In his most recent post, concerning the current woes of the Philadelphia Eagles, Jeff asks the buring question "Where is the smile on McNabb’s face?" Well, it's hard to smile when the Jaguars defense has you face down in the dirt all day...

Confessions of a Mormon Liberal: I'm Moving!!!

2006-10-28T18:47:00.000-04:00

I'm opening a new blog. Please read this post at my old blog to get filled in.

Confessions of a Mormon Liberal: I'm Moving!!!

Also, read the introduction at the new blog.

Enjoy,
Jeff

More Euro-denial

2006-10-27T09:57:00.000-04:00

Today marks the first anniversary of the ~~youth~~ Muslim rioting that swept France last fall. The rioting also spread to Belgium last year - but, like the French, it seems the Belgian government prefers not to hear politically incorrect truths about the intifada in its midst, and instead of confronting the problem it simply threatens people who dare speak this truth - people such as Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal. In the interview below, Belien describes how he and others in Belgium have faced threats of legal action for writing about what he calls a "civil war" brewing in the heart of Europe.

UPDATE: Via Joe Noory of No Pasaran, we learn of The Great Euro Thought Crime:

Galician blogger Alejandro de Llano has told in his blog that he has been charged with the great crime of supporting Israel and being against the Palestinian people.

Says Lady Vorzheva from Spain at the Toasted Bread blog, "It is unbelievable that someone is charged with this kind of crime in modern and democratic Spain." Unbelievable indeed - welcome to Europastan, where free thought is becoming illegal.

A decade of alertness

2006-10-25T11:12:00.000-04:00

This week the UN's top official on avian flu pandemic planning, Dr. David Nabarro, said that the "bird flu virus can reside in flocks for long periods of time, showing no symptoms, before spreading to new areas via trade or migration", and warned that governments needed to remain on alert for a pandemic 5 to 10 more years.
"There are probables in there. There are certainties in there. But the one absolute requirement on the basis of this is, we have to get prepared for the pandemic."
Will health agencies of the world (and the taxpayers who support them) retain sufficient focus to remain on alert for pandemic H5N1 over such an extended period? See you in 2016...I hope.

The Fantasy Caliph

2006-10-24T12:44:00.000-04:00

Over at Iraq the Model, Mohammed is mocking al-Qaeda's recent declaration of an Islamic state in Iraq, saying "Of course I did not expect an improvement in electricity, security or other services but I was at least expecting a change in life style under the leadership of the new caliph Abu Omar al-Baghdadi (Abu who??)":

al-Qaeda is left with nothing but to fantasize about creating a caliph state as long as they still have a foothold in the country and hope that some locals would change their mind and side with them.

And as long as a weak-kneed Democratic party doesn't take over the House next month, Mohammed should have added.

A minor detail

2006-10-22T11:52:00.000-04:00

One of the authors of the bogus Johns Hopkins study on Iraqi civilian casualties, Les Roberts, is not just a partisan Democrat, but ran as a Democratic candidate for Congress earlier this year in New York state. According to Tim Blair, not a single news story on the study also mentions the fact that Roberts was a Democratic politician. Here's Roberts as he bowed out of the race in May:

"I think it’s critically important that we elect a Democrat and that Democrats take control of the House of Representatives."

"You’d think this might be worth noting" says Blair. Yes, you'd think.

Laz-Z-Drunk-Boy

2006-10-20T09:51:00.000-04:00

Just stumbled across this must-have piece of furniture for the weekend football addict: the Cool La-Z-Boy Chair, which is purportedly "more comfy than the bosom of a Scandinavian princess". It features a built-in telephone, a six-motor massage system, a built-in lumbar heating system, and - get this - a built-in mini fridge that can hold up to six cans of frosty beverages.

Just park it in front of the TV and put Domino's Pizza on speed-dial - you'll never have to get off your lazy ass again.

Speak truth to power? Non!

2006-10-19T11:38:00.000-04:00

As we listen to demented liberals spew idiotic, hysterical hyperbole about George Bush turning America into a police state, PJ Media reports on a shocking court decision that tramples free speech rights in France:

Philippe Karsenty, founder of Media Bistro, has been found liable and fined for “insulting” Charles Enderlin and France2 in the matter of the controversial Mohammed Al Dura video. This video, produced by Enderlin and promulgated by France 2, has been deemed a fake and called the Father of All Fauxtography. This was barely disputed at the trial and yet Karsenty was still found liable for saying so. Historian Richard Landes, who has been following this case for some time, has more.
Truth should be a bulletproof defense against charges of libel, but apparently in France the truth doesn't matter - that is, if it's a politically-incorrect truth that embarrasses the government (France 2 is state-owned) and angers a vocal Muslim constituency.

Liberals who say America should emulate European political and social models should really be careful what they wish for, lest their imagined fears about the loss of our rights becomes reality.

le monde a l'envers

2006-10-18T12:59:00.000-04:00

A family friend we call "Joe Dog" (long story) has started a new blog, which I'm putting on my list of blog links here. Joe Dog has recently started an English teaching job in the Czech Republic, so we'll look forward to reading about his adventures over there. He emails that his blog "may end up being boring, or pretentious, but I’ll try to avoid that, mainly by limiting myself to only one use of the words 'quasi-epistemological' and 'love' per month".

In one of his first blog postings, Joe lets us know that "It’s the second night of říjen — literally 'the month of the rutting season' in Czech." I've never been to the Czech Republic, but if they have an entire season devoted to rutting, I'll have to make the trip sometime...

Dude, Where's My Draft?

2006-10-17T10:50:00.000-04:00

As we fast approach the 2006 elections, I recently remembered one of the issues that liberals were trying to push in the 2004 elections - namely, the supposedly imminent return of a military draft. Leftists assured us that if Bush and the Repubs won the 2004 election, a draft would be instated soon thereafter. CBS News even pushed a scare story on the possibility of a draft just weeks before the Nov. 2004 elections, basing the story upon patently phony emails that were circulating at the time (another feather in the cap of the "fake but accurate" network). Democrats and the Kerry-Edwards campaign pushed the issue all that fall, vowing "There will be no draft when John Kerry is president".

The issue was probably promoted most prominently by MTV's "Rock the Vote" campaign, which ostensibly is a "non-partisan organization" dedicated to promote youth participation in politics, but in reality mainly served as a device to push the draft issue as a scare tactic. RTV joined forces with something called Alliance for Security, a liberal anti-war activist organization.

We were promised a draft sometime in early 2005 if the evil Repubs won - so what happened? The main problem is that the whole thing was a lie from the start. The premise was that Washington would have no choice but to bring back the draft due to a supposed "crisis in retention and recruitment" - a notion that was (and continues to be) utterly false.

Moreover, there was never any possibility of a draft being reinstated because the key players who could make it happen are 100% against it - the Pentagon doesn't want it, the Bush administration doesn't want it, and the Congress doesn't want it. Indeed, when the issue came up for a vote in the House during 2004, the only legislators who supported bringing back the draft were Democrats.

Liberals constantly level the charge that Republicans cynically use fear to motivate voters. Recall the non-issue of the draft the next time you hear that tired canard.

Quick hits for the weekend...

2006-10-13T15:53:00.000-04:00

Murder? Give me a break. If you place yourself between two armed forces in the middle of a war, there's a pretty good chance you might get hit. Hellllloooo?

"DARFUR IS JUST RWANDA IN SLOW MOTION". And you can count on the UN's response to be in even slower motion.

The question is asked, "Why was the Ashcroft Justice Department so afraid of prosecuting Sandy Berger that it pled down to a fine so small that even the judge was offended?" One of the stranger mysteries of our times.

Lancent's looney math: 547 = 654,965.

What happened to the 'global test'? "The six-party approach is the one that Kerry, an avowed mulitlateral(ist), certainly would be advocating if he possessed an ounce of intellectual honesty."

RCP on spin and expectations: "So what happens if we wake up Wednesday morning after the election and the Democrats have failed to take either chamber on Capitol Hill?"

Neal Boortz says we should check out the Redneck Scrap Book.

Steyn gets the last word: "I very much doubt, despite the expertise with which the sheep have been rounded up and set baa-ing, that Showtime at the Foley Bergere will pay off in November."

Mo' money

2006-10-11T15:09:00.000-04:00

A bit of good news today, amid stories of perverted page poachers and bomb-building bozos: US budget revenues are way up, with FY2006 revenues at $2.407 trillion, the highest in history - continued proof that, counter-intuitively (at least if you're a liberal) broad tax cuts bring in more money to the Treasury, not less.

Now if only Republicans, the so-called party of fiscal constraint, could bring themselves to meaningfully cut spending, which is also at its highest point in history.

Whoops, spoke too soon about today being a good news day, even as I type: a helicopter has struck an NYC highrise, although it does not appear to be terrorist attack - yet. Watching the live video of the smoke over Manhattan is a bit of a kick in the gut, though.

And they call "The Daily Show" fake news!!

2006-10-09T22:22:00.000-04:00

Hat tip to Crooks and Liars:
Bill O'Reilly ran this picture on his show last week 3 times. Do you notice a problem with it? Yup, that's it. Foley's a Republican, not a Democrat as denoted by the little "D" by his name in the O'Reilly spot. Now, I can understand a mistake--news organizations are entitled to make a few. However, to put the picture up three times in two different segments is beyond just a little mistake. In addition, considering all the fallout from the Foley scandal, wouldn't it be nice for Mr. O'Reilly to try and pin it on the dems?

In another FOX moment, Republican senator Lincoln Chafee, who's down in the polls to his Democratic challenger was mistakenly labeled a Democrat on "The Beltway Boys." Given the earlier problems with Foley's picture on O'Reilly, it begs the question if FOX is trying to help Republicans by mislabeling politicians. It also leads one to ask if they would have correctly labeled Chafee if he had been leading in the polls instead of losing.

And they call Jon Stewart fake news!

Jeff

Take that, Hans Brix!

2006-10-09T15:56:00.000-04:00

So North Korea not only has The Bomb but has set one off, in spite of all the huffing and puffing by the "international community". Beware, Kim Jong-Il - your reckless actions will bring dire consequences in the form of, er...more huffing and puffing.

Is anyone surprised by this in the least? The "Dear Leader" knows full well that he has nothing to fear from the United Nations. Like his puppet counterpart in 'Team America: World Police', Kim views the UN with nothing but contempt, and one really can't blame him. The only player that has any leverage over the DPRK is China. Unless the Chinese put the screws to Pyongyang, Kim Jong-Il can continue doing anything he wishes till doomsday - and he knows it. As for the UN? They can sleep with the fishes.

UPDATE: A dud of a test? I hope Captain Ed is right, but even if he is, the DPRK's scientists can learn from their failures and do better next time - assuming they're not thrown in the shark tank with Hans...

UPDATE II: If it was a suitcase nuke, then the test was not so much a dud after all (via Pajamas Media).

UPDATE III: Sen. John McCain guest-blogs over at Captain Ed's and says that Iran is watching the UN's reaction (or lack thereof) to the DPRK's nuke test very closely:

This isn’t just about North Korea. Iran is watching this test of the Council’s will, and our decisions will surely influence their response to demands that they cease their nuclear program. Now, we must, at long last, stop reinforcing failure with failure.

The Pyramid of Europastan

2006-10-08T11:40:00.000-04:00

A few days ago the Overseas Security Advisory Council issued a presentation called 'Islamic Radicalization in Western Europe', which describes the "emerging threat" of homegrown radical Islamist cells (what OSAC calls "Resident Autonomous Cells"), composed of 2nd and 3rd generation Muslims recruited and trained within Western Europe. The presentation mainly covers what steps private sector organizations operating in Europe should do to protect their interests, but it also offers an interesting graphic that illustrates how the "radical identity" is created:

Apparently it all begins with "individual alienation" - which, one can argue, stems from the ill-conceived multicultural model that has been promoted by European governments. These 2nd and 3rd generation Muslim immigrants have not assimilated into their host countries, and thus do not define their personal identities in terms of their nationality. They grow up isolated within their own immigrant communities, and since they have little contact with the broader national culture, they have no allegiance to its values and norms.

As we go further up the pyramid, this "seclusion" contributes to the radicalization of the individual. One way to combat this is to aggresively promote - and defend - Western values, thus countering the lies of the Jihadist "gatekeepers". Else, the danger of Europe becoming Europastan increases as the Western European identity is weakened by suicidal multiculturalism. As the Italian legislator Marcello Pera said last year,

This issue concerns our identity and our will to defend it with all peaceful means, while this is possible, and with force if necessary, but first and foremost in full awareness that it is a great civilization and that its progress, in spite of the many faults and mistakes, is based on its own intellectual, cultural, political, moral principles, and not just on massacres, violence, aggression, as is claimed by those who fall into the propaganda trap set by Islamic fundamentalists.

MTTs in Iraq

2006-10-04T10:37:00.000-04:00

Over at the OPFOR blog they are welcoming a new contributor, 'Lightning', who is a Marine Corps captain recently back from a deployment in Iraq. In his first post for OPFOR, he has some interesting things to say about the Military Transition Team (MTT) concept; Lightning was part of an MTT on his last deployment. MTTs are embedded within Iraqi Army units to provide mentoring on their war-fighting skills, as Coalition forces hand over more security responsiblities to the new Iraqi government. Says Lightining:

Working with the Iraqis was a unique experience. We had to remind ourselves on a regular basis that the jundi were not US Marines and could not be expected to behave like Marines in a gunfight. They did not display any of the aggressiveness that we expect of a Marine infantry unit, nor did they have much in the way of fire discipline. Many times we saw the “Iraqi death blossom” effect as jundi fired in random directions on automatic. On the other hand they were fearless – more like foolhardy – when they encountered IEDs, something that most Marines will give a wide berth. Despite their lack of tactical skill, it was hard to deny the advantage of speaking the local language. On several occasions they were able to pick out foreign fighters just from an accent or a word used by a detainee.

As I've noted before, we don't hear nearly enough about the bravery and sacrifice of Iraqi soldiers who - with far less resources and training than our own troops have - are putting themselves in harms way to bring about a better future for their country. It's a absolute crime that terrorists who target Iraqi civilians get more coverage in the American media than the tens of thousands of Iraqi troops who are risking it all every single day.

Why getting sunburned is more fun than election year politics...

2006-10-02T20:24:00.000-04:00

I spent the weekend boating around beautiful Lake Powell with my family. My sister was on a 10-day leave from the Army, and it was an opportunity for us to spend some time together before she departs to her unit in Texas. On Saturday, we went to the majestic Rainbow Bridge (seen in the picture and made far less beautiful with my mug in front of it). The day was wonderful, but I got an absolutely horrible sunburn (since my chest and back hadn't seen sun for 5 years or so, I wasn't too surprised).

Because of my sunburn, the last few days have been miserable, but I'm glad to report that the burn has made me less miserable than listening to election year spin spewing out of everyone's mouth at this time of year.

I'm absolutely sick at the political health of our country right now. I'm sick at the type of tactics that are being used by both sides. I'm sick of the lack of compromise that has infiltrated American politics. And, I pray that after the election, commonsense will again prevail, making our country--and the world--a much safer and better place to live.

Therefore, I've decided that I can't vote for an incumbent this year. I can't vote for someone who has been part of the political climate. The country needs change, and that will only happen if there are drastic changes in the make up of our governing body.

The two legislative races in Utah in which I could vote might hurt a little if I stick with my throw-all-the-bums-out mentality. Orrin Hatch is running for reelection. I had absolutely no intention of voting for him. I think he's a disgrace to the state of Utah. However, my congressman is Jim Mattheson, a moderate Democrat who is probably a Republican by national standards. He's a good man, who I honestly believe votes his conscience (which explains why his voting record is quite conservative). I might not agree with all of Rep. Mattheson's votes, but at least he's not hampered by fierce party loyalty. It will be hard for me to cast a vote against him, but I'm starting to feel that I must.

What is to become of our nation if we cannot agree on anything? Will the coasts have to secede from the union to be a safe haven for liberal thinkers? Will the heartland become the only place for conservatives to call home?

There has to be a middle ground. There has to be a system of checks and balances in the nation, where majority and minority rights are protected. And, there has to be a way to fix the absolutely ridiculous bickering that has taken over Washington.

Cheers,
Jeff

P.S.- Do I sound cynical? I thought so.

Foley a fool, but not a Studd

2006-10-02T11:50:00.000-04:00

What kind of fool in a high profile position leaves a digital paper trail of his lewd behavior? Forget about Rep. Mark Foley being a perv, anyone dumb enough to not know that his emails and instant messages would someday see the light of day has no business being in high public office.

At least Foley did the right thing and resigned in disgrace, even though he had not actually committed any sexual acts with congressional pages - he only talked dirty to them, and only did so after they had already left the page program. He's certainly no Gerry Studds, a former Democratic congressman who had an affair with a 17 year-old page. Studds did commit sexual acts with a minor during the time the minor was serving as a page (Studds also provided alcohol to the youth, a crime in itself).

Instead of resigning, Studds had the gall to claim that the relationship he had with the 17 year-old was a private matter and none of the Congressional leadership's business, using the homosexual nature of the relationship as cover. He stayed in the House and his liberal Democratic district in Mass. elected him five more times to office (a Republican congressman who was exposed at the same time as Studds and found to have had an affair with a 17 year-old female page, Dan Crane, was rightly voted out of office by his Illinois district - I guess, as Jeff Jacoby has said, "in Massachusetts, where standards are lower, sleaziness is a bar to nothing").

It's just a little something to remember as we watch Democrats rant on in faux outrage over Foley - when it was one of their liberal brethern poaching the page pool in a far worse manner, they had no problem with it.

More H5N1 H2H?

2006-09-28T10:48:00.000-04:00

It looks like there may be another instance of limited human-to-human transmission of avian influenza A(H5N1) in Indonesia, where the very first episode of limited H2H transmission took place earlier this year. On Sunday a 23 year-old man in West Java died of bird flu, and two of his siblings were hospitalized shortly thereafter when they also became ill with the disease.

Since avian H5N1 is now endemic to Indonesia, the chances that the virus will recombine with human flu viruses to produce an easily-transmitted killer strain increase daily (indeed, today we learn that the sister of the bird flu victim mentioned above has tested positive for H1N1). Not good news as we approach the 2006-07 flu season...

New link

2006-09-26T10:00:00.000-04:00

Please note that I have posted a new link, a fear of flying, to my blog list. The blog is the handiwork of nosurfgirl, self-described as "a young married woman with 2 kids, a full-time job at a residential treatment facility, and a deep and abiding testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

Her blog covers an eclectic array of topics, ranging from feminism to faith, movies to munching, lactation to liberalism - well, you get the idea. Like my friend Jeff (who is also a practicing Mormon), she is among that rarest of breeds: an open-minded Democrat. Don't ask me what she has against surfing, though...

Our "friends" the Russians

2006-09-24T12:27:00.000-04:00

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has posted a report on Russian military exercises held last month in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan (emphasis mine), as described by the Iranian website Baztab, which is "affiliated with Expediency Council Secretary and former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Rezai":

"The maneuver, called 'RUBEZH 2006,' [which included] 2,500 troops from the armed forces of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, was held last week (August 24-29) in the port of Aqtau, Kazakhstan]... on the basis of the 'Collective Security Treaty' [CST]. Uzbekistan participated as an observer in this exercise; Belarus and Armenia did not take part in it.

"The maneuver was purportedly intended train [the forces] in combating terrorism, but was in fact a kind of military preparation [intended] to provide an answer to America's military threats in the region against Iran... Some believe that the maneuver, which was planned by the Russian military's joint chiefs of staff, was an exercise in preparedness for frontal confrontation in a possible American war against Iran in the region of southern Eurasia and in the Caspian Sea region.

Is this wishful thinking on the part of the Iranians, or would Russia actually commit military forces to defend Iran in the event that the U.S. decides to launch a strike against Iran's nuclear program?

Given how unhelpful Vladimir Putin has been in dealing with Iran on this issue, one cannot dismiss the possiblity outright.

Miller Time no more

2006-09-21T11:16:00.000-04:00

This week a friend sent me a link to a Chicago Tribune story detailing the Miller Brewing Company's substantial support of the illegal immigration movement:

Marchers had to duck into fast-food restaurants for water when they first took to Chicago's streets in support of illegal immigrants five months ago. At the next two marches, family-owned grocery stores offered free bottled water from trucks emblazoned with their names.This time, as demonstrators march from Chinatown to House Speaker Dennis Hastert's (R-Ill.) Batavia office this weekend, they will have Miller Brewing Co., as a sponsor.
The brewer has paid more than $30,000 for a planning convention, materials and newspaper ads publicizing the event.

My friend says that we should support a boycott of Miller beer. Well, no problem for me - taste wise, Miller beer is on a par with equine urine, and it does not contaminate my fridge to begin with.

Deja vu Allah over again

2006-09-20T13:23:00.000-04:00

Earlier this year adherents of the "Religion of Peace" reacted to a handful of Danish cartoons portraying Islam as a violent religion with, well, violence - some of it deadly. During the past week many adherents of the "Religion of Peace" reacted to Pope Benedict making an innocuous statement linking Islam with violence with, well violence - some of it deadly.

What kind of religion produces people who are so thin skinned that they cannot abide any criticism of their faith, and react to such with threats of murder? Who react to being called violent with violence, and incitement to violence? Recall a London protest in February of this year during the "Cartoon War":

Now compare that to another protest in London, held just this past weekend (photo via Michelle Malkin):

To paraphrase Yogi Berra, it's like deja vu Allah over again. Anne Applebaum has a column in yesterday's WaPo that sums up my own feelings nicely:

...nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it's time that it should.

Time that it should indeed.

A true American hero

2006-09-14T13:22:00.000-04:00

Apologies for the dearth of blogging this week, was spending a few days in Atlanta but am now back in God's Country. One of the things I did while in the ATL was represent the GaSDF at a 9/11 memorial ceremony at the National Museum of Patriotism (as you can see, my mug appeared for a short time on the local TV news, doubtlessly breaking television screens across Georgia).

But someone far more notable was at the ceremony on Monday: Michael E. Thornton, a Vietnam vet who is among the very few who have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for saving the live of another Medal of Honor recipient, Thomas Norris (of BAT-21 fame). Thorton was a Navy SEAL who saved Norris' life in an act of bravery most of us cannot even begin to imagine:

On learning that Lt. Norris had been hit by enemy fire and was believed to be dead, Thornton returned through a hail of fire to the lieutenant's last position and found him severely wounded and unconscious but alive. Quickly disposing of two enemy soldiers who approached at that moment, Thornton slung Norris over his shoulder and dashed for life over 400 yards of open beach, returning enemy fire as he ran. He carried Norris and another wounded comrade out to sea, beyond the range of enemy fire. The company floated for approximately two hours before being retrieved by the South Vietnamese Navy.

It was my honor to meet Thorton after the ceremony, which plainly moved him. Mr. Thornton is a soft-spoken and humble man, but became intense when speaking of the threat we face from Islamofacism, which he likened to cancer: "Cancer may go into remission for a time, but it will always return unless it has been completely cut out and removed." Which was Thornton's not-so-subtle way of saying that the Jihadist movement can only be stopped by completely and utterly destroying it. A shame that there are so many who cannot even recognize the disease, let alone the cure.

Blackhawk boppin'

2006-09-08T11:12:00.000-04:00

My friend Captain Jim emailed me this pic from Iraq today. CPT Jim already saw his share of combat duty in Vietnam and could have chosen to sit this war out, but he's not that kind of guy...

No Wolf, we're not idiots - but you are

2006-09-07T10:27:00.000-04:00

I was watching Wolf Blitzer on CNN last night as he expressed apparent shock at the results of a poll that shows 43% of Americans "at least suspect" that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 terror attacks. Why is that so hard to believe, Wolf? Perhaps those Americans, unlike Wolf, are aware that:

* Saddam was a known sponsor of international terrorism
* The Iraqi government was implicated in the 1993 WTC bombing attack
* Iraq and al-Qaeda were developing operational links, as noted in the 9/11 Commission Report

We may never know if Iraq provided logistical support to al-Qaeda for conducting the 9/11 attacks. You're not going to find a memo from Saddam to Osama saying "Hey bud, need any more help with that hijacking gig you're working on?" But perhaps we will learn more as the tens of thousands of Iraqi government documents that were seized after the war are translated by Project Harmony - already, their work has provided evidence that there was greater collaboration between Iraq and al-Qaeda than was previously thought.

What we do know is this: at the very least, the Iraqi regime praised al-Qaeda in print and lauded the 9/11 attacks in art. If Saddam was still in power, it is entirely plausible that such approval would have eventually manifested itself in something far more substantial - and deadly.