I'm Drinking Blue Moon...

clipped from pajamasmedia.com The Marines have taken on mythic dimensions, not just in America, but all over the world. Mao instructed his generals to allocate more than four divisions to defeat 2 Marine battalions, which pretty much sums up the awe… Today is the Marines’ birthday. 232 years ago the Marine Corps was created in a bar, and we who celebrate them are called upon to drink (at least) a bottle of beer. Here’s a fine essay about the “expeditionary” Marine tradition, written by a reader of this blog, David Barrow, and published in the Marine Gazette I think it well captures what Thomas Smith calls “the magic of the marines,” something which the terrorists of al Qaeda and Hezbollah understand very well. “Perhaps impossible to define,” Smith wrote a year ago, “this magic may be expressed in the words of a frantic terrorist whose radio transmission was intercepted by U.S. forces during the assault on Fallujah in 2004: ‘We are fighting, but the Marines keep coming. We are shooting, but the Marines won’t stop’.”

The "Uptown Intellectuals"

clipped from pajamasmedia.com What is perhaps most alarming about Mailer’s violence against his wife was that it seems to have titillated more than it repelled his circle of friends. In any event it brought very little condemnation. “Among ‘uptown intellectuals,’” Irving Howe wrote “there was this feeling of shock and dismay, and I don’t remember anyone judging him. The feeling was that he’d been driven to this by compulsiveness, by madness. He was seen as a victim.” Readers who wonder how stabbing his wife could make Mailer a “victim”—and who ask themselves, further, what Mailer’s being a victim would then make Adele—clearly do not have what it takes to be an “uptown intellectual.”

Those At Nuremberg Excepted?

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com What offense is taken will probably stem from the subtle dishonesty inherent in the manipulation of the situation. When one attends a politically rally, those at Nuremberg excepted, it is with the expectation that audience events are unscripted. Spontaneous. When an ordinary person comes to such a rally it is under the impression that he is on an equal footing with everyone else in the hall with respect to the persons onstage. What a shock to discover that some are more equal than others. Politics has always been a stage. Voters know this. But they are sometimes lulled into believing there are unrehearsed events. And it's understandable if they are disappointed to learn those events are rehearsed as well. Stalin once derided Trotsky as "a common, noisy champion with faked muscles", implying that his own political muscles were real. Among politicians, how are we to know?

On The Fritz

clipped from austinbay.net It’s on us, man, I continued. And I don’t like it. I didn’t like it during the Cold War. Remember 1983? The same creeps who’ve quit now, quit then. Reagan was a warmonger, going to start a nuclear war in Europe my responding to the Soviets deployment of theater nuclear missiles. The defeatists said the Cold War was our fault, we were the threat. Then the Berlin Wall cracked and that jackass calumny disappeared as Marxism’s Eastern European wreckage emerged in drab, polluted, horrifying, undeniable color. This war follows the same arc, with the same defeatists adding new nouns to old verbs and adjectives. But it’s a war of liberty versus tyranny and they’re shilling for the tyrants. The man lost his country, twice, once to Hitler and the second time to Stalin. He took up permanent residence in the US and ended up making a lot of money– but he was still waiting, persevering in his own quiet, able way. “Maybe some day they will understand,” Fritz said with a wink.

Orwell Again

clipped from thunderrun.blogspot.com Orwell said it best: "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." May their service be remembered on Rememberance Day and never forgotten.

The Heart Of The Problem

clipped from shrinkwrapped.blogs.com If America seeks to fight Jihad, America must develop a policy on political Islamism to measure the validity of any nation as an "ally" when it comes to its willingness to fight Jihad. We have a dual problem: (1) America's current leadership is ambivalent on a policy regarding political Islamism in its own nation, and (2) America's current leadership is willing to ignore Islamist views of the people or governments of so-called "ally" nations in a "war on terror". When a majority of Muslim support Sharia as a religious/political basis for law and governance, the question of a moderate majority becomes acute.  We must either define moderate downward until it is a meaningless adjective (ie, any Muslim who does not actively seek to kill us is a moderate) or we must recognize that a population that supports such quaint measures as death for apostasy and the second class status for woman and non-Muslims can not be considered moderate by any reasonable measure.

And Easily Proven So

clipped from www.yourish.com Here is my big problem with the use of the 1930s Germany imagery when talking about Muslim terrorists living in Britain: The propaganda of the 1930s was a lie. The lies were spread by the Nazi party to delegitimize and dehumanize the Jews of Germany and Europe. The Jews were scapegoated by a party that found a way to unite Germany on a cause that has ever united the world: Hatred of the Jews. The Jews of Germany did absolutely nothing of what Hitler accused them. They were not out to destroy Germany. On the other hand, MI5 has concrete evidence that Muslims in Britain are plotting terrorist attacks. Muslims in Britain—British citizens—have perpetrated terrorist attacks. They have murdered British citizens. They have murdered Israeli citizens. The reason that the MI5 warning that 2,000 Muslims are being watched for terrorist links is not comparable to the lies of the 1930s is because what the MI5 says is true. The comparison is completely invalid.

Plant Life -- Unplugged

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com Apparently heeding the lyrical call to "get back to the garden", Hillary's team has plants popping up all over the campaign trail: For the second time in as many days, Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has had to deal with accusations of planting questions during public appearances, FOX News has learned. This will start getting more traction. Earlier today, I noted that no one else had yet come forward to tell a similar story, and that could mean that a staffer just went off on a flier. It now looks like a pattern of staging supposedly extemporaneous questions, which calls into question why Hillary's team lacks confidence in her ability to handle herself without fixing the questions. It goes beyond the dishonesty, which is bad enough, to how bad could Hillary be that the campaign feels it has to protect us from her. clipped from www.daybydaycartoon.com

Like This

clipped from www.blackfive.net It was not inevitable that this would happen.  It was not a forgone conclusion that the population would rise up against these foreign ass-hats that want to not only kill us, but to enslave and kill them too.  It could however be discerned that with a renewed effort and a change of strategy on our part, and walking the streets and living among the the people. Like this: The throat cutters from Asscrackistan, or where ever they came from are in trouble, big trouble.  And so are the distinguished members of the Surrender Lobby....

Only Then

clipped from www.outsidethewire.com But there is another group for who the sting of their own cowardice is too much to bear.  They are not willing to accept that they cannot be heroes.  They cannot accept that, even if they were younger or had the physical ability to confront a violent villain, they would shrink from the challenge.  To alleviate their guilt they invent a new villain--Halliburton, Cheney, neo-cons, politicians, military officers, Soldiers, Marines--in short, anyone who will not physically harm them.  The first block-buster Iraq War movie will be about the battle of Fallujah or another life and death struggle showing Marines or Soldiers as heroes.  This movie will follow the traditional monomyth with the heroes confronting a villain with violence and prevailing.  But this movie will come out of nowhere.  It will not be backed by a major studio or star name-brand actors.  And only then will the war hero return.

Welcome To The Storm

clipped from instapundit.com OR MAYBE IT'S AN EMERGENT A.I.: "Some experts have put the number of Storm-infected PCs at close to 10 million, but most estimates are more conservative, pegging the infected pool at between a few hundred thousand and a million or so machines. . . . Some observers have estimated that Storm may have as much as a petabyte of memory at its disposal. The human brain may have as much as a petabyte of storage available to it." If so, I hope it's a friendly one.

Mailer RIP (Bad Language Quoted Edition)

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Norman Podhoretz devotes a memorable chapter ("A Foul-Weather Friend to Norman Mailer") of his memoir Ex-Friends to Mailer. Podhoretz recounts that Mailer rushed up to Podhoretz's apartment after Mailer had stabbed his then-wife Adele Morales in 1960; Podhoretz wonders in retrospect whether he did the right thing in agreeing to help Mailer avoid institutionalization and psychiatric help afterwards. In recounting his friendship with Mailer, Podhoretz mixes personal, political and literary considerations. He notes that Mailer was good not only with Mailer's own children, but with Podhoretz's, who refused to believe that Mailer had in fact stabbed his wife. I wonder whether the obituarists will recall Mailer's dissent from the first wave of feminism in the early 1970's. Given his own notorious marital relationships, it was hard to take him seriously as a sexual philosopher. But among the recollections of Mailer worth bringing to mind

... is of a Mailer appearance at the University of Colorado:

After an overlong and fawning introduction, Mr. Mailer waited offstage (obviously prolonging the applause), then strutted out, his shoulders pulled back, dressed all in black. At the time he was quite well known for antagonizing women's libbers, so there was quite a contingent of sign waving female protestors, and some males as well.

As he began to speak in his rapid fire and theatrical style, he was often heckled from the large audience. Most of this had to do with his supposedly misogynistic leanings. After 10 minutes or so, he decided to respond, telling the audience he would be happy to deal with the shouters directly. He then challenged them to "hiss me resoundingly," which they did with some gusto. He then derided their effort and commitment, telling them how puny was their voice, and implored them to do better. The response was much bigger the next time, with lots of profanity and vile name calling. Mailer stood there stoically receiving their rage.

When the din had mostly died down and people were waiting for his response, Mailer simply looked out over the audience and said, "Thank you, obedient bitches."

The tension had gotten just high enough, and the anticipation was certainly high enough, so that this perfect piece of theatrical verbal judo caused the room to explode with screams, hoots, laughter and sustained applause. I have never seen before or since such a wonderful performance.

Of course, though the protesters were afraid to open their mouths thereafter, that didn't stop one of them from going back to their dorm room and calling in a bomb threat. It was the perfect end piece to a perfect evening.


On the one hand I do find Mailer rather offensive and misogynistic. On the other hand...

... RIP

Our "Betters" -- Pakistan Edition

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com Columbia professor George Saliba was quoted by Pakistan’s Daily Times saying that all modern scientific discoveries were made by Muslims, but an LGF reader forwarded an email from the professor that says the Daily Times made it all up. (Which isn’t hard to believe.) This should teach you not to believe the press on such matters. I never said what is attributed to me in that report. All I said is that the decimal fractions were finally used as numbers for the first time during Islamic times, and in particular in a manuscript written by Uqlidisi in Damascus around the year 952 AD where the decimal point is clearly marked in the text. To explain the system I drew attention to the fact that the decimal system is not unique and that there are other systems such as the sexagessimal system, and the Binary system NOT invented during Islamic civilization, although the first has extensively used in that civilization. But I can’t control what the press report ended up saying.

Cuba, Cuba, Cuba

clipped from blogs.dailymail.com The Democratic Party talking point is that Bush turned the “world” against us. The Democratic Party world now consists of Venezuela, Iran, Uzbekistan and Cuba, Cuba, Cuba. In the real world, nation after nation is electing the pro-American candidates. And they are visiting the United States. On Wednesday, it was tuxes with Sarkozy. On Friday, it was Merkel at the ranch. From the White House, this Merkel quote: “I would like to say a very warm thanks to you, George, for issuing this invitation to us. Already a first glance of the area shows us that this is, indeed, a wonderful place to be and a wonderful atmosphere. If Bush were a pariah, politicians would not be crossing an ocean to see him.

Sunset

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com Bill Roggio reports that "Abu Ibrahim, an Islamic Army commander in the region, told the Associated Press that he informed the Iraqi Police in the region that his fighters intended to attack al Qaeda. Ibrahim requested US forces stay out of the fight, as the insurgent groups could not be distinguished by uniform." Why do negotiated settlements between Jihadis fail? Groups of armed men whose primary source of legitimacy (and income) is the control of neighborhoods and towns have no incentive to share it. Without an overarching legal system to govern the division of spoils between Jihadi groups there can be no basis for sharing territory, money and authority except force of arms. In this case it means Samarra ain't big enough for the al-Qaeda and the Islamic Army of Iraq. Somebody's got to leave town before sunset or there'll be a showdown, which there apparently is going to be.

Risky Business Out Of Focus

clipped from www.nationalsummary.com The press certainly doesn’t want to discuss the risk involved in hiring strippers because it involves a moral aspect even though there clearly is an element of danger. As a result, the media is only interested in exploiting class warfare and inciting racial strife instead of bothering to examine the hazards of women getting paid money to take off their clothes in front of men. Unfortunately, it is the sensationalism that keeps the newscasters endlessly chattering about this story instead of discussing the sordid nature of the crime and that is what is so disturbing. However, it is unfortunate that we have a press that doesn’t want to discuss the ramifications of this risky behavior because it involves morals and lifestyle decisions but perhaps it is this kind of awareness that can possibly help prevent similar incidents like this

Today's "D'Oh" Moment

clipped from instapundit.com You could see that one coming . . . .

Corruption Is As Corruption Does

clipped from instapundit.com WELL, THEY CALL HER THE FRONTRUNNER: "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) has won tens of millions of dollars more in federal earmarks this year than her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, even though two of them have significantly more Senate seniority. A review of the first three appropriations conference reports finished by Senate and House negotiators shows that Clinton has successfully requested at least $530 million worth of projects." This'll make it kind of hard for her to take advantage of the Republicans' vulnerability on pork, though.

Unless of course you want to argue about what the meaning of "is" is...

Resounding Echoes

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com The second panel, on the relationship between mainstream reporters and bloggers, was stranger. It was devoted largely to the off-topic claim that the conservative blogosphere has an "infrastructure," while the liberal side does not. We must have heard the word "infrastructure" fifty times; it apparently refers to Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh and perhaps Fox News. The same lefties argued vociferously that newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post are organs of the right, notwithstanding the fact that nearly all of their editors and reporters are liberal Democrats. The disconnect from reality was complete. What makes this theory doubly weird is that several of the more popular liberal blogs are, I believe, directly financed by leftists like George Soros. So, this is the logic: if the Drudge Report links to your site every few months, you are the beneficiary of an unfair "infrastructure," but if you live off a left-wing sugar daddy, you're not.

Subject Of The Day: "Fake, But Accurate" Redux

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Is Talal's rationale very different from that of the many post-Watergate Americans who became journalists in order to change the world; to work for peace; to spread the news about environmental disaster; to be adversaries of (Republican) administrations; and so on? How different is Mary Mapes' use of "evidence" that she must have known or suspected was fake, in her case the purported Bush National Guard documents, from the Palestinians' use of staged video footage and altered photographs? There is great peril, it seems to me, in the whole concept of advocacy journalism that is devoted to a "higher truth," wherever that supposedly-idealistic ethic may take root. It is easy to imagine Palestinians and their supporters in France and elsewhere defending the Al Dura footage in exactly the terms the New York Times used to describe Mapes' bogus documents: "fake, but accurate."

From The "Stories That Actually Matter" File

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Our friend Dafydd ab Hugh points us to an under-reported story from Iraq, which may tell us a great deal about where that country is headed. It seems that two former Health Ministry officials, both Shiites, have been charged in the killing and kidnapping of hundreds of Sunnis, many of them snatched from hospitals by militias. An Iraqi judge has ruled that there's enough evidence to try the two former officials. However, under Iraqi law the Health Ministry has the power to block the prosecutions by asserting that the defendants were "carrying out their official duties" when they committed the acts of which they are accused. Such an assertion would be absurd, of course, but apparently it would also be unreviewable. In fact, the powerful Interior Ministry has used this power to prevent the prosecution of murderers within its ranks. Clearly, this is an important test of the Iraqi government's willingness to administer justice even-handedly without regard to sectarian considerations.

The Limits Of Islamic "Dualism"

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com However, dualism is only allowed because theologians do not consider it harmful to Islam. Islam and not the interests of the European nation-state remains the benchmark for any political action. Fadlallah, for example, argues that Muslims might serve in Western parliaments but only so long as they guard the interests of Muslims. The European Council for Fatwa and Research evokes the same principle in response to a query about Muslims contending in municipal elections. The role of the Muslim immigrant is to do his best to promote the interests of his nation—that is, the Muslim nation. Because Islam is blind to boundaries, jurists argue that promoting its cause is not limited to a specific community or country but to Muslims everywhere. Thus, Qaradawi argues, it is necessary to “adopt and champion the rights of the umma” be it in “Palestine, Kosovo, Chechnya,” or any other place where Muslims fight for autonomy and statehood.

Our Corrupt "Betters"

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com One of my favorite films, John Sayles' Eight Men Out, tells the story of the 1919 Chicago White Sox, who threw the World Series for gambler cash. It shows what happens when people feel an entitlement to something other than integrity. Today we have two stories that show the impulse did not die in 1920. First, the Hillary Clinton campaign fixed a question-and-answer session at an appearance at Grinnell University, although no one will admit that Hillary herself knew which questioner to address The mainstream media may find the same problem in a French courtroom. In that defense, France 2 has essentially told the court that all other news media does the same in its reporting from the Middle East The ends justify the means. Without integrity, politicians and news agencies are absolutely nothing. They are game-show hosts, only less intellectual. If they have to fix games, it means they already know they're losers. Even the Black Sox had more integrity than that.

And a commenter pretty much seals it up on the Hillary front:

When Hillary was on her "LISTENING" tour of NY, trying to carpetbag the Senate Seat.

She ran a stealth candidacy which limited her engagement with anyone, that wasn't really on the game plan.

In fact, Ms. Rodham appeared on David Letterman's tv program to answer questions about NY, to improve her 'invading' image.

We learned later these were all prearranged programmed questions, which the answers were provided to Hillary.

If you remember, Bill Clinton did not have a press conference for the remaining two years of his Presidency, after it was revealed he lied under oath about his relationship with an Intern.

The Clinton Machine hasn't changed, as it remains a very corrupt facade.

You can vote for Hillary. On the other hand, I will chose an alternative that will allow me to sleep at night...

Where The Missing WMD Went...

clipped from www.americanthinker.com Uthman has become convinced that Usama bin Laden has lost the war in Iraq, has lost his credibility and lays it all at the feet of his use of anthrax on the United States. Of course, the vagaries of his statement will be exploited with alternate theories by liberals bent on denying the al Qaeda threat and George Bush's success. All I ask is for the fair minded to keep Uthman's statements in context to get the big picture here. Now let's put that big picture together. Uthman says he tried to talk Mohammad Atef and Usama bin Laden out of using WMD in a terrorist attack to convince the U.S. not to retaliate in Afghanistan because it would ultimately spread to Iraq. Why would Uthman expect this? I can think of one salient reason. Because he knew that al Qaeda was planning an Anthrax attack with weaponized anthrax provide by Saddam Hussein.

Ron Paul: Glaring Tinfoil

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com LGF reader Shiplord Kirel alerts us to some very interesting excerpts at Free Republic from the old Ron Paul newsletter, being posted by a Freeper over the objections of the site’s Paulians. The excerpts are from the mid 80s to the late 90s: Ron Paul supported the PLO terrorists (1985) Ron Paul: Israel bought Jesse Helms (1985) Ron Paul: Traitor had direct line to President Reagan (1992, refers to commie business collaborator Armand Hammer) RON PAUL ON DEFENSE SPENDING (1992, sounds like Ramsey Clark) Ron Paul: Clinton didn’t cut defense enough (1993) Ron Paul: US “military is mowing civilians down in the streets” (1993, refers to Somalia) RON PAUL ACCUSED U.S. TROOPS OF WAR CRIMES IN DESERT STORM (1991, this one repeats Ramsey Clark’s allegations almost verbatim)

Why the Libertarian Party left me. That would be because they're nuttier than a Cuckoo clock...

"Thin Slicing" Hillary

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com I guess the score's paid now. But what was the fascination with the tip? It was probably because voters value information gathered about a candidate during an unguarded or candid moment more highly than at prepared appearances. Packaged information about a candidate is heavily discounted. Maybe voters scan candidates the way radar operators look at targets heavily obscured by electronic countermeasures. They look for changes in the signal when the aspect varies. And at moments when the shields are down they look the hardest. But the shields are up now. And we are back to wondering whether they were ever down.

Gladwell calls this "thin slicing" in "Blink". Experts learn to trust their quick unconscious reactions to key bits of data. In some degree, most people are "experts" at politics -- some more than others of course...

Innumerate Totalitarian Enviro-hooey

clipped from instapundit.com CHINA: No binding emissions limits: "China will reject any agreement that calls for binding limits on carbon dioxide emissions that will replace the Kyoto Protocol, an EU official said Wednesday." China's now the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, which makes this pretty important. UPDATE: MARK STEYN: "It's fascinating to observe how almost any old totalitarian racket becomes respectable once it's cloaked in enviro-hooey. For example, restrictions on freedom of movement were previously the mark of the Soviet Union et al. But in Britain, they're proposing limits on your right to take airline flights to other countries - and, as it's in the name of environmental responsibility, everyone thinks it's a grand idea." I'll buy it when they stop jetting off for global-warming conferences in Bali. As I've said before, I'll believe it's a crisis when the people who keep telling me it's a crisis start acting as if it's a crisis.

Pinochet On Nukes

clipped from www.davidwarrenonline.com President Musharraf has been condemned throughout the West, and in unambiguous terms by the United States. Editorials in the world's great newspapers have thundered against him. In Pakistan itself, the opposition media are, at the moment, mute, thanks to soldierly occupation. Yet there is no question -- from my undertanding of current events in Pakistan -- that Musharraf is sincerely trying to save his country. The alternatives to Musharraf being, collapse into anarchy and civil war followed by violent Islamist takeover, and ultimately invasion by India. It could be argued that my analysis is wrong, and that Pakistan was only having a few teething problems on the road to a glittering democratic future. But I don't think that is a plausible view, and I don't think we should be investing any diplomatic effort in pretending that things are otherwise than they are. For that would be a lie, and lies have consequences.

Not Something To Be Sawn Off

clipped from www.davidwarrenonline.com The current speculation is that the spoonbill offers a kind of foresail to smooth the forward glide, lifting the paddlefish's head slightly as it is raking in the zooplankton. The spoonbill has also been shown to be wired with electrosensory receptors that should, in theory, give its owner a heads-up on the weak electrical fields that indicate a lot of zooplankton about. But again, it makes no difference if you eliminate that spoonbill. So what is it doing on the snout of a paddlefish? The only hint I am able to give, is that it is very beautiful. And that from a divine point of view, or from a paddlefish point of view, it is not something to be sawn off.

Lieberman Exposes More Dem "Support For Our Troops"

clipped from www.commentarymagazine.com These were absurd arguments. The text of our amendment contained nothing—nothing—that could be construed as a green light for an attack on Iran. To claim that it did was an act of delusion or deception. On the contrary, by calling for tougher sanctions on Iran, the intention of our amendment was to offer an alternative to war. “We don’t trust Bush. He’ll use this resolution as an excuse for war against Iran.” I understand that President Bush is a divisive figure….But there is something profoundly wrong—something that should trouble all of us—when we have elected Democratic officials who seem more worried about how the Bush administration might respond to Iran’s murder of our troops, than about the fact that Iran is murdering our troops.  There is likewise something profoundly wrong when we see candidates who are willing to pander to this politically paranoid, hyper-partisan sentiment in the Democratic base—even if it sends a message of weakness and division to the Iranian regime.

Those Who Care To Read And Remember

clipped from www.encyclopedia.com Now, there is the breach; there is the violation of the pledge; there is the abandonment of the Balfour Declaration; there is the end of the vision, of the hope, of the dream . . . . We are now asked to submit - and this is what rankles most with me - to an agitation that is fed with foreign money and ceaselessly inflamed with Nazi and Fascist propaganda.(75) The Chamberlain faction prevailed, the White Paper was confirmed. Then on September 3, Britain was at war with Germany, and Churchill again became first lord of the Admiralty. David Ben-Gurion declared to Mapai's Central Committee, "We must support the [British] army as though there were no White Paper, and fight the White Paper as though there were no war." In his first radio address as war leader he spoke to the world of the "shattered nations and bludgeoned races . . . upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall."

An Update From Mohammed

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Third, the Islamic state that al-Qaeda sought to establish followed the Salafi doctrine which still represents a minority faction among Iraq’s Sunni community which largely follows the Hanafi doctrine. These three points summarize why the west and south have some very distinct differences. From this, I think that the emergence of a tribal awakening against the dominance of religion in the south would run a serious risk of being smeared as a treacherous revolt against the sect-as a community-itself at a time when the Shia are for the first time enjoying the rise of their sect’s role in Iraq’s politics. The pan-nationalist Arab Salafi hostility toward them could make their “awakening” a double-edged sword - it would weaken their unity in the frame of the sect at a time when they still don’t feel completely secure in a pluralistic country.

Tick Tock

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com The Iranians don't plan on stopping at 3,000, either. Despite their rhetoric about only desiring peaceful applications for their nuclear program, they built Natanz to run the much larger, industrial-size 54,000-centrifuge cascade. Their one uncompleted reactor at Bushehr would have no need for the kind of output produced by such a cascade for the less-enriched uranium used in power plants, but it would allow them to start cranking out nuclear weapons on a much more regular basis than once every nine months. People used to say that we had years before Iran could build a nuclear weapon. Now we have months.

Torture And Mythology

clipped from www.americanthinker.com As Judge Mukasey stated in his letter answering the Congressional imputations: "I would not want any statement of mine to provide our enemies with a window into the limits or contours of any interrogation program we may have in place and thereby assist them in training to resist the techniques we actually may use." There was a similar myth in Vietnam, one that everyone has heard at one time or another -- the helicopter story. a Vietcong infiltrator had been shot the night before and was awaiting burial. With the chopper in the air, they returned for the other officer and hustled him out. Pointing to the Huey, they said, "Now see what happens to your pal." At that moment, the corpse was thrown out, just far enough away so no details were apparent. The second officer considered his interests and told the GIs exactly what they wanted to know. At which point his jacketless, capless companion was brought out of hiding for a good laugh all around.

Another Book To Read And Weep...

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Michael Ledeen reviews John Bolton's Surrender Is Not an Option in today's New York Sun. Ledeen writes: The picture Mr. Bolton paints is a very ugly one, in which the world's greatest institutions — from the Department of State to the foreign ministries of Europe, from our most costly and prestigious universities to the United Nations — are utterly unable to cope with any of the serious problems of our time. And this: Some will be daunted by the detail with which Mr. Bolton recounts his bureaucratic battles, both with colleagues in the administration and with Congressional and Senate leaders. But it is precisely that wealth of information that shows how badly off we are, and which points the way to possible improvements in the way we should protect and advance our national interests. In case after case, he tells us how the president's clearly expressed desires got diluted and often sabotaged by a bureaucracy that disagreed with him and with his political appointees

Pray For Them

clipped from instapundit.com THANKS AND PRAISE: Michael Yon emails: "I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John's Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome. A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from 'Chosen' Company 2-12 Cavalry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John's, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope. The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. 'Thank you, thank you,' the people were saying. One man said, 'Thank you for peace.' Another man, a Muslim, said 'All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother.' The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers. (Videotape to follow.)" Let's hope these sentiments continue to spread.