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Showing posts from February 26, 2006
Michael J. Totten shows once again why he is far better than his MSM peers with “The Head of the Snake” . It put a knot in my stomach. Remember this when people say Saddam's Iraq wasn't that bad. I long for the days when liberals were the ones who wanted to topple dictators.
Bear with me on this one. This post is not one I'd normally make but I have to comment. I started a new job a few weeks ago and it's ok with one glaring exception. The men's room. It is poorly lit, poorly laid out, has one urinal (!) and, not to be crass, VERY POOR ventilation. Going in there is like trying to avoid being tear gassed. You take a deep breath and hold it, run in, pee as fast as you can, wash up and run. The entire time you have to think of ways to keep you eyes from tearing up. However, I have now found a brightly lit, seldom used men's room that is a bit further but since it's next to the new construction, little traffic. How long till the secret it out?
Here's the audio of that teacher's 20 minute long anti-American leftist rant. Point your lefty friends to this one next time they tell you teachers aren't indoctrinating our kids. (Yes, I know this is only one guy but I'm dead sure there are thousands like him)
Channel4.com's IT Crowd is absolutely brilliant. It's a series that is overdue. I'm hoping it will come to BBCA and not be horribly ruined/remade for American audiences. Very few British comedies are adapted to the US successfully. Notable failures include: Men behaving badly, Coupling, Touching Evil, etc. Check it out, it's worth your time.
Instapundit.com : "The AP video does not include footage of Chertoff asking Brown whether he needs any other help or of Chertoff asking whether Brown wants him to approach the Department of Defense. Transcripts show that to both questions, Brown indicated that no additional assistance was needed ." Original transcript here . This is journalistic malpractice. They also misquoted the President in order to make him look like a liar. He said no one imagined the levees would be breached. Which is true. Experts expected them to be "topped" not "breached" . That is fundamentally, and completely different. This from the people who tell us blogs are unreliable and unedited. Spare me.
I've found a collection of disturbing , disconcerting , and Orwellian . I've always been fascinated by North Korea. It is truly unique. It is a communist dynasty that is hermetically sealed from the real world. There is no external contact for the average citizen. No TV, no radio, no internet, no newspapers, books or magazines. It is a concentration camp nation run by a criminal thug-ocracy who's only principle is power. Kim is undoubtedly unbalanced and dangerous. I don't know why but I find this weirdly compelling. Probably because it's so completely foriegn to everything I know.
Bill Roggio talks about al-Qaeda’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq . I think it's an honest assessment and one that bears reading. He makes the point that flypaper doesn't always catch all the flies. Some terrorists will undoubtedly learn lessons from their time in Iraq and return home to spread their knowledge along with some mayhem. However, that number is very small compared to the number killed or captured.
Christopher Hitchens announces The End of Fukuyama . An interesting read as usual.
Max Boot goes to Iraq. He has been an ardent supporter of the war and tepidly supportive of the president. His findings, I think, reflect the difficulty with broad generalizations about the current state of Iraq. It's not as simple as "we're winning" or "quagmire". We're winning in some places and losing in others. It runs the gamut. Dana would have you believe that since Baghdad had more/more consistant power before the invasion, things are, therefore, worse. This is patent strawman and he knows it. He's not a dumb guy but he is a partisan. The production and distribution of power has many drivers. It's important to remember there was a war that, while brief and focused in scope, broke things. So, we had to fix the power supply before doing anything. Secondly, the grid is old and was poorly maintained. Many areas outside Baghdad didn't have power on anything approaching a regular basis. Now they do. That changes things drama
This post at Delaware Watch annoys me. I don't think Dana is dishonest in the way that Michael Moore is, but he is fiercely partisan and IMNHO, it skews his perception severely. He refuses to believe that Osama bin Laden didn't want Bush to be president. Rather, the thinks it was a case of reverse psychology. Bin Laden is many things but a strategist isn't one of them. He uses Mogadishu for a simple template of how Americans behave when threatened or killed. That is, we will always retreat under fire. What Dana ignores is how badly things have been going for bin Laden since the outset of the war in Iraq. He has been hounded and hunted. His resources are severely drained and his operational capabilities are reduced to nearly zero. His messages are now carried by personal messenger as he doesn't trust any other form of communication. That alone, puts us inside his OODA decision curve. It is also the reason he has subcontracted the Iraq job that crazed Jordan
Diplomacy Helped To Calm the Chaos . That is, there is no civil war. Ralph Peters echoes the same sentiment. There is terrorism, fighting and unrest but that is not civil war or even a sectarian one. It's just that. Chaotic, deadly and very bad. It is important that we call things what they are. That goes for success as well as failure. The media has been licking it's chops waiting release the prepackaged "CIVIL WAR IN IRAQ" storyline. Unfortunately for them, this ain't it. Read the article. As the hed suggests, it was the use of diplomacy, not force of arms that won the day. Maybe we're learning something afterall.
Must not start Holy War ...
A Meditation On the Speed Limit . What happens when you block all lanes of traffic by driving the maximum legal speed limit in Atlanta? Click the link to find out. Speed limits were not initially created under the aegis of safety but rather, conservation. Only later was "safety" the ruse. The real reason for speed limits on highways is revenue. Why else would Delaware keep their speed limit to 55 on the main stretch of highway through the state?
Whoa! I've DOUBLED the number of visitors to the site last week. That's right we had two (2) visitors. Maybe I should rethink the blogads thing.... /sarcasm.
Here is a more stirring defense of Western secularism than I've seen from any Westerner in a dog's age. Watch it.
Read. The. Whole. Blog. . Pray you never know such pain and loss. This man is far stronger than most. I don't know how he holds it together.
Mass media's last blast is an article crowing about the imminent death of mass media. I think this is overstatement but ultimately, the face of technology/entertainment/media/culture is undoubtedly undergoing a revolution. Many question the reason box office receipts are falling year over year (in aggregate). It's not simply because we think the movies are too liberal/conservative or that we all have iPods or cost or poor moviegoing experience. It's all of those at once. Today's home theaters rival what the average theater in a small town can produce. How many people now have surround sound, big screens and dvd players vs. 5 or 10 years ago? Then they were a rarety reserved for audiophiles and wealthy people. Now they're commonplace and not nearly as expensive as they once were. The author is otherwise correct about the "bottoms up" democratic nature of social networking. In the future, people will be very famous but narrowly so. You'll hav
Appolyon Appears-III , is part 3 of a series that leaves me queasy every time I read it. I really hope the author is dead wrong.
The Claremont Institute releases a study that indicates that coeducational institutions tend to reinforce gender stereotypes rather than break them down. That is, women are far more likely to take math and science courses at a girls only school and similarly, boys are more likely to take art and theater at a boys only school. Critics will damn Claremont as partisan and so on, but I think there's something there. Single sex schooling makes sense for many reasons. That is not to say that boys and girls should be segregated, far from it. Rather, there should be mixing in a social setting rather than an educational one. Either that or some sort of gradual mixing as the kids get older. The very young kids likely benefit from coeducation. My son's only experience with little girls is school. There aren't many of them in our neighborhood and he's only now figuring out that girls are somehow, different. However, once those differences emerge, it makes sense to separa
If they do get an injunction agains BlackBerry , I know more than a few people who will be in rehab. I don't have one. I don't want to be that connected. I also know I would be another one of those addicts who checks their email every 5 seconds. No thank you.
Poland could teach the US and Britian a thing or two. They still have fresh memories of totalitarianism and how truly awful it can be. The Poles know we're facing a new form of expansionist totalitarianism that gives no quarter and that we must draw a clear bright line between what we will and will not allow. I hope others follow their example.
WorldNetDaily: Report: Dick Cheney to quit after elections Take this one with a bucket of salt. I think WND is sensationalistic and unreliable but even a broken clock is right twice a day. I thought Cheney would be long gone by now and retired as an elder statesman/Carlyle Group executive.
Pat Buchanan's latest salvo is all over the place. He's convinced that we've lost the war and should leave those heathen sand monkeys to their fate. His language is more circumspect than that, but that's his overall point. Not so says Jack Kelly . The Iraqi people continue to disappoint the Cassandras and naysayers and will continue to do so. Everyone is expecting miracles from us. We are supposed to rebuilt a society and a country in a few months with no setbacks. Critics are so concerned with the amount of money being spent and the lack of progress to show for it. Since when is that any measure used for anything the US Government does? If it is, great, let's take a long hard look at the departments of HHS, Education, Energy, Labor et al. Where is the hue and cry over the billions and billions spend on poor people who remain poor? The sick who remain sick? An education system that is getting progressively worse by the day? I fail to understand why the h
From ABC News: From Cash to Yachts, Convicted Congressman Set Bribery Rates . I think they threw this guy under the bus to deflect from the rest of them. I think anyone who is in Washington more than a few years learns to game the system and make themselves rich in the process. As noted elsewhere, "the scandal isn't what's illegal, the scandal is what is legal." (I would attribute the quote but I don't know where it's from)
Update on the heist in the UK. Now it seems that 53m Pounds was the total haul . Initially, I speculated this was an IRA heist as it matches their MO but now it appears a group of martial artists are behind it. Sounds like they had the heist planned very well but not the after part. Kind of like the war in Iraq. Ha! I crack myself up. *sigh* Yeah, that sucked. What do you want from me? It's early.
I'm not a fan of Pink's music generally, but the video for Stupid Girls is dead on. If I had a daughter, she would not emulate those emaciated idiots. They would have a much higher standard to emulate. My wife.
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You Passed 8th Grade Science Congratulations, you got 8/8 correct! Could You Pass 8th Grade Science?
New theory: The Vowel Thieves: Scandanavians long ago invaded several Slavic nations and made off with their vowels. This is why we have words like "prst" (finger), "smrt" (death)and "crck" (neck) in Czech and words like Aaslaand and Laagen in Sweden.
uminations in Korea asks Why So Few Asian Men With White Women? . Too funny.
Cafe Hayek talks about The Death of the Canadian Model . They are giving up the ghost and allowing private care. How many times do we have to see this before people realize; Socialism doesn't work. It doesn't matter how many times you try it, it still won't work. Monopolies are bad. Very bad.
Signs of hope from France French protest for murdered Jew . I have long believed France has an angry roiling quiet plurality that could well vote in a Le Pen like character to restore France to its past glory. (I've written about it before and can't find the post). I hope they fix things before they get to that point.
Austin Bay excerpts the The Al Qaeda Documents and it talks about how they intend to gain power and influence and it very illuminating.
It Didn't Work says William F. Buckley. He's the ulitmate paleocon and of the realist school. He's a half a shade from Buchanan as far as foreign policy goes. I think he has held his tongue until now, not out of uncertainty but for timing. I think he is wrong and will be proven so but it will take some time. Read the whole thing though, he makes some salient points.
Saddam Had WMD's according to the Investor's Business Daily. I have no doubt there's an avalanche of information that will come out. Much of this has simply never been translated. We don't have enough translators to cover the material. Some will claim this was all a Rovian plot to discredit their critics. I don't think so. I wish he were that brilliant, but he isn't. I also believe that much of the carping about "lies to get us into war" are not lies but predicated on information that is classified and we may find out some day that the threats were not only real but worse than we imagined. On the tapes, Saddam even talks about using "proxies" to attack us. That made the hair on my neck stand up. Put that together with the editorial (which, of course, I cannot now find) that predicts the Pentagon in flames, the White House/Capitol destroyed and "Americans will curse the name of Frank Sinatra" (singer of New York, New York)
Family Watchdog Maps is an invalueable tool for any family. It allows you to search for sex offenders in your neighborhood and includes a photo of the offender. An " Army of Davids " indeed.
HiddenPassageway.com is like a 100,000 watt shock to my geek nerves. When I was a kid, secret passageways were the sina qua non of coolness. I remember I had seen a TV program about them and how common they were in stately homes and castles. Some were practical and used for things like magically disappearing servants and hiding from rioting French peasants. Others were for mere whimsey like a host that liked to disappear in the middle of a party for some solitude. These things are not cheap, but they peg to coolness meter.
Police Station Intimidation in South Florida. This is not surprising or new but it is infuriating. Nothing makes me more insane than stories like this. If you watch the video, there are officers who should be summarily fired for their behavior. The guy posing as the complaintant was not disrepectful or belligerent. He was merely asking for a complaint form. As noted, some departments do not have them as a matter of policy. All complaints must be made by the Supervisor on duty. This is lunacy. If you do not create a paper trail at the civilian level, a great many of these are going to go nowhere. I thought the report was fair in that it also showed there are officers there who are courteous and respectful. Some were genuinely apologetic that there was no form for them to fill out. It was very telling that several of the officers were immediately combative, argumentative and hostile to any inquiries. "Methinks thou doest protest too much" as the old misquote goes.