"The other thing is simple, too: take risks"

RedState has a nice interview with Bobby Jindal. He's a very impressive guy, currently running for congress.

...The other thing is simple, too: take risks, no matter if you may fail. A lot of people thought that I was nuts to run for Governor at age 31, or to take over the Louisiana health department when I was 24. I wasn’t successful in my first campaign. But we forget that our leaders are not always successful the first time around. I got a nice handwritten note from the President after my loss, and he reminded me that he lost his first race. And as a matter of fact, so did Kerry – both candidates of the major parties lost their first races for elected office. Reagan lost multiple times before he won the presidency. And part of politics is taking risks, going into the field with uncertain outcomes...

(thanks to Pejman)

Happy now, you fascist?

This scene in a bookstore is funny, and oh so true...

ME: I'm looking for Michael Moore Is a Stupid White Man.

C: (still smiling) You mean Stupid White Men by Michael Moore . . .

M: No. Michael Moore Is a Stupid White Man. It's a new release.

C: We don't have it.

M: Are you sure? It's very popular.

C: (taciturn) Never heard of it. (Looks past me) Can I help the next person, please?

M: Excuse me, but can you check on your computer?

C: (very annoyed) Fine. (Bangs away at the keyboard. Scrolls down the screen at warp speed) No. Doesn't exist.

M: Wait — there it is.

C: (extremely annoyed) Oh . . . um . . . Yesss. We only received one copy. It's in the back.

M: Where in the back?

C: (loudly) In the political science section!

M: Thanks!

I checked out the section. The book was nowhere to be found. I walk back to the desk.

M: Pardon me, but I couldn't find it.

C: (Curses under her breath and slams her pen on the counter. Slams swinging door. Marches to the back of the store)

I could not believe what she did next. She grabs a step ladder and climbs up. The book was lying flat on the top row of books — with the spine toward the back so you couldn't see the title. She grabs the book, climbs down, slams it into my chest. Her face is beet red and she screams: "HERE!!! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW, YOU FRIGGIN' FASCIST!??!"

I was shocked, Mr. Nordlinger. This wasn't a mom-'n'-pop outfit. It's one of the largest booksellers in the Northeast that aren't Barnes & Noble.

So I figured, Okay, time for some Brooklyn diplomacy. I walked up to the counter again.

ME: Excuse me: Do you have Treason by Ann Coulter? In the bestseller section? I couldn't find it . . .

Oooooh, did Allawi sting them, or what!

...Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's declaration, which came after the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq and accused France's position towards terrorism, was "unacceptable," the French Foreign Ministry said Monday.

    "This declaration seems in fact to have cast doubt on France's determination in the fight against terrorism ... France is leading untiringly a resolute action against this scourge and it is always bringing its support and contribution to all the initiatives of the international community in this field," said Cecile Pozzo di Borgo, spokeswoman of the French Foreign Ministry....

...France has opposed the US-led Iraq war and has no troops in Iraq.

    Allawi declared earlier Monday that the kidnapping of two French journalists showed that there was "no possible neutrality" in Iraq and that those who do not fight at the government level can not escape terrorism. "None of the civilized countries can escape," he said, noting "there is no possible neutrality, as shows the kidnapping of the French journalists." "The French deluded themselves if they would hope to stay outside," he added. [link]

Can't you just picture Chirac? "Ett eeze unacceptable for zeeze lessair nations to critique La Belle France!" Well Jack, your leverage here is about zero. You wouldn't help the Little Red Hen, so you get nothing to eat...

(Thanks to Orrin Judd)

"What they have to lose they lost to him long ago.."

Commenter Lastango writes, at Bill Quick's blog:

...Perhaps even more important, the Swift veterans lack the GOP's internal divisions, timidity, beltway collegialism and concern over their own political futures. No potshots or sparring here. Kerry is facing a bayonet assault. They are inside his perimeter, working him foxhole to foxhole and room to room.

Once, Kerry smashed up and then stole their honor. What they have to lose they lost to him long ago. A discredited Kerry would mean Kerry's war crimes accusations would be discredited, too, if the public were to accept that the source of the accusations was self-serving and untrustworthiness. That is the veterans’ prize. That, and the honor of defending the nation from peril one more time. They will not quit.

"only to use them like rented mules"

Orrin Judd, once again...he just puts this so well...

...One of the things that Democrats and pundits--with the exception of a few wise souls like Mr. Steyn--just don't seem to get is that the President enjoys raising the stakes at exactly those moments when they think they've caught him bluffing. And when they accept he tends to crush them. After the stolen election he was supposed to mark time untril Al Gore could be awarded his rightful crown, but instead he rammed through his tax cuts. After Jim Jeffords jumped the President was supposed to be permanently, but he just went ahead and passed NCLB and Fast Track Trade Authority and the like anyway.

After 9-11 he was supposed to not do anything partisan lest it change the color of the global mood ring, but he went to war in Iraq anyway. Presidents are supposed to lose seats in the congressional midterm but the President staked his reputation on them and won seats. Economy doing badly? He'd have to repeal tax cuts, right? Wrong, he went for more and got them. Iraq going unsmoothly, better apologize to the U.N. and hide behind it, right? Wrong, he invited them in only to use them like rented mules. Senator Kerry served in Vietnam while the President was "only" in the Guard--better avoid that issue right? And so on, and so forth, seemingly ad infinitum.

It's always around July and August that the smart-alecks decide that Bush is holding an empty hand. Every year, the same darn thing! I used to get worried, but not no more, not this year. Now I'm biting my tongue to try to keep from laughing out loud.

And they've been told...remember what Andy Card said a couple of years ago? "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." Oh how the stuffed-shirts howled over that one! Ha ha. But they didn't learn the lesson, though Bush beat them with it like a two by four in September. Remember, all summer long: "We need to have a national debate over Iraq!" And didn't they just choke on it in September, the phonies. And Homeland Security, too.

and here's something I blogged in September 2003.

making sex simply too boring...

Andrea writes about a suggestion by Planned Parenthood that the Harry Potter books should be written so as to teach children about sex:

...What can I say to this except:

EW.

Sometimes I wonder if PP isn’t in fact trying to breed a new generation of celibates by making sex simply too boring. After all, who wants to do something that people write such creepy sentimental twaddle about?

The idea that sex can ever be a wholesome and rational activity (sort of like a nice healthy game of tennis) is lunacy. The whole business immediately becomes not only boring, but tacky. And what do people do in that situation? They immediately go looking for sex that's somehow strange, or dangerous, or forbidden.

Whereupon the sort of liberal blockheads who would join PP in the first place, will instantly start "teaching our children" that strange and dangerous sex such as [fill in the blank] is really wholesome and normal!

(And the PP types will also insist that anyone who suggests otherwise is a right-wing religious nut trying to bring theocracy upon us. If a Democrat were in the White House, I bet those Planned Parenthood dolts would be telling us that the porn-soaked dimwits who harassed prisoners at Abu Ghraib were "exploring other dimensions of human sexuality"—explorations which can be "positive, wholesome and loving," but only if they are not distorted by the Victorian prudery of the "Christian Taliban.")

I think this is similar to the sort of hopeless arms-race that "artists" are in. The poor bohemians are forced to do ever-weirder things to shock the bourgeoisie, who keep accepting whatever they do! Nightmare. The poor lads are now reduced to dunking crosses and flags in urine and calling it "art." Or dropping piles of sticks on the floor in an art museum (as I saw recently). And only a few stick-in-the-muds protest! How frustrating! Pretty soon urine containers with [chose from the list] sacred objects will be seen in the lobbies of the classier hotels and law firms.

You just can't win in the art game. soon "artists" will probably start sacrificing babies by the light of the full moon, just to get a rise out of people...As for the sexual "arms-race," you might recall this, a suggestion in Sweden that pornography should be shown on TV, to encourage sex and procreation. (Which would have, of course, exactly the opposite effect.)

I feel lucky to have grown up in an era when sex and nudity were things most people were still fairly inhibited about. And I suspect the Victorians were even luckier, and found sex much more thrilling than we do now.

"the most important revolution was ethical and moral..."

Seen at Chicago Boyz

Quote of the Day
"The Left's description of the War in Vietnam is like a watching a Kung Fu movie where the bad guys have all been digitally edited out. The hero thrashes about punching air, breaking things and hurling through walls for no apparent reason."
--Shannon Love

Unfortunately, the left's version has become the official version, taught to us by schools, Hollywood and the press. Fighting the lies of those Wormtongues will be a long slow war of attrition...

As a contrast, I recommend this post by Donald Sensing, about the reforms that changed the US Army's officer corps after the Vietnam War.

...This post is long enough, so I won't detail all those reforms, but I emphasize that as important as technology, reworking the Army's schools, funding and advanced training have been to making the Army the pre-eminent force in the world (see here), the most important revolution was ethical and moral. Duty honor, country really did return to the fore as the guidon of the officer corps. For a few years of my service in the '80s, there was a lot of discussion about drawing up a formal code of conduct for the officer corps. Fortunately, after fairly service-wide debate and a number of draft codes floated here and there, this idea was abandoned and we stuck with the ancient code of the US Military Academy: And officer does not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do.

It's interesting to contrast that with the anti-war Left, which is determined to re-think nothing, and to re-live the glory days of 30 years ago.

My daughter told me this joke...

A Frenchman, an Englishman, and a New Yorker are captured by cannibals. The chief cannibal comes to them and says, "The bad news is that now that we've caught you, we're going to kill you, put you in a pot, cook you, eat you, and then use your skins to build a canoe. The good news is that you get to choose how you die."

The Frenchman says, "I take zee sword." The chief gives him a sword, he says, "Vive la France!" and runs himself through.

The Englishman says, "Right--a pistol for me, please." The chief gives him a pistol, he points it at his head, says, "God save the Queen!" and blows his brains out.

The New Yorker says, "Gimme a fork." The chief is puzzled, but he shrugs and gives him a fork. The New Yorker takes the fork and starts jabbing himself all over the stomach, the sides, the chest, everywhere. There's blood gushing out all over, it's horrible! The chief is appalled, and asks, "What in the world are you doing?" The New Yorker says, "So much for your stupid canoe!"

"Many who denounced the book clearly had not bothered to read it..."

Great article by publisher Adam Bellow, My Escape From The Zabar's Left, How a pedigreed upper west side liberal came out as a conservative warrior.

...Although I had grown up in the liberal counterculture, I was increasingly uncomfortable with the way that it was hardening into a rigid and intolerant orthodoxy. I resented the fact that there were ideas you couldn’t discuss and opinions that were considered immoral. Nor did I share the existential panic of most liberals over the emergence of conservative Christians as a political force.

Finally, in 1987, Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind. Bloom was a friend of my father’s, and I had spent the previous year at the University of Chicago taking courses with him on Plato, Machiavelli, and Rousseau. Bloom’s attack on relativism and multiculturalism and his defense of the Great Books were bitterly condemned as racist, sexist, Eurocentric, and elitist. Many who denounced the book clearly had not bothered to read it, relying instead on hostile reviews that distorted it beyond recognition. This was a fatal blow to my esteem for the Zabar’s Left. For an earlier generation, it was the excesses of the antiwar and Free Speech movements that had pushed them into the conservative camp. For me, it was the intellectual dishonesty of the debate about Bloom’s book....

(Thanks to Roger Simon. For the meaning of "Zabar's," see here.)

#165: Have another donut?

KRUGMAN TRUTH SQUAD

We are always surprised when Paul Krugman writes a column that is thoughtful and free of partisan cheap shots. In America's Failing Health (08/27/04) he comes pretty close and for the second time in recent memory, the topic of his thoughtfulness is health care. Health vs. Wealth (07/09/04) was the other one (see Squad Report #161). Here is the core of today's column:

"Clearly, health care reform is an urgent social and economic issue. But who has the right answer?
The 2004 Economic Report of the President told us what George Bush's economists think, though we're unlikely to hear anything as blunt at next week's convention. According to the report, health costs are too high because people have too much insurance and purchase too much medical care. What we need, then, are policies, like tax-advantaged health savings accounts tied to plans with high deductibles, that induce people to pay more of their medical expenses out of pocket. (Cynics would say that this is just a rationale for yet another tax shelter for the wealthy, but the economists who wrote the report are probably sincere.)
John Kerry's economic advisers have a very different analysis: they believe that health costs are too high because private insurance companies have excessive overhead, mainly because they are trying to avoid covering high-risk patients. What we need, according to this view, is for the government to assume more of the risk, for example by picking up catastrophic health costs, thereby reducing the incentive for socially wasteful spending, and making employment-based insurance easier to get.
A smart economist can come up with theoretical justifications for either argument. The evidence suggests, however, that the Kerry position is much closer to the truth."

We disagree, of course, for all the reasons stated in SR #161 but this time Krugman goes a little farther and cites some data suggesting that Americans pay more and get less benefit (based on longevity and infant mortality) than countries with a single-payer health care system, e.g., Canada and France. We checked the longevity data and life expectancy is very close in all advanced countries. So he doesn't have a very strong point here.

However, if we can get on our own soapbox for a moment, the reasons for "America's Failing Health" become pretty obvious if you just look around any convenience store. The amount of space devoted to junk food (cookies, crackers, candy, soda, ice cream and pastry) is appalling. We have some very fat people in this country. Life insurers routinely charge higher premiums to the obese. But in health care insurance the healthy it seems subsidize the obese through pooling. Then, as Krugman laments, since insurers cannot charge the obese a premium that reflects their health status, they find clever ways to exclude high-risk customers altogether.

Higher premiums to the obese might send them a price signal to lose some weight. Unfortunately, we seem to be moving in the opposite direction. There is a move afoot to make obesity itself a disease, rather than a contributor to other diseases, and therefore directly eligible for reimbursement for medical treatment. What a terrible idea. Instead of a price signal, this move would absolve the obese of all responsibility. They are simply sick.

Have another donut? Don't mind if I do

[The Truth Squad is a group of economists who have long marveled at the writings of Paul Krugman. The Squad Reports are synopses of their discussions. ]

listed again...

This is a re-posting in one spot of some of my reasons to attack Iraq, so I can point it out to someone who says, "One thing that's especially unsettling to me is how few people who supported the war in Iraq have been able to give me solid reasons as to why it made sense" [comment, here] (Of course Warbloggers have been explaining exactly that for several years now. But there's always somebody who doesn't get the memo. Also, the redoutable Dean Esmay long ago posted Seven Reasons, which formed the origins of this list. And Wretchard blogged reason #1.)

Some of the items on my list of reasons for the Iraq Campaign , as part of our War on Terror:

1. Avoid fizzle-out. The big danger of a war against shadowy groups is that they can destroy our resolve to fight by pretending to negotiate or change their ways. By attacking the very heartland of the Arab world, we avoid the cycle of truces and negotiations that have crippled Israel's war on its terrorists. The jihadis MUST fight for Iraq, they can't just lie low for a few years and then strike again. The stakes are now too high.

2. We couldn't make progress in changing the ways of the terror-supporting nations, until we took out ONE of them. Iraq was a good choice because we already had a good legal case, with both binding UN Resolutions, plus Iraq's failure to comply with peace-terms from the Gulf War. And also because Saddam was the most considerable of the terror-supporting dictators, so his fall would have the biggest effect on the others.

3. Until the culture of despotism and backwardness of the Arab world is changed, new terrorist groups will continue to arise. Iraq is the best choice for starting the process of change, with a well-educated population that has suffered terribly from tyranny. Already what's happening in Iraq is changing the dialog in the region.

4. The most important instance of the above is Iran (which is the worst of the terror-supporting countries). Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have already moved to Iraq looking for jobs or business opportunities. Iraq may look horrible to the NYT, but to Iranians it is already a little paradise of freedom. And the Mullahs can't close off that border--all their Holy Cities are in Iraq.

5. The humanitarian reasons are compelling. Tens-of-thousands of people were being tortured and murdered in Iraq each year. The UN sanctions regime left children dying without food and medicine, while Saddam built palaces and funded terror groups and corrupted Western governments with kickbacks. And we were INVOLVED in that sanctions perversion--we have a responsibility to end it.

6. Similarly, we bear responsibility for encouraging the Shi'ite revolt against Saddam after the Gulf War. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were slaughtered because of our moves. We should have moved against Saddam years ago for that reason alone.

7. This is a WAR! WMD's: While it's true we haven't found stockpiles, we've found weapons programs that could have quickly rebuilt stockpiles, which Saddam clearly wanted and had before. And more importantly, this is a war. Not a case at law. The mere appearance of plans to attack us or our allies is justification for an attack. In a war, it is our responsibility to attack any enemy nation if feasable. It is those who oppose war-like attacks during war time who bear the responsibility of providing reasons why we should not.

7. This is a WAR! pt II. We have partly created the terrorists, by consistent weakness and vacillation over several decades. We have taught the terrorists to attack us! Withdrawing from Lebanon taught Hezbollah that suicide bombs work. Failure to respond in the Iran hostage crises taught a generation of terrorists that we are weak and vulnerable. Withdrawal from Somalia taught them the tactics now used in Iraq. We have waited so long to respond, that only a long bloody struggle will teach them a new lesson.

Iraq was the correct move because it is a bloody quagmire (though I don't think that term is really correct.) It is only by being resolute in the face of casualties and setbacks that we can overcome the education we have given terrorists by our past weakness. Failure to do so now will mean a much bigger butcher's-bill will be presented sometime in the future.

8. Diplomacy. Obviously it is best to solve problems peacefully by diplomacy and negotiations. But our diplomacy has been crippled by lack of a credible threat of violence as an alternative. This dates from our catastrophic withdrawal from Vietnam, and is exacerbated by the decline of most other Western powers into military impotence. Diplomacy works as the "good cop" alternative to a military "bad cop." Our failure in this has been so great that it could only be redeemed by some seriously crazy violence. Iraq--perfect! Now Colin Powell's "good cop" is contrasted with a really scary "bad cop" named Donald Rumsfeld. Expect big diplomatic payoffs...With Libya as a starter.

9. Successes. Proof's in the pudding. If Iraq was a bad move, we could expect it to turn out badly. That's exactly the picture the Old Media is trying to paint, by reporting only bad news. But nowadays we also have the New Media, to counteract those America-hating liars. Including bloggers, who pass along news of our successes like samizdata in the old Soviet Union. Especially, Chrenkoff has done splendid work in a long series of posts collecting good news from Iraq. (Look on his right sidebar under "The Best of Chrenkoff.)

10. Consensus of elected leaders. President Bush requested approval for the invasion of Iraq from Congress. The Senate debated the question and voted overwhelmingly in favor. Our nation made this decision. We made the decision. That's a powerful reason in favor. For various people (including some of the Senators who voted yes) to now sit on the sidelines and whine, "I don't know anything about this and nobody told me anything and it has nothing to do with me" is despicable.

a quiet little study...

From USAToday:

The jobs numbers that you're not hearing about By Timothy Kane and Andrew Grossman

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently snuck out a telling confession beneath everyone's radar: Its flagship payroll survey is likely undercounting hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Most economic observers were too busy fretting over the lackluster gain of 32,000 payroll jobs in July to take notice of the other positive indicators, let alone the quiet little study that acknowledges payrolls have a problem.

The study describes how job-changing can inflate the payroll survey's numbers artificially. When worker turnover is brisk, as in the late 1990s, millions of workers are counted twice when they switch jobs. About 3.9 million people changed employers during a typical month during the 1990s, but only 3.1 million do so now....

The BLS has that other survey, of households. That one says there are "2 million more working Americans under President Bush than ever before.."

(Thanks to Pejman)

Under the Iron Heel...

Good point

One of the more obvious instances of media bias we've seen in recent years was the way the United States Congress suddenly became the Republican Congress in 1994. You can't change the media though, so you just grin and bear it. But there was just a clip from a Moveon.org ad on MSNBC in which they referred not to the government of the United States but to the "Bush government." Do we even need to say these folks are anti-American when they apparently don't recognize the American government if they aren't running it?
--Orrin Judd

Same playbook...

Dean writes, in a great post:

...Rarely, so rarely, do you see anyone in the mainstream media simply be fair to the other side of the Vietnam question: that it was a war we entered into because mass-murdering, oppressive totalitarian communist forces, backed by the Soviets and the Chinese, were threatening a helpless people. Rarely do you see it acknowledged that the U.S. won every single battle it fought in Vietnam. Rarely do you see it acknowledged that the overwhelming majority of men who fought in that conflict fought honorably, with decency and humanity, and genuinely cared about and wanted to help the people of Vietnam.

Those who did act with decency and humanity and noble aims were the norm, not the exception. War crimes (which occur in every war) were the exception, not the rule.

Vietnam veterans have endured over 30 years of feeling their character has been besmirched by their culture...

Another thing that never gets mentioned, when Hollywood or the news media (or Democrat candidates) mention Vietnam, is that the communists were trying to provoke atrocities. They were hiding among civilians, attacking from among civilians, using children to carry explosives among us. They wanted us to gun down villagers. And the leftists of the world, and the news media were all in tacit alliance with the communists--if Americans could be provoked into war crimes, they and the communists both win. (And of course we never give a shred of credit or thanks to all the thousands of Americans who weren't like Lt Calley, and didn't commit crimes despite great provocation.)

AND IT'S JUST THE SAME NOW! The terrorists and Ba'athists and the Taliban and Al Sadr are using exactly the same playbook as the North Vietnamese. And News media pundits and Hollywood lefties and Democrat politicians all know their parts perfectly.

If the terrorists can provoke our soldiers into blowing the roof off the Imam Ali Mosque, its a win for John Kerry! And it's a win for Al Sadr. And the New York Times wins, and the people in the newsroom will pat themselves on the back because their America-hating Vietnam-era worldview has been saved once again, and they don't need to re-think.

And most infuriating of all, the lefty-bloggers will ooze pleasure and self-satisfaction like butter out of every pore until they glow like little polished gold buddhas. And we'll have, like Abu Ghraib, the same crocodile tears, and the same totally fake claims that they are shocked and ashamed of America's evilness... And of course they will emphasize that the only way to bring about reform is to give this maximum publicity for the longest time possible, and to immediately have investigations of Republicans, who everybody knows are really fascist war-criminals anyway.

"Strange is the seaman's heart"

THE UNFATHOMABLE SEA

The unfathomable sea, and time, and tears,
The deeds of heroes and the crimes of kings
Dispart us; and the river of events
Has, for an age of years, to east and west
More widely borne our cradles. Thou to me
Art foreign, as when seamen at the dawn
Descry a land far off and know not which.
So I approach uncertain; so I cruise
Round thy mysterious islet, and behold
Surf and great mountains and loud river-bars,
And from the shore hear inland voices call.
Strange is the seaman's heart; he hopes, he fears;
Drawn closer and sweeps wider from that coast;
Last, his rent sail refits, and to the deep
His shattered prow uncomforted puts back.
Yet as he goes he ponders at the helm
Of that bright island; where he feared to touch,
His spirit re-adventures; and for years,
Where by his wife he slumbers safe at home,
Thoughts of that land revisit him; he sees
The eternal mountains beckon, and awakes
Yearning for that far home that might have been.

-- ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

slipperiness...

Wretchard puts his finger on a big part of what is so maddening about Kerry:

John Kerry's troubles have largely been forced on him by the Democratic Party platform. He has been given the unenviable task of presenting it as the War Party when in fact it is not, nor does it want to be. The Democrats could have chosen to become a real anti-war party, in which case it would have nominated Howard Dean or it could have elected to become a genuine war party and chosen Joseph Lieberman. Instead it chose to become the worst of all combinations, an anti-war party masquerading as the war party.

To carry out this program, it required a Janus-like figure and found it in Senator Kerry; the only man of sufficient stature who could look two ways at once. It would have been a desirable trait, as Christopher Hitchens pointed out, in a peacetime President...

Kerry is emblematic of the infuriating slipperiness of the Democrats. It's impossible to debate with them because they won't honestly avow their positions.

It's clear that many of them still hold the American troops are war criminals position that Kerry pushed in the 70's. You have only to remember the rapture with which they greeted Abu Ghraib, and instantly assumed that prisoner abuse was widespread. (See here for good evidence that it is not.) But they could never be pinned down on this, so the debate was always on false terms.

Kerry has never repudiated the charges of war crimes that he made in the 70's (the most he will say is that his language "was too harsh"). But neither does he defend them!

And the mainstream media have no desire to open the question, and they treat as right-wing cranks anyone who tries to. Which has left Vietnam Vets growling into their beers for thirty years. Until now. Until the rise of the New Media. Until Kerry ran for President.

Timeline of missteps...

Glenn Reynolds linked to this timeline of missteps by the Kerry campaign. It's pretty damning. American campaigns are a sort of rough and ready trial-by-fire for candidates. That's obviously not the most fair way to judge a candidate, but still, someone who can juggle the complex political/administrative/leadership duties of a president or governor should be able to put together a fairly competent campaign.

Challenge: Can anyone point to anything the Kerry campaign has done with surprising adroitness? (Coordinating with their 527's doesn't count. They've taken to that like fish to water, but it is, in fact, illegal.)

Sighted sign, snapped same, San Fran....

Borders Bookstore, Stonestown Mall, San Francisco CA.
Hmmm. Looks like this kerfluffle
won't be resolved too quickly...

like the mad death-wish of a guilty conscience...

I strongly recommend this piece by Varifrank, The Grand Unified Theory Of Vietnam.

It asks the question: Why is the press, which has never liked John Kerry in the past, now going to lunatic lengths to defend him?

...After looking around on the web, I came across a set of pictures of John Kerry at the 1970 "Valley Forge" rally, known as "Winter Soldier", where Kerry made some pretty rough statements about the soldiers and sailors he has just finished serving with. Behind him in the picture was the usual suspects, but then I began to pick out a series of celebrities, who at that time were just new and up and coming in their careers. While I was doing this, I had a documentary on the TV :" A Decade Under The Influence". This is the story of the rise of the new breed in Hollywood after the studio system ended. Many of the people in the background of the pictures with Kerry were dead center in this documentary. I was doing digital convergence and I didn't even know it...

His answer is that 9/11, and President Bush's strong and patriotic leadership afterwards, begs a huge question: whether the lefty protesters of the 60's and 70's, who are now the leaders in the press and Democrat Party, were wrong! Utterly wrong! Betrayers of their country, their military, their fellow citizens, and free people everywhere.

They can't face that question.

...So, why is the press unhinged and supporting John F. Kerry like crazed moonies?

It's for the redemption from their sins and the return of a moral order that they can understand, more importantly a moral order in which they sit at the top.

By working to elect John Kerry, they can return to the world where Vietnam was wrong, but they can now say that defense of America is right. By working to elect John Kerry, they do not have to confront their bigotry against their very own country and its countrymen...
... More simply put, by electing John Kerry it lets a generation off the hook for its malfeasance in the defense of liberty...

"it lets a generation off the hook." Well, they aren't going to be able to get off the hook. They are guilty as hell, guilty of choosing communism over American freedom, and helping the communists to murder millions or send them to concentration camps, or fleeing in leaky boats as refugees. And leaving those who survived, in Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia, to survive in backwardness and poverty and brutal oppression.

And now, with something like the mad death-wish of a guilty conscience, the same betrayers have nominated for President the man who, more than probably any other politician, symbolizes and embodies that betrayal. (And whose blank Senate record symbolizes all-too-well their complete moral and intellectual vacuity)

John Kerry has been put in the dock, but it's the press and the lefty-establishment it's a part of that's now on trial.

Update: It occurs to me, there was an earlier generation of left-leaners who sided with some earlier mass-murdering communist regimes. But they didn't get off the hook! They were hounded and vilified in the 1950's, by the movement we label McCarthyism.

They quite naturally felt aggrieved, but in some ways they were lucky. They paid for their sins, (either symbolically or actually) and most were able to go beyond them, with many becoming staunch defenders of freedom against communist aggression.

Also, the press is particularly in the hot seat here, because it is they who have suppressed this debate in the past. O'Neill debated these issues with Kerry back in the 1970's! Vietnam vets have been grumbling all along, but it is only now in the age of talk-radio, the Internet, and FoxNews that they have a chance to really get some traction. They are like a pressure-cooker that's been building up steam for a long time! Look for these questions to not go away!

foo!

I kinda like how Katie puts this...

...but good grief, this election cycle is strange. Two things seem to be happening simultaneously here:

1) The "They Say You Are and Thus Shall I Be" Thing
It works like this:

Bush is not foo, where foo is a variable representing anything from 'a liar' to 'a book-buring censor'.

The left calls Bush foo.

Kerry promptly does something that demonstrates that he is foo.

The left brushes it off, because Bush is more foo.

The right screams at their computers until there are little flecks of spittle all over the keyboard.

The media stands with the cheese.

2) The "Mr. Rove's Kerry-Flip-Flop-O-Matic" Thing
This one may even be more fun. Here's how it goes:

Bush has a good idea baz, where baz is a variable representing anything from 'reduce troop deployments in Germany and Japan' to 'not raising taxes' to 'liberating Iraq'

Kerry proposes or endorses baz.

Bush does baz.

Kerry angrily denounces baz as something that will destroy our way of life as we know it, and probably also hurt the whales.

The Bush campaign mercilessly mocks Kerry for his flip-flop, even to the extent of including it in this, which is Not Very Nice, but funny and also illustrates its point well.

The left calls Bush foo.

The lying filth are doing what I predicted...

I told you this lie was coming!

"The Republicans chose to hold their convention here, I think most of us believe, to continue the political exploitation of 9/11, which this administration started almost immediately after 9/11," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, whose congressional district in Manhattan includes the site where the World Trade Center once stood.

"They want to wrap themselves in 9/11 and wrap themselves in the flag. But the fact of the matter is they don't have the right to do that."

On February 21 I wrote

Be prepared. Keep this up your sleeve to answer the LIE that our Democrat pals are going to be spreading...In fact already are spreading: That the GOP Convention in New York was scheduled to take cynical political advantage of 9/11.

Go to that post to get the truth.

Or, the short version: Mayor Bloomberg asked BOTH parties to hold their conventions in NY, to help its economy and show support.

Republicans said sure, we'll help out, and dropped the convention plans they had already made.

Democrats said: Republicans got cooties, we're going to Boston...

Thanks to Katie, a New Yorker, who writes:

..So basically, the Dems said, "We want to be the only ones to exploit 9/11 and if we can't, we'll go to Boston and exploit a misbegotton conflict that ended roughly 30 years ago." This does not strike me as the fault of the GOP.

They will have to be positive.....it'll never happen....

Donald Sensing has issued a challenge! Explain why you are FOR Kerry.....without having your argument slip-slide into "why I am against Bush."

Hence my challenge: If you support Kerry for president, I invite you to write a guest post for this blog explaining why. Here's why it's a challenge:

To be published, you must explain why Kerry is to be preferred in terms that do not simply say he's not Bush. This is not an invitation to rage about Bush; it is an invitation to be positive about Kerry.

It will be insufficient merely to declare that Bush is wrong on Iraq, taxes, education, etc. You must explain why and how Kerry is right.

You must cite and provide links to Kerry's speeches or campaign releases to back up your claims. These cites can reach all the way back to when Kerry declared his candidacy for the 2004 race.

Citing the Dermocratic platform will be unpersuasive, since neither party pays a lot of attention to its own platform once the election is over, even if they win.

Length limit is 1,500 words. That's a long post, by the way.
[...]

ABSOLUTE DEADLINE is Saturday, Aug. 28 at 7 a.m. CDT.

My guess is that his challenge will not be met in any persuasive way. But we shall see.

Will wondas never cease?

Amazing! Another Iraqi soccer win! Over a small country called Australia. Too totally cool!

...The fact that Iraq even qualified for the Athens Games was a remarkable achievement. They clinched a berth in May, just three months after the country was reinstated by the International Olympic Committee following a nine-month absence. The national Olympic committee was previously run by Saddam Hussein's son, Odai, who tortured players when they fell out of favor.

Two months after qualifying, the team's German coach, Bernd Stange, resigned because of safety reasons and was replaced by his assistant and former Iraqi player, Adnan Hamad. The team could not play any home games because of the war and had virtually no funding...

Don't read blogs...

I'm sure you've seen this sentence from the NYT, it's getting quoted a lot...

...In fairness to Mr. Kerry, his aides were faced with a strategic dilemma that has become distressingly familiar to campaigns in this era when so much unsubstantiated or even false information can reach the public through so many different forums, be it blogs or talk-show radio...

But it reminded me, that yesterday a Republican woman who was visiting Charlene at her office asked, What are Blogs?

Charlene, of course, had no difficulty answering that question. But I bet it's one that's getting asked a lot these days. The New York Times and the mainstream media can't ignore us any more, so they are saying, "Don't read blogs, they are full of unsubstantiated or even false information..." Ha ha. I love it! Ten thousand more people scratch their heads and think, "What the heck is a blog?"

I remember clothes lines...

Walter Cronkite, probably in 1993

Frank Martin writes:

...It is incredible to me that we are talking about the Vietnam war today, a full 6 wars ago. Vietnam was

A war fought when Color Television was still a novelty.

When aircraft crossing the Pacific did not have wide range navigation aids and still relied on sextants.

When the words "via satellite" appeared at the bottom of your TV screen, you said "wow".

When TV news was restricted to 30 minutes per day, and presented as simply being read by the likes of Douglas Edwards or Walter Cronkite with just a simple picture displayed behind them.

When most cities had at least two newspapers, each of a different political stripe, delivered in the morning and afternoon allowing the average citizen to get a wide variety of opinion on the news.

Computers filled entire buildings, and "terminals" were teletype devices with rolls of paper for displays.

40% of Americans didn't even own a clothes dryer, but used "clothes lines" instead....

(Thanks to Stephen Green)

Lily pad bases

THE RUMSFELD REVOLUTION PROCEEDS: New US strategy: 'lily pad' bases: US forces are moving overseas forces to smaller, transitory bases in places like Kyrgyzstan. (Ann Scott Tyson, 8/10/04, CS Monitor)

....A stone's throw from the airport, the US Air Force is busy replacing the bare "tent city" it built here in late 2001 with hard-walled structures made out of metal shipping containers - a sign the US military is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.

"It looks permanent, but it could be unbolted and unwelded if we felt like it," says Col. Mike Sumida, vice commander of the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing here, underscoring the military's new expeditionary mentality...

...Indeed, in many ways, the US air base here models the future posture of the 1.4-million-strong American active-duty forces as they prepare to undertake their biggest global repositioning since the Korean War.

Under dramatic changes envisioned by the Pentagon, tens of thousands of US troops will leave sprawling, citylike cold-war bases in Germany and Korea to return home in coming years. Meanwhile, smaller numbers will shift to austere yet strategically located new bases such as Manas, expanding the military's reach into world trouble spots...

This is good news. Slowly our military, prodded by Donald Rumsfeld and other reformers, moves towards being more flexible and fast-moving. Democrats are against this, of course, partly because Republicans are in charge, but also because they desperately want to pretend that it's still September 10, 2001. And pretend that the ponderous and outdated stuff America is discarding does not include them.

"The rich" are paying more now...

Just in case you were actually tempted to believe the Demagogues when they wail about Bush's "tax cuts for the rich," read this piece by Stephen Moore in NRO:

...The Treasury data confirm that the real impact of the tax cuts on the rich has been precisely the opposite of what the CBO study suggests. By resuscitating the economy and spurring a turnaround in income growth, the tax cuts have increased the share paid by the rich. Real income growth has increased significantly since the 2003 tax cuts were passed, increasing at faster than a 6 percent rate in the first two quarters of 2004. With the economy now growing more quickly, we can expect the tax shares paid by high-income groups to increase.

There is another reason to suspect that as the Bush tax cuts continue to kick in, they will increase tax payments by the wealthy. People are much more likely to work harder, engage in entrepreneurial activity, and make investments when the government is confiscating less of the monetary rewards for these activities. When you tax something, you get less of it...

Un huh...

Here's an MSNBC article on whether the Bush campaign is illegally coordinating with the Swift Boat Vets, a 527 organization.

But what's this we find in the middle of the article?

...Kerry aides said they will maintain the offensive through surrogates, if not Kerry himself. Democrats welcomed the response.

“Out of desperation, the Bush campaign has picked the wrong fight with the wrong veteran,” said Jim Jordan, former Kerry campaign manager who now runs an outside group airing ads against Bush. “Today’s the start of the mother of all backlashes.”...

(My emphasis) thanks to PowerLine, where a reader pointed this out.

oxygen thieves

Raging Dave puts this well:

...The quote [by Lillian Hellman], by the way is "There are those people who eat the world. And then there are others who just stand around and watch them eat it."

I think that's the perfect analogy for today's modern liberals. They wail and gnash their teeth at the thought of genocide in Sudan, but should Bush send in the 101st Airborn Division to stop it, you can bet your bottom dollar there would be protests held nationwide. They do nothing but complain, but when someone else actually steps up and DOES something about, they screech and cry foul. They talk about women's rights, but when Bush removed the Taliban and their oppressive regime, which regularly enslaved women, killed them for appearing in public without a male family member, and prevented them from working or going to school, Michael Moore was out there denouncing Bush with his chins all a-quiver. They talk about world peace, but when Bush removed the dictator responsible for over ONE MILLION DEAD ARABS, he's called Hitler.

Liberals don't want to actually DO anything, they just want to whine and snivel about it. They want to preen in their own supposed superiority, but when they're shown to be the cowardly, spineless oxygen thieves that they are, they scream and protest and break things. They'll demand action in grand terms, but when someone ACTS they throw a temper tantrum.

They'll watch others eat the world, and do nothing to stop it...

I wish this weren't so true as it is. We see this stuff every day. I remember someone writing last year about going to the MLA Convention, and mentioning that he often used to hear denunciations of the Taliban....but those stopped the instant the US started actually doing something about the problem.

"But here's the bigger story:"

Dean writes:

...In the meantime, the Swift Vets have strongly answered the more recent press assaults on them, as well as other charges against them.

You can smell the fear in the Kerry camp: a huge collection of John Kerry's band of brothers hates his guts, including men who served on his Swift Boat, the commanders of the boats that served alongside his, several people who were in combat with him, and every single officer in his chain of command during Vietnam. More and more people are learning of this, and the best Kerry can do is ask Bush to make them shut up!

Meanwhile, the Swifties are showing up on more and more television and radio shows. Furthermore, as Instapundit notes, it appears that a growing number of very well-known reporters are meeting with the Swifties behind the scenes and finding them far more credible than they expected.

But here's the bigger story: The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe are no longer the arbiters of what's important and what's not, of whose criticisms of our politicians will be heard and whose will be ignored.

The Internet has detected the mainstream media as a form of censorship and simply routed around them.

You probably noted that last line when it was mentioned by Glenn Reynolds. I think it's destined to be a classic, quoted again and again. It's the mainstream media that's that story here. Politicians crash n' burn all the time, and things go on much the same. But the breaking of the power of a few big outlets to shape public debate...that's a huge change.

And the change started before the rise of the Internet. It started with Rush Limbaugh, back in the 80's. I've got a book on his beginnings, and I've read various articles, and of course talked to people. And the one thing you heard over and over about Rush was, "Thank God there's somebody who expresses what I feel!" Naturally you hear it less now, because now there are lots of voices expressing publicly the outlook of ordinary Americans. But ten years ago? It was very different.

Update

Michelle Malkin (see previous post) will be on Rush Limbaugh in a few minutes. I'll report if I hear anything interesting...

Malkin is going to Berkeley next to talk about her book! Amazing.

Apparently Matthews was badgering Malkin to tell her age--what a chauvinist...Saying "Are you old enough to be on this program?"

She was scheduled for the second segment of the show, and then that was cancelled after the 1st segment. Rush asked how they did that. (I was wondering the same thing.) Michelle: 'He just said "you're off!"'

Rush was amazed that the network didn't have a copy of the book. He said, "so they don't have their own copy?" Apparently they snatched up Malkin's copy and leafed through it after the segment!

Rush played a clip, with Matthews twisting "self inflicted wound" (which can be a variety of things) into "Are you saying he shot himself in the leg?" He kept repeating the "shot himself" line, though that wasn't what was said at all. But Malkin wasn't allowed to explain.

Good last comments by Rush: "You showed yourself to be above that fray." (Yes. I was amazed, listening to the clips, how calm she stayed.) And: "15 years ago there would have been nowhere you could go to get the truth out about what happened, and to shine a light on these people..." That's sure the truth.

"in full desperation mode..."

Michelle Malkin on her appearance on Crossfire:

...As the show broke for commercials, Matthews scrambled for his producers to see if what he said was true. And I'm irresponsible? One staffer ran to the office where I had left my copy of the book, and handed it to Matthews, who--for the first time, apparently--started flipping through it. I asked for my book back and politely said thank you. After I left, he trashed me again on the air and his scurrilous charges were repeated by his MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann, who called me an "idiot."

I am used to playing hardball. I expect it. I am used to ad hominem attacks. I get more in a day than most of these wussies have received in their lifetimes. But what happened last night was pure slimeball and the unfair, unbalanced, and unhinged purveyors of journalism, or whatever it is they call what they do at MSNBC, should be ashamed.

What I take away from all this is that the Democrat Party waterboys in the media are in full desperation mode. I have now witnessed firsthand and up close (Matthews' spittle nearly hit me in the face) how the pressure from alternative media sources--the blogosphere, conservative Internet forums, talk radio, Regnery Publishing, FOX News, etc. --is driving these people absolutely batty.

Keep bringing it on.

If it were only Kerry unraveling, I would just feel sorry for the guy, and turn away in embarrassment. But Kerry is really the embodiment in human form of the lies of the Democrat "activist base." They wave the flag at election time, and pretend to be Americans, while they despise everything American, and dream of Euro-style rule-by-elites, and hope for the smothering of all our exuberant freedom under government regulation.

There couldn't be a more perfect example of "living a lie," than for those same lefty screwballs who protested the Vietnam war, and managed to get millions murdered or imprisoned by their communist friends, to now nominate a candidate to run as a "hero of the Vietnam War." Or for those same flakes to piously say the Pledge of Allegiance, and talk about "Old Glory," at the Convention. I know those people, we live in the midst of them. We were the only house on our block to fly the flag on the 4th of July. I know damn well what they are really thinking while they say the Pledge. When they pretend to be patriotic, they are living a lie.

And now, like one of those horror stories where someone imagines a monster, and the creature comes alive! the utter hypocrisy of the Dems has now taken human shape, and is haunting the landscape. Kerry is the Democrat Golem! Keep bringing it on, you clowns. The mallets and wooden stakes are ready...

Never again....

One of the ugliest, nastiest bits of our recent political history was the attacks on the ballots of our overseas military personnel during the 2000 election.

By the time the Herron memo made headlines, the Dems were challenging more than 1,500 absentee ballots (which grew to more than 2,400) mostly from soldiers overseas. This was almost three times the number of votes — 537 — that proved to be Bush's margin of victory. Had the Herron scam succeeded, and protests against those votes been sustained, Al Gore would be in the White House today.

This problem is not unique to Florida, and it didn't just happen in 2000. According to the results of a survey by the Reserve Officers' Association, ROA estimates that the disenfranchisement rate among military personnel who try to vote in Florida, Missouri, and South Carolina is 40-45 percent.

This is from a fine piece by Jeff Babbin... and a very pleasing one, because we learn that our Secretary of Defense is not going to let it happen again.

...For once, at the insistence of Don Rumsfeld, the folks in Fort Fumble are acting, not reacting, to solve this problem before it repeats itself.

On March 17, Rumsfeld sent a memo to the Joint Chiefs and Combatant Commanders telling them how the services will make sure all military members — and their family members — who are overseas, or stationed here but are away from home, get the chance to vote, and vote so that no Mark Herrons can disenfranchise them.

At the heart of Rumsfeld's plan is putting some teeth into the old Voting Assistance Officer idea. On top of it is a strategy — now underway — to use both the internet and the Postal Service effectively to help servicemen and their families request absentee ballots and get them returned in time to be counted...

How I admire that guy.

"Clamorous ovation for Team USA"

John Ellis, on those TV folks we all love so much:

NBC Olympics anchors Katie Couric and Bob Costas seemed fairly certain that the US team would not be well received by the huge crowd at last night's Opening Ceremonies in Athens. When Team USA was, in fact, greeted with a sustained and clamorous ovation, Mr. Costas sought to explain.

The Greeks, you see, can separate their love for the American people from the policies of the United States government. The warm reception they gave to Team USA should not in any way be construed as an endorsement of those policies.

Well thanks, Bob, for clearing that up. God forbid anyone might support the policies of the US government as it wages a global war against Islamic fascism. Mr. Costas's ability to read the minds of 75,000 people he's never met is remarkable. He has a big future as a political pundit.

Costas may be right, but there is another possibility. European countries don't actually have much of what we think of as democracy. Any candidates you might want to vote for are all members of the same elite group, and they expect to run things pretty much as they please without input from the riffraff.. No Reagans or Bushs ever rise up out of the "red states" and overthrow the entrenched leadership and scoff at the media elites. No Rush Limbaugh ever gives voice to what ordinary people feel.

As an example, I understand that in many European countries the majority supports the death penalty. Doesn't make a shred of difference, their wishes will never have any effect. So it's perfectly possible that ordinary Greeks support the GWOT, and were applauding for that reason. You won't hear much about it.

We used to have something like a Euro-style leadership here; it was called "Eastern Establishment Liberalism." It's now but a shadow of it's old vasty self, as witness the ludicrous and ineffectual John Kerry, the floundering of the Democrats and the NYT, and their attachment to the increasingly-marginalized "Old Europe." With any luck the next election will put them out of their misery.

Mythmaking in Texas...

Along the Brazos, they have their heads screwed on the right way...

...- George Bush was a failed oilman. As in, tried to build a business, and it failed, tried again, didn't go so well, either. John Kerry? I think he was a Politician.

- George Bush owned a baseball team, the Texas Rangers. They sucked for a million years, then he bought 'em up, and they won three AL West pennants. No Steinbrenner, certainly, but it meant a lot to us here in backasswards Texas. Then he sold it for $40 bajillion to Tom Hicks, and we haven't sniffed a pennant race until this year. John Kerry? Again...Politician.

- George Bush wrested control of the famously Democrat Texas state government from that other drunkard Texas politician, Ann Richards, the Queen of One-Liners (& One-Termers). Here, John Kerry matches up -- he's a Politician.

- George Bush has had one wife, an ex-librarian, whom he loved enough to give up the demon rum, something I have never been tempted to do, being the selfish bastard that I am. John Kerry? Well...let's just say that in a perfect world, my many wives would have been half as rich. I would have wasted their vast sums of money trying to build a business that would employ others and provide something of value to people and maybe generate some returns for stakeholders...instead of continuing to be a Politician, hogging it up at the public trough and spending everybody else's money....

Object lesson

Washington Post, Aug. 4 -- U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Wednesday that efforts to assemble an international peacekeeping force to protect a future U.N. mission in Iraq have stalled, requiring U.S.-led forces to provide security for the foreseeable future.

Please please to protecting us, oh good good unilateralist cowboys...

The Bush administration has promoted the idea of a U.N. protection force as a way of broadening international support for the struggling Iraqi political transition, particularly among countries that are reluctant to serve alongside American troops in Iraq. But senior U.N. officials say the initiative is on the verge of collapse as Iraqi insurgents and militants have stepped up attacks against citizens from countries considering participation, according to senior U.N. officials.

Actually Bush promoted the idea as an object lesson in what a useless rotting beach-carcass the UN is.

Annan said months of negotiations with more than a half-dozen potential contributors to the U.N. force -- which would be distinct from the U.S.-led multinational army but serve under the overall command of a U.S. general -- have not produced any "firm offers." Pakistan, Ukraine, Nepal, Georgia and other countries that were asked to commit more than 3,000 troops needed to protect the United Nations have engaged Annan in protracted, inconclusive discussions, officials said.

This is called "diplomacy," Mr Kofi. It's purpose is to prevent action, especially if it might help the US. They learned it from you, and now they use it on you. Hey, why not ask the French?

Pakistani officials maintain that although they have not rejected Annan's request for troops, they have no immediate plans to go to Iraq. "Other countries are withdrawing troops so how can we send them?" Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, a Pakistani spokesman, said to reporters in Lahore on Tuesday...

How indeed? Can't go against the crowd.

Murari Raj Sharma, Nepal's ambassador to the United Nations, said: "Our citizens in Iraq would be potential targets for abductions or hostage-taking. That is one of the considerations."

Raj, pal, I think the "citizens" requested are of the type called "soldiers." We have soldiers too. They don't get abducted because they carry things called "guns," and use them to kill anybody who looks at them cross-eyed. You might consider trying that out.

The setback for the United Nations comes as a Saudi Arabian proposal to send a separate Islamic peacekeeping force to Iraq received a cool response from Muslim governments that were approached to participate in it. The Saudis envision the deployment of thousands of Islamic troops, serving under a U.N. mandate, to help stabilize Iraq and potentially replace the U.S.-led force there. Annan said today that the initiative also calls for providing security for U.N. personnel.

Poor Kofi..."Islamic armies" They would have been just the ticket. Why, everyone respects their fighting skills and dependability. What a cruel disappointment!

But several countries that have been asked to serve in the force -- including Pakistan, Egypt and Malaysia -- said this week it is too dangerous to send troops. "It is better for us to wait for a while and to see how the situation is," Malaysia's Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.

Don't call us Abdullah, We'll call you.

...Despite his concerns over security, Annan assured the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Danforth, and Britain's U.N. envoy, Emyr Jones Parry, in a closed-door meeting that he would send his special envoy, Asharf Qazi of Pakistan, and a small team to Baghdad before Iraq convenes a national conference Aug. 15 to decide on its political future. But he said he would have to "monitor" the security situation before deciding "whether we send in large numbers of staff or not."

"Monitor." That's a good word. Better than skulk, lurk, hang-back, shrink, evade, scamper...or that classic: "take French leave"

You know, either us or them is suffering from some sort of bizarre disconnect from reality. We're talking about soldiers here, guys who risk their lives, fight battles...even wars, to protect civilians and civilization. Soldiers, right? Killers. Maybe the definition's changed. .

(Thanks to Greyhawk)

Taps

Day is done, gone the sun
From the hills, from the lake,
From the skies.
All is well, safely rest,
God is nigh.

Go to sleep, peaceful sleep,
May the soldier or sailor,
God keep.
On the land or the deep,
Safe in sleep.

Love, good night, Must thou go,
When the day, And the night
Need thee so?
All is well. Speedeth all
To their rest.

Fades the light; And afar
Goeth day, And the stars
Shineth bright,
Fare thee well; Day has gone,
Night is on.

Thanks and praise, For our days,
'Neath the sun, Neath the stars,
'Neath the sky,
As we go, This we know,
God is nigh.

For the story of "Taps," go here. Thanks to Orrin Judd.

Magical Me...

Katie writes

It just occurred to me exactly which fictional character John Kerry reminds me of. He's Gilderoy Lockhart, to a tee.

For those of you who aren't die-hard Harry Potterites, let me explain. Gilderoy Lockhart is the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry during Harry Potter's second year, as found in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and portrayed by Kenneth Branaugh in the movie. Gilderoy is extremely attractive (5 time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile award) and a best-se