Saturday, July 24, 2004

What?  No panties?

Quoting Churchill Again

"You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war."
Winston Churchill on Munich
They know what it looks like...
And the good news is the bad news.

In Two Parts

PART ONE: "The future is known, it's the past that keeps changing." -- Unknown Soviet dissident

PART TWO: Airbrushed.

Monday, July 19, 2004

More Terror In The Skies

Michelle saw the Jacobsen's on MSNBC tonight (I missed it) and pronounced them credible.  That matches my listen to Annie's segments on the radio that I streamed from Seattle.  I was expecting Annie to appear on Brokaw after after what she said on the radio so I wasn't ready for the feint to MSNBC.
 
I had been scratching my head about why Brokaw would go for it -- had to be an angle developing where he could do some Bush-bashing but I was scratching my head about where the angle was here to pull that off.  Now I'm thinking the story is too credible (and Annie now has a follow-up including more inputs from airline folks) so the way to bury it is on MSNBC.  Interesting though that FOX wouldn't bite after Michelle tipped them off...
 
Annie's defense of her Ann Coulter quote from the first story may have something to do with the media's continuing verdict of obscurity also ;)
Well, I have been feeling a bit sunburned lately...

Yet It Refused To Act?

Hayes continues the vivisection of the (What? Us liberal?) media over the Senate Intelligence committee report:
This administration had 12 separate reports that Iraq had provided training in chemical and biological weapons to al Qaeda. Yet it refused to act. This administration knew of numerous high-level meetings between Iraqi Intelligence and Osama bin Laden and his top deputies. Yet it refused to act. This administration had been told by the CIA that Iraqi Intelligence had become increasingly aggressive throughout 2002 in targeting U.S. interests. Yet it refused to act. This administration knew that Saddam Hussein had made Osama bin Laden a standing offer of safe haven. Yet it refused to act.

Just beautiful. 

Sunday, July 18, 2004

Better to be safer now?

I forgot to point out this Jonah gem on Kerry:
It's silly to expect us to be safer when there's so much work left to do. And the whole rationale for extending the Bush presidency is that there's work left to be done that John Kerry has no interest in doing. Commanders-in-chief who run on the premise that we shouldn't change horses in midstream don't talk about how we're safer — they talk about the progress we've made and how their opponents will go in the wrong direction. John Kerry says Bush has bad values because of the way he runs the war. He's free to make that argument, though I think it's a silly line of attack. Regardless, I say John Kerry has bad values because he thinks "keeping our alliances strong" is more important than achieving what those alliances were intended for in the first place, which is just a "sophisticated" way of saying he cares more about popularity than principle. Indeed, he says this isn't a war on terror, it's a law-enforcement issue. He says it's more important to be an environment, education, health-care, and jobs president than to be war president. He says it's better to be safer now than for America to be safer for our children. But he thinks it's outrageous that we run up deficits during a war. In other words, he's outraged that our grandkids might be stuck with higher interest rates or fewer entitlements but not that they might have to face a Middle East chock-a-block with nuclear-armed Saddams and Osamas. Those strike me as pretty poor values.

And don't ever forget that our ability to spy on the nihilists just ain't gonna happen.  Least of all from the party of Frank Church.  So being on the defensive is just a patently absurd position.  Being on the offense is the only way to spy.  It's called capture and interrogate.

Quote of the Day

"Few discoveries are more irritating than those which expose the pedigree of ideas.", Lord Acton.
 
And the pedigreed elephant in the room can be found here.  But don't worry, the Joooooos are the real Nazis!  It accords perfectly with the popularity of "Mein Kampf" among the Palestinians you see...

Refresher On The Stars

"If Islam desires the secret of the stars it must embrace the kuffar as its brother -- or die."
He talks, after all, like most of us do.

The Day You Find Out Why

Very nice post by Sensing today:
Someone once said that the two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you discover why.

George Bernard Shaw wrote, "This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one: the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, and being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."

Contrast that with a sign found on a shop's door in New York one morning: "Gone out of business. Didn't know what our business was."

"More men fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent," said Evangelist Billy Sunday.

Robert Kohler wrote, “There are different kinds of voices calling you to different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which” voice is the call of God rather than the voice of self interest, cultural values or something else. “The kind of work that God usually calls you to do is the kinds of work that you need most to do and that the world most needs to have done.”

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet” (Frederick Buechner). That's why you were born, and when you find it you know you came to it for just such a time as this.

There is a story about Yogi Berra, the famous catcher for the New York Yankees, and Hank Aaron, who at that time was the chief power hitter for the Milwaukee Braves. The teams were playing in the World Series, and as usual Yogi kept up a ceaseless chatter, intended both to encourage his teammates and distract Milwaukee's batters.

As Aaron came to the plate, Yogi tried to distract him by saying, "Hank, you're holding the bat wrong. You're supposed to hold it so you can read the trademark." Aaron didn't say anything, but when the next pitch came he hit it into the left-field bleachers. After rounding the bases and tagging up at home plate, Aaron looked at Yogi Berra and said, "I didn't come here to read."

"Mommy, why did you kill my twin brother(s)?"

Go read Michelle. Here's a sample:
When we saw the specialist, we found out that I was carrying identical twins and a stand alone. My doctors thought the stand alone was three days older. There was something psychologically comforting about that, since I wanted to have just one. Before the procedure, I was focused on relaxing. But Peter was staring at the sonogram screen thinking: Oh, my gosh, there are three heartbeats. I can't believe we're about to make two disappear. The doctor came in, and then Peter was asked to leave. I said, ''Can Peter stay?'' The doctor said no. I know Peter was offended by that.
I suppose that you're going to tell me with a straight face that this child will never find out? And of course, someone stupid enough to be involved in this is part of the bigger picture...

Tammy Bruce has a phrase for this: "malignant narcisism". I'll be thinking for days to come up with a better example. Sad to say that Stalin and Hitler are the only leads I have right now -- a sad reminder of the projection actually involved by the leftists' incessant cries of BusHitler...

No Such Thing As Al-Qaeda?

Wretchard on Warren for the take you really need to read:

One the most most striking things about the Global War on Terror is how closely it's resolution is linked with the longest standing issues of Western society. For that reason the war intrudes directly and insistently on Western domestic politics. The Madrid bombing of March 11, 2004 and the American Presidential elections in November are cases in point. Both are essentially about the War on Terror. The enemy cannot be named because doing so would overturn the 20th century political and economic foundations to its roots. It would tear down the Big Tent of political correctness; put a prosperity heavily dependent on oil supplies at risk; and replace an entire paradigm of international relations. For that reason naming the enemy will avoided for as long as possible; perhaps even after a mushroom or biological cloud darkens an American city.

On-going de-nihilism as described by Wretchard leads everyone to also forget that WTC I was aimed to topple one tower into the other leading to 100,000+ casualties. But that's too inconvenient to think about of course...
 
UPDATE: Oh yes, I forgot.  The leftists will point out that they didn't actually pull it off -- implying that they were too stupid to.  But don't worry, that's not racism.  It's really me that's the racist.  UmmmHmmm...
Considering aliteracy.  Yes, aliteracy...
 
And a fine Steyn flashback for a Sunday afternoon -- precursors about hiding in plain sight regarding the recent Annie Jacobsen piece.  What?  Well better go read it then!