The Last Ephor

Exclusive: US removes uranium from Iraq I patiently await a groveling apology from the entire dextrosphere as well as the MSM and every Democrat except Joe Lieberman. We now resume with our regularly scheduled silence.

As his son's funeral neared, Jeff Cathey's tears rarely stopped. He often found comfort in the men who shared his son's uniform. "Someone asked me what I learned from my son," he said. "He taught me you need more than one friend."

MICHAEL A. MONSOOR USN Navy medal of honor by dollarsandsense123 Text of the President's speech: Good afternoon, and welcome. The Medal of Honor is America's highest decoration for military valor. Over the years, many who have received the medal have given their lives in the action that earned it. The name of Petty Officer Michael Anthony Monsoor will now be among them. President George W. Bush leads the applause in honor of Petty Officer Michael A. Monsoor after presenting the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously to his parents, George and Sally Monsoor, during ceremonies Tuesday, April 8, 2008, at the White House. The 25-year-old Navy SEAL was killed in Iraq in 2006 after he threw himself on a grenade to save his fellow SEALS when they came under attack while on duty in Ramadi. White House photo by Eric Draper In September 2006, Michael laid down his life for his brothers in arms. Today, we remember the life of this faithful Navy SEAL. And on behalf of a grateful nation,...

From here.

It has become something of an article of faith among the anti-war crowd that any action by the US in Iraq creates scores of terrorists. Our bungling ineptitude enrages the Arab/Muslim street and our enemies multiply endlessly. Or not. That noted neocon organ The New York Times has an article: “I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us,” said Sara, a high school student in Basra. “Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers .” Atheer, a 19-year-old from a poor, heavily Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad, said: “ The religion men are liars. Young people don’t believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore.” .... “I used to love Osama bin Laden...Al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army are spreading hatred. People are being killed for nothing.” So we're winning by not being the iron clamp of oppression and death i...

Love the look in the kid's face.

More on the previous post on the bin Laden/Leftist rhetoric locus: David Broder of the NYT agrees with me.

New OBL Tape: Iraq, Democratic Control . Seriously, take out one reference to his confession about 9/11 and you'd never know if this was one of the posters at HuffPo, Kos, DU or DelawareLiberal. Update: 9.10.2007 DelawareLiberal isn't happy with me for this one. I should be clear here. I am not putting liberals on any sort of moral plane with bin Laden. I do not think they are wishing for mass slaughter of anyone let alone Americans. Rather, my point was that bin Ladens rambling rhetoric sounds much like Noam Chomsky, Kos, DU et al. The difference between my comparison and those made by the Left between Hitler and Bush is one of substance. They compare the two and put their goals, aims, actions and rhetoric on the same plane. A distinction with a difference. I did miss one point in bin Laden's speech that I'd like to point out. He's advocating lower tax rates than nearly any Republican candidate running for office in 2008: "There are no taxes in Isla...

Classical Values asks "when is enough enough?" I think he makes some cogent points but I think he's missing something. The people who are annoyed or otherwise uncomfortable with 9/11 memorials are uncomfortable with the idea that there are people who are actively working to kill us all. Not just one person that they have a personal grudge with, or that they're merely happy to be left to chant angry slogans and burn American flags in their country. Rather, they really, truly do want to kill us. Not to get any sort of concession or because of some foreign policy or other but just because we're infidels. That's a very upsetting thing but it's reality. Something a great many people don't want to own up to. These guys claim to have an idea to replace batteries with capacitors. I'll wait and see on this one. Insty has a link to this story . He points to this as a indication of a lack of confidence in civil authority. This, as he notes, is no...

A must read over at In From The Cold Clarity of Analysis excerpt: In other words, Americans combat deaths in Iraq has dropped by almost 50% over the past three months--while the number of troops in harm's way has increased (the surge hit its peak less than two weeks ago), with a corresponding spike in our operational tempo.

or else we might actually win! General Petraeus told The Australian during a face-to-face interview at his Baghdad headquarters there had been a 75 per cent reduction in religious and ethnic killings since last year, a doubling in the seizure of insurgents' weapons caches between January and August, a rise in the number of al-Qa'ida "kills and captures" and a fall in the number of coalition deaths from roadside bombings... The number of weapons-cache captures had doubled from 1977 in January this year to 4141 in August. General Petraeus said "improvised explosive devices" -- roadside bombs -- were the largest killer in Iraq and in "another indicator that is reassuring, this has come down for about eight of the last 11 weeks to the lowest in at least a year, Iraq-wide". "We see al-Qa'ida as public enemy No1 because it is the enemy that carries out the most horrific attacks designed to re-ignite ethno-sectarain violence," he said.

Democratic Rivals Caution Against Swift Iraq Pullout Interesting. This is the classic Potomac Two Step. They assuage the Nutroots by telling them they're going to get out as soon as possible. The parsing requires that one read that as "not now you dolt, but we're willing to keep you idiots happy by pandering."

Exit Strategies posits that a rapid withdrawal from Iraq would not be catastrophic but would be very ugly and then end with a three state solution. I don't share that assessment as I think Iran would send agents over the border very quickly to tilt the balance in their favor. Worth a read and worth considering after Monday's article about Iraqi taking care of their own security. Let's put it to a vote. Let the Democrats stand and be counted for or against withdrawal. Likewise, if Iraq is so confident they can handle things, pass a motion telling us to leave. "If the European Union were a state in the USA it would belong to the poorest group of states. France, Italy, Great Britain and Germany have lower GDP per capita than all but four of the states in the United States. In fact, GDP per capita is lower in the vast majority of the EU-countries (EU 15) than in most of the individual American states. This puts Europeans at a level of prosperity on par with states ...

NBC gets is all wrong. On purpose. They were given all the proof they needed to know that the story they were going with was flat out wrong. Lisa Meyers' abject fear mongering is the worst sort of journalism. It proves, once again, that the media has no interest in accuracy only sensationalism. Small wonder I don't trust word one coming from the mainstream media about Iraq.

"I was stopped by someone the other week who said it was not surprising there was so much terrorism in the world when we invaded their countries (meaning Afghanistan and Iraq). No wonder Muslims felt angry. I said to him: tell me exactly what they feel angry about. We remove two utterly brutal and dictatorial regimes; we replace them with a UN-supervised democratic process. And the only reason it is difficult still is because other Muslims are using terrorism to try to destroy the fledgling democracy and, in doing so, are killing fellow Muslims. Why aren't they angry about the people doing the killing? The odd thing about the conversation is I could tell it was the first time he'd heard this argument." Neocon Warmonger and Puppet of Big Oil (TM)Tony Blair

IT Jargon Ugh. I hate every one of these except #5 which I find extremely efficient and frankly, essential. Try having a conversation about server topology without one. There's a fine line in there somewhere. I just don't know where. When Nerds fall in love Dubai Ports World deal bites us in the ass. I thought the row over DPW taking over the US ports was overblown and stupid. It was driven by small mindedness and cronyism. Varifrank shows why that deal falling apart is now finally reaping the whirlwind. Brilliant. American Idol gets made year after year and there are guys like this who are not on TV. Explain that to me. The burial of a Marine. He was a giant of a man. We are poorer with his passing. There's a parade in the Pentagon every Friday. One that should be televised every week. I support the war but that war has a cost. If we don't show the cost that our men and women are paying we don't appreciate it. If seeing that cost means our will ...

Captured! Teflon Don has the story about the possible capture of three US Army personnel. I've heard absolutely zero in the MSM on this one. Not sure if that's due to laziness or a request from the DoD to keep this quiet until they know the fate of the soldiers in question. I pray for the soldiers and their families. Not know has to be the worst of all. Nancy Pelosi's authoritarian impulses on full display . More from Don Surber here . Update: That didn't last long. Fox News is derided as an organ of the GOP. Watch this video to see that myth exploded. It's softball vs. football. A list of emerging markets from Forbes. Some surprises here as well as surprising omissions. Readers are invited to see if they can spot any similarities in policies that lead to high growth. How can one work in Hollywood and keep their moral compass? These people want to show you how. What happens when two programs designed to beat the Turing Test get to chatting? It...

What he said. H/T: Tim Blair Tax records? Pffft. Don Surber has a much better list . Sadly, not one of those items will ever see the light of day. Teachers stage mock gun attack in school telling them it was not a drill. The principal declined to say whether they would face disciplinary action. If I were a parent of those children and staged a "mock gun attack" on the teachers in reprisal I would be, you know, arrested. Iran's leading lunatic heads anti-American rally in Dubai. Telling them: "America was to blame for creating instability and robbing the region of its wealth." (nb: quoting the article, not the head lunatic). If we're robbing the region, we're doing a very poor job of it. Alternate universes everywhere? One scientist thinks so. "I probably shouldn't speculate, but observational cosmologists have spotted signs of a strange alignment in the CMB that could be compatible with this picture," says Aguirre." G...

Global Politician revisits the Anthrax cases and points a blackened finger. More here Just another day in Iraq . The ease and humility that Teflon Don writes with makes it all the more compelling. I guarantee if I were writing this story it would be replete with hyperbole, self-aggrandizement and worse. Read it. Now. Why France will liberalize . I'm not so sure. The welfare state has been decades in the making. We're now looking at third and fourth generation Frenchmen who know nothing else. As an American I knew about the size and scope of the state in France but it wasn't until I lived there did I really get it. Even if Sarko wins he's fighting an entrench bureaucracy that makes the US government look like Cato Institute's wet dream. Mitt Romney's efforts to make himself unelectable continue apace. Now he declares "Battlefield Earth" as his favorite book. Who's the only religious group less electable than Mormons? Scientologists!...

New York City, having eradicated all violent crime and closed all open cases has turned their sights on 77 year old cancer patients who smoke pot. Thank God they're working so hard to keep Gothamites safe. Tenet is getting it from all sides now. Hitchens ('natch) gives him a beatdown and former national security officials National Review skewers him here . Someone remarked that if there's anyone supporting Tenet now I haven't found him. After some searching, I haven't either. Reader(s) are invited to post any links to anyone supporting him now. Bonus points for politicians and MSM figures. Remember when Bill Frist had his name dragged through the mud as part of the Democrats campaign to regain control of Congress and get rid of their most effective opponent? Me too. Did you hear he was exonerated ? Of course not. Why would you? Sarko has a slim lead. Can he hold it? A day in the life for paratroopers in Iraq. Quote of the day: " Iraq not getti...