Flyin'

In the comments to Bill Whittle's latest post, a commenter going by the handle Richard R wrote the following:

Something I found out last night.

We all know John McCain was a fighter (actually, light bomber) pilot.

Cindy's a Pilot too, she has a Cirrus.

Sara Palin is a pilot. Todd Palin is a pilot. They own a Supercub on floats.

I've poked around and it looks like it's all true.

Now I'm a private pilot myself so I know what it takes to get your license. It's not the most difficult thing in the world but it takes dedication, intelligence, and the ability to keep track of several different things at once. It also requires that you keep calm in stressful situations.

But perhaps the most important thing is that the federal regulation of pilots is one of the few areas of government where the emphasis is on personal responsibility. As the pilot in command, I am responsible for the conduct of my flight. If something goes wrong, it's on my head with few exceptions (such as a maintenance error that I wouldn't be expected to discover). It's perfectly legal for me to take someone flying who is not a licensed pilot and hand over control of the aircraft. I can even let that person operate the aircraft through the entire flight including takeoff and landing. However, if that person crashes the plane, or otherwise screws up, it's my fault and I'm the one that will have my license suspended or revoked, or even harsher penalties applied.

Knowing that both McCain and his running mate are pilots tells me that they understand the concept of responsibility and that they're capable of handling themselves in sticky situations. That their spouses are pilots is an added bonus.

If you want peace...

The saying goes, Si vis pacem, para bellum. Translated from Latin, it means "If you want peace, prepare for war." Its simple wisdom is as applicable today as it was in ancient Rome. Yet there are those that believe that preparation for war only serves to make it more likely.

The world will have peace when the whole world wants peace. As long as there exist people who desire war, those who desire peace must be ready and able to defeat them when their desires are made manifest.

It takes a big man to admit he's wrong

However, Barack Obama has done nothing of the kind.

Yesterday, Obama sat down with Bill O'Reilly for an interview. Regarding the troop surge which has had such dramatic success, he had some comments:

As recently as July, the Democratic presidential candidate declined to rate the surge a success, but said it had helped reduce violence in the country. On Thursday, Obama acknowledged the 2007 increase in U.S. troops has benefited the Iraqi people.

“I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated,” Obama said while refusing to retract his initial opposition to the surge. “I’ve already said it’s succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.” (Emphasis mine -RR)

At least he's admitting that it has worked, though to say that nobody anticipated that it would ignores George Bush, Obama's opponent John McCain, and a host of commentators and bloggers who all supported the decision to send more troops over and get the job done right once and for all.

However, he added, the country has not had enough “political reconciliation” and Iraqis still have not taken responsibility for their country.

It's still a work in progress, true, but progress is being made as demonstrated by the U.S. military turning control of the Anbar Provice over to the Iraqis.

We're winning in Iraq. It's time to accept and support it.

Hanson does it again

In his piece, Target Palin, VDH takes on several of the issues that have evolved since the announcement of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate.

On the contrast between Palin and Biden:

When Palin talks about her present life it sounds as authentic as Biden’s showy populism came off as false. Enraged feminists are apparently the gatekeepers for less well-educated American women, who are supposed to have 0-1.5 children not 5! Their husbands must be professors, lawyers, CEOs, editors—not snowmobile champions, union members, oil workers, and fishermen—or, worse, all in one! And unlike a Pelosi, Quinn, or Clinton, Palin, God forbid, did not rely on a powerful, wealthy husband or father to energize her career. Worse still, she took no women’s studies class, never attended the Ivy League, and shoots moose. The danger is not just that Sarah Palin could win McCain the election, but she could expose the entire flimsy structure of doctrinaire liberalism as the hypocrisy—and chauvinism—it has become.

On the double standard propagated by the Left and the media that is now more obvious than ever:

Obama’s violation of drug laws with a “little blow” was youthful exuberance; Palin’s husband’s DUI was more proof of a working-class messy family.
...
Criticizing Clinton’s engaging in sex in the oval office and lying about it to the American people were once “the politics of personal destruction”; lying that Sarah Palin might not have been the mother of her 5th child is the mere overreach of the blogs caused by the improper vetting of the McCain campaign.

Not to mention lying about it under oath which is the crime for which he was actually impeached.

The immediate ferocity of the reaction by the Left and the mainstream media to Palin's nomination is unprecedented. The unfounded attacks on Palin and her family, particularly her daughter, and the flat out lies that have been told about them are truly disgusting.

It serves to demonstrate how scared they really are and it's going to backfire, at least to a degree. It may even outrage enough people that the media is finally truly called to the carpet for their obvious but unadmitted bias. At least I can hope.

The non-existent bit-bucket

Mike tips us off to a post at LGF documenting continued efforts to hide the fact that the Democrats' staunchest supporters include raving lunatics of the type mentioned in my previous post. It seems the Kostards haven't figured out that once something's on the Web, it's forever. All we have to do is pay out the rope, folks. Then, once they've tied the knot and slipped the noose around their collective neck, just pull the lever, sit back, and watch them dance.

Oh, by the way, the reference to hanging in the previous paragraph should not be taken as a racist comment referring to the practice of lynching. But I'm sure it will anyway. I'm white, after all, and can't help myself.

The Dogs of (Political) War

The 2008 Presidential campaign has already turned pretty nasty.  The attacks from the left have already begun in earnest; in particular on two different but related fronts.

The first is that of the direct, physical assault.  Yesterday during the first day of the Republican National Convention, some enterprising radicals thought it would be a good idea to harass arriving delegates and even commit vitriolage.  In some cases, they didn’t even wait for the buses to arrive before committing their assaults.

You will note that there were no “conservative protesters” (an oxymoron, really) at the DNC last week, let alone anybody doing anything like this. If there had been, you can bet whatever amount you like that it would have been all over the news in lurid headlines and breathless prose.

The second front is the more “respectable” one, if no less repugnant.  Since the announcement that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will be John McCain’s running mate, the Democrats and their supporters have been pulling out all the stops in the effort to smear her in any way they can, regardless of how baseless and ridiculous their allegations.  They are descending far below the level to which they in their fevered imaginations can even contemplate the Republicans sinking.  It has the air of desperation about it, which means that they’re truly concerned even though they’ll never admit it.

Of course, since they’re right, dammit! anything and everything is justified.  Any target, from Palin to her husband to her children and even her unborn grandchild is fair game.

Palin and her family are going to be put under a media microscope the likes of which has never before been seen.  I hope they’re up to it.  Unlike Obama, they don’t have the luxury of declaring topics “off limits” if they’re inconvenient.

All class, all the time.

First up, we have Michael Moore, prevaricator extraordinaire and hero to those that the Democrat party should be ignoring, but that instead appears to be their base:

“I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven,” Moore said, laughing. “To have it planned at the same time – that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for day one of the Republican Convention, up in the Twin Cities – at the top of the Mississippi River.”

After that comment, Moore backed off a bit and did say he hoped nobody got hurt and he hoped everybody is taking cover. However, he failed to make note of the $43.625 billion in damage the last hurricane to strike New Orleans caused – Hurricane Katrina in 2005 – and the billions of dollars the storm cost taxpayers.

Now frankly I'm not surprised that Moore said this. Disgusted, yes, but I've been disgusted with him for years.

On the other hand, somewhat surprised (but only somewhat) to hear the same sentiment from National Chairman of the Democratic National Committee Don Fowler during an in-flight conversation with Congressman John Spratt of South Carolina. Video below, commentary at RedState.



So New Orleans is going to get pasted again. People may die and who knows how much property damage will be done. Fuel costs will rise again because of all the refining capacity that's in danger and the economy will suffer, affecting the poor the most. But it's all okay, you see, because it will help Democrats gain power. Ha ha ha. Sickening.

Contrast this with what the Republicans are doing:

John McCain tore up the script for his Republican National Convention on Sunday, ordering the cancellation of all but essential opening-day activities as Hurricane Gustav churned toward New Orleans.

“This is a time when we have to do away with our party politics and we have to act as Americans,” he said as fellow Republicans converged on their convention city to nominate him for the White House.

The President is also ordering his priorities correctly:

President Bush is skipping the Republican National Convention on Monday and will travel instead to Texas to meet with emergency workers and evacuees as Hurricane Gustav bears down on the Gulf Coast.

Maybe it's just me, but I think there's just a slight bit of difference.

Gustav approaches the Big Easy

There's a good chance that Hurricane Gustav will strike New Orleans, at least indirectly. This time, things are going to be a bit different than they were three years ago when Hurricane Katrina hit the city.

Police with bullhorns plan to go street to street with a tough message about getting out ahead of Hurricane Gustav: This time there will be no shelter of last resort. The doors to the Superdome will be locked. Those who stay will be on their own.

Authorities issued the warning Friday as new forecasts made it increasingly clear that New Orleans will get some kind of hit — direct or indirect — as early as Monday.

And those among New Orleans' 310,000 residents who ignore orders to leave accept "all responsibility for themselves and their loved ones," said the city's emergency preparedness director, Jerry Sneed.

I sense that MSNBC is emphasizing the "you're on your own" aspect for a reason but I'll let that slide for now. There is also an extensive plan to evacuate those who can't get out on their own. Hopefully things will go better than they did three years ago, and hopefully the levees will hold and the city won't flood. Still, when a hurricane hits a major city like New Orleans, there are usually at least a few casualties. My thoughts are with the people of the Gulf Coast and I hope things turn out as well as they can.

Whatever happens, however many are injured or die, whatever the property damage ends up being, one thing's for sure. George Bush will be blamed.

Freedom for me, but not for thee

We hear all the time from the outraged Left about how Bush and the Republicans are stifling dissent and squelching free speech, all the while proving that their allegations are factually false because they're still talking.

Well now freedom of speech really is under attack, but it's not a Republican that's threatening it:

You can expect hardball in a presidential campaign, especially one in a country as divided as ours seems to be. But the kind of hardballs being pitched is an indication of the people and policies that an incoming administration will be employing.

That is why it’s particularly troubling that the Obama campaign has filed a criminal complaint against the people behind an ad being run that links Obama to avowed terrorist William Ayers.

The link in the excerpt is to Ben Smith's Blog where he notes that it isn't just Republicans and conservatives who have come under attack. Obama's general counsel, Bob Bauer is an equal opportunity assaulter:

It's worth noting that this isn't the first time Bauer has called for criminal investigations and prosecutions into the donors to independent groups critical of Obama, including one supporting John Edwards and another supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton. His words did have the effect of scaring their donors and consultants, but haven't yet appeared to result in any prosecution.

Chilling, and a foreshadowing of what's to come under an Obama administration. Additional commentary can be found at The DC Examiner. Hat tip to Mike at Cold Fury for bringing this to my attention.

Democrats have long held themselves up as the champions of free speech and all the other rights and freedoms (with one exception, of course) enumerated in the Constitution or elsewhere. While many, if not most Democrats really do support these rights, that support isn't universal among the Left. I've brought up the Fairness Doctrine before and my fear that it will be revived even worse than before under an Obama administration. This just confirms that my fears are justified. John Hinderaker at Powerline is equally concerned:

Obama's suggestion that it is illegal for a 501(c)(4) entity to fund issue ads that are negative toward him appears ludicrous. Here's the real question, though: if Obama is elected President, will he appoint an Attorney General who will carry out politically-motivated prosecutions like the one he is now demanding? I suppose we can't know for sure, but why wouldn't he? If he demands criminal prosecution of free speech that opposes his political interests when he's a candidate, why wouldn't he order it as President?

Answer: No reason at all.

Funny money

I live in Snohomish County, Washington. One of the larger local fairs is happening now and somebody thought it would be funny to sell fake 3$ bills "depicting Barack Obama wearing Arab headgear and featuring a camel" at the booth for the Snohomish County Republican Party.

Naturally, Obama supporters are all up in arms about this despite, as noted in the article:

"I don't think it's funny," said [Snohomish County Republican chairwoman Geri] Modrell, who said she ordered the bills removed as soon as she learned about them. "They were offensive. The volunteers are being told very clearly they must not do these sorts of things."

Now I personally don't condone these fake bills either. It reflects poorly on the Republican party and distracts from the real issues that I have with Obama, namely that he's a full-blown socialist. Even so, the reaction of some people is overblown:

Susan Ronken, a volunteer at the nearby Democratic Party booth at the fair, also saw the bills, which were present at the booth for at least two days this week.

"It was an absolute hate crime," said Ronken, who lives in Stanwood.

Give me a break. Satire yes, slander at worst, but a hate crime? Yet another example of someone claiming victim status in order to obtain power over those she disagrees with and shut them up.

Something else that piqued my interest was this:

The bills offended some passers-by at the fair, including Ronnie Thibault, a Monroe woman who said Republicans at the booth threatened to call security on her after she complained.

"My first reaction was, 'Are you kidding me? Really?' " said Thibault. "Even if a person is a Muslim, so what, but he [Obama] is not."

Thibault, who describes herself as a "hard-core Democrat," said she would have been just as offended if the Democratic booth at the fair had sold offensive depictions of Republican John McCain, who is expected to be nominated as the GOP presidential candidate next week in St. Paul, Minn.

This is pure speculation on my part but I suspect she did more than just complain which is what prompted the people manning the booth to consider calling security. She is, in her own words, a "hard-core Democrat" which implies that she is, shall we say, passionate about her views and her opinions of those who oppose them. As far as her claim that she'd be equally offended by an offensive description of John McCain, well I'll go ahead and give her the benefit of the doubt on that one, though it wouldn't surprise me if she expressed her offense somewhat less vehemently.

Never let the facts get in the way

During the run-up to last Tuesday's primary election here in Washington State, I had been hearing radio ads paid for by the campaign of Christine Gregoire attacking her most likely opponent (since confirmed by the primary vote) Dino Rossi. As you might recall, Rossi initially won the gubernatorial election in 2004 but ultimately lost by a very, very slim margin after the Democrat Party paid for a manual recount that overturned the results of the machine recount.

One of the ads, as noted in this article at the Seattle Times, said that "Rossi voted to increase the state gas tax in 2003 and that he once supported the largest cut in transportation funding in state history." The article is referring to television ads but the radio ads I heard were basically the same content.

Of course, as I suspected and as the article confirms, "The ad accurately reports Rossi's votes, but omits important context surrounding the issues." Covering that context would entail excerpting a significant portion of the article so instead I'll just ask you to read it for yourself.

Interestingly, the radio ads were airing on the local conservative talk radio station. I guess if they want to pay the money, the station will take it, even though the ads will be mostly ignored by the station's listeners.

Because we're not a Communist Dictatorship, that's why!

In a speech yesterday, Barack Obama had this to say:

Everybody's watching what's going on in Beijing right now with the Olympics. Think about the amount of money that China has spent on infrastructure. Their ports, their train systems, their airports are vastly the superior to us now, which means if you are a corporation deciding where to do business you're starting to think, "Beijing looks like a pretty good option." Why aren't we doing the same thing?

Yeah, Beijing looks pretty good. But only from certain angles.

Hugh Hewitt in this bit at Townhall sums it up nicely:

I suppose so. Provided you don't mind de minimus pollution controls, employing people under Chinese labor conditions, and you don't mind construction standards in the countryside that allow the collapse of thousands of buildings including schools when the earthquake hits, killing tens of thousands.

Obama has said a lot of stupid things recently, but the idea that totalitarian eye-candy engineering proves Beijing is the better than America is near the top of the list.

To be honest, I'm amazed that world records are falling the way they are at the Olympics in swimming and track given the pollution in the air. The swimming venue is indoors so I'm assuming its air is filtered. But the track and field venue (the "Birds Nest") is open air. Still it wouldn't surprise me if they expended the effort to install air filtration systems that provide relatively clean air at the level of the field and lower seating, not to mention the power it takes to run them.

Who you hang with, disarmament, and free speech

Yet another reason to question Barack Obama's judgment when it comes to those he associates with:

As an “ordinary American,” I sincerely question whether Barack Obama has the judgment to be president. His lack of judgment in choosing Eric Holder as a top adviser on his campaign -- the man partly responsible for pardoning terrorists who proudly claimed responsibility for my father’s murder -- serves as primary evidence supporting that judgment.

Holder now leads Obama’s team selecting his running mate for vice president, perhaps Obama’s most important decision during the campaign. Mr. Holder, formerly the No. 2 official in former President Bill Clinton’s Justice Department, often is mentioned as a potential attorney general in an Obama administration. This is the same man who was a driving force behind President Clinton’s pardons of members of the notorious Puerto Rican terrorist group, the Armed Forces for National Liberation (FALN).

I've been saying, and even his supporters have agreed, that Obama desires the disarmament of the law-abiding American citizenry:

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg with this guy. During the 109th U.S. Congress, he voted against Senate bill 397, which outlawed frivolous lawsuits against gun companies. And while campaigning for the presidency in Pennsylvania earlier this year, he voiced his support for reinstating the assault weapons ban and spoke openly about his opposition to laws which allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns on or about their persons.

I always wondered what plans Clinton had for us if he could ever take away our guns, and now I wonder why Obama has been such a vocal critic of private gun ownership in the years leading up to his run for the presidency. What type of “change” does he have in store for the American people if he can succeed in disarming us?

But we the people are not the only ones he wants to disarm:

Obama wants to disarm America nationally by defunding the missile defense initiatives of which Ronald Reagan dreamed and which President George W. Bush has begun implementing. In a video message to his supporters in 2007, Obama promised that, if elected, he would not “weaponize space” and that he would cut investments in the “unproven” missile defense systems Bush already has in place (add to this his additional promises to “slow our development of future combat systems” and pursue a “world without nuclear weapons” by reducing our own supply first, of course -- it’s almost as if you can hear John Lennon asking us to “imagine there’s no heaven”).

Obama’s opposition to self-defense through missile defense equates to the disarmament of our allies around the globe (if there is no missile defense shield to deploy at home, there will be no shield to deploy abroad). This belief will not be lost on former Soviet satellites, which can see what Russia has done to Georgia in the past weeks and ascertain the kind of “change” Obama has in mind for them if he succeeds in denying them their best means of self-defense.

Regarding his desire to eliminate on a practical level the Second Amendment, it has been remarked in response that what's really more important is freedom of speech and that we no longer need the Second to uphold the First in the information age. But don't harbor any illusions that free speech is going to be any more sacred should Democrats control both the executive and legislative branches.

Enter, once again, the Fairness Doctrine. Should Obama be elected, I fully expect the Democrat-controlled Congress to work as hard as it can to put legislation reinstating this odious practice on his desk. And he will most certainly sign it, with a flourish.

It will be enforced against conservative talk radio, essentially destroying the medium. It will be enforced against conservative websites, newspapers, and television network (note the singular). Should it be enforced against liberal radio networks (i.e. NPR), websites (i.e. Daily Kos), newspapers (i.e. the New York Times), and television networks (i.e. all but Fox News), the enforcement will be token in nature with the requirements to fulfill their "obligations" being so easy to meet they are essentially meaningless.

Expect to see the definition of "hate speech" expanded exponentially. Expect to see the word "tolerance" redefined to match what we now call "acceptance" or even "endorsement." Expect to see the nonexistent "right" not to be offended enshrined in regulation.

Don't think it can happen here? Think again. It's already happening in Europe and Canada. We even have Supreme Court Justices who think that European law should inform the decisions of that highest court. If you think it can never happen here, you are a fool. I'd like to think it's unlikely. But I won't make the mistake of believing it to be impossible.

Prophetic

I have an Xbox 360 and one of the games I have is Rock Band. As those familiar with the game know, there are many additional songs available for download from the Xbox Live Marketplace. One such song is Electric Eye by Judas Priest, part of a pack which includes the entire Screaming for Vengeance album.

The lyrics to the song are here.

Judas Priest is from Great Britain. The album was released in 1982. Given how much of a surveillance state Britain has become, this song is particularly prophetic, although the electric eyes are CCTV cameras and not satellites in orbit.

It's the shoes

Isabel Wilkinson over at the Huffington Post has noted the following about John McCain's choice in footwear:

This summer John McCain is traveling in style. He has worn a pair of $520 black leather Ferragamo shoes on every recent campaign stop — from a news conference with the Dalai Lama to a supermarket visit in Bethlehem, PA. The Calfskin loafers, with silver-tone "Gancini" buckles, are imported from Italy.

Really, with all of the issues that the candidates will face during this election, you concentrate on McCain's shoes? Is that all you got? Besides, what kind of shoes does Obama wear? What about Hillary? Wanna bet they're not cheap either?

The thing is, it looks like he's wearing the same pair of shoes in all of the pictures. Yeah, they may be expensive Italian leather, but they're obviously comfortable and durable. For a man who spends as much time as he does on his feet, that's of paramount importance. I'd say he's getting his money's worth.

The double standard

There's something that's been on my mind lately. During the 2004 Presidential election, much was made by the Left of the fact that John Kerry had served in the regular Navy - and had served in Vietnam, don't forget - while George W. Bush had served in the Texas Air National Guard without seeing any combat. Despite the evidence presented by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth about the quality of Kerry's service, there is no denying that he actually did serve and actually was in Vietnam. During the election, Kerry's supporters repeatedly pressed the argument that Kerry's wartime service made him more fit to serve as Commander in Chief than George W. Bush.

Now the situation is reversed and the differences between the candidates is even more extreme. John McCain served in the Navy as a pilot and was shot down over Vietnam. He spent five and a half years in a POW camp where he was tortured. And, unlike waterboarding, there is no dispute that what he experienced was truly torture. His opponent, Barack Obama, never served in the military in any way.

Naturally, Obama's supporters are not saying that McCain's military service makes him in any way better suited to serve as CinC. In fact, unsurprisingly to me at any rate, quite the opposite is occurring:

One aspect of McCain's presidency that I have not seen addressed is the precise form of his military experience. We have had good presidents with military experience - Eisenhower and Carter come to mind - as well as good ones without it - FDR and Clinton, to name two.

But military experience is not all equal. Slogging through the mud is not the same as calibrating a nuclear submarine. And of all the possible military experiences, that of bomber pilot to me is most suspect.

The update to the original post is a particularly splendid example of spin and rationalization:

Update: several folks have pointed out that George McGovern was a bomber pilot, or shared experiences from ones who took their actions with great seriousness. Perhaps being a bomber pilot is one of those intense experiences that reveals underlying character, rather than forming it.

The hypocrisy is palpable. John Hawkins at Right Wing News shares my view.

Inherent in the system

Click here for Hillary Clinton's letter to the Superdelegates. Read it and then come back. Didja read it? Good.

So Clinton is making the point that she's more likely to defeat John McCain in the general election than Barack Obama is.

One of the arguments she makes to support that assertion is that, "nearly all independent analyses show that I am in a stronger position to win the Electoral College, primarily because I lead Senator McCain in Florida and Ohio." This does not mean that she thinks she'll win the popular vote, but the all-important Electoral College vote. Even though Democrats stated that Bush really lost the 2000 election because he lost the popular vote, should Clinton, or Obama, repeat that achievement, expect the Democrats and the media to be curiously silent about it.

Another argument she makes is that more people voted for her in the primaries than for Obama, indeed more than for any Democrat candidate in the past. In her words, "I expect to lead in the popular vote and in delegates earned through primaries."

First of all, if I'm interpreting it correctly, she's completely ignoring the delegates earned through the caucuses in those states which held them, including my home state of Washington.

Second of all she doubtless includes the votes in Michigan and Florida, the former of which didn't even have Obama on the ballot since he obeyed the DNC's ruling regarding Florida holding its primary too early and withdrew his name.

For the sake of argument, though, let's concede that her argument is correct and that she has a better chance of defeating McCain than Obama does. Let's also assume that enough superdelegates agree to make the difference and hand the nomination to Clinton if they vote for her. Will they?

Before I attempt to answer that, let's take a look at the superdelegate system and the reason I, at least, think that it was put in place. Quite simply, the superdelegates exist to override the will of Democrat voters (and caucus attendees) if the party elite decides that the people made the wrong choice. After all, the people can't be trusted to make such an important decision correctly all the time, right?

So given that, and given the assumptions above, will the superdelegates give the nomination to Hillary when all is said and done? I think it's unlikely. The reasons? There are two: The 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections, especially the former where Gore did actually win the popular vote. During and after those elections, and especially after the Florida debacle in 2000, the Democrats made such a big deal about how so many voters were disenfranchised (most if not all allegations of which were not supported by the evidence) that they don't dare give the impression that they're doing the same thing even though the superdelegate system is designed to do exactly that. They're stuck between a rock and a hard place on this and they're trying their damnedest to navigate these tricky waters successfully. I think this is why the remaining uncommitted superdelegates are biding their time waiting to see the final results of all the primaries. And even now there are superdelegates announcing support for Clinton.

But Clinton obviously doesn't care. She's willing to say and do anything to win the nomination and then the general election. Even if it means truly disenfranchising the majority of Democrat voters and caucus attendees. And she either thinks she can pull it off, or she is trying to damage Obama sufficiently that he'll lose the election and thus give her another shot in 2012.

Free speech is not without consequences

Whenever someone on the left strays from the reservation, the hatred and vitriol that comes their way from the far end of the spectrum can be stunning. Joe Leiberman is a classic example and I'm still tickled that he ran as an independent and was still reelected.

The latest Democrat to be made an example of is Geraldine Ferraro after she made comments to the effect that Barack Obama's race does indeed have something to do with why he is where he is. From her article at Wikipedia:

In a March 7, 2008, article in the Torrance, California newspaper, The Daily Breeze, Ferraro said regarding Clinton's nomination rival that "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept". Ferraro had made a similar comment in 1984 about Jesse Jackson. The comment drew heated criticism from the Obama campaign and many others, and although Clinton expressed disagreement with its substance, she did not call for her resignation from the campaign. On March 11, again speaking to the Breeze, Ferraro remained defiant: "I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?" Ferraro refused to apologize. She resigned from Clinton's finance committee the next day, citing a desire to stop hurting the campaign. On March 12, 2008, MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann described Ferraro's remarks as "despicable."

Enter left wing Air America talk show personality Randi Rhodes. At a recent public appearance in San Francisco, she had something to say about both Ferraro and Hillary Clinton (video at the linked page):

Air America host Randi Rhodes called both Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton "whores" in a recent appearance, seen below. Rhodes, who hosts a weekday radio show on Air America, said to the cheering crowd, "What a whore Geraldine Ferraro is! She's such a fucking whore!" She then proceeded to say, "Hillary is a big fucking whore, too" to a mixed audience reaction. "You know why she's a big fucking whore? Because her deal is always, 'Read the fine print, asshole!'"

As a result, and to my pleasant surprise, she has been suspended by Air America. Even they understand that there are lines you don't cross. Rhodes had the right to speak her opinion. However, she is now being taught the lesson that freedom of speech comes with responsibility and that just because she has the right to say what she wants, nobody else is obligated to facilitate that right. Kudos to Air America and I hope that they don't cave in to pressure and change their minds.

Too many blows to the head I guess

Back when he was running for Governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura appeared on a morning show. I don't remember for sure but I think it was the Today Show and I think he was talking with Matt Lauer so I'll assume that's the case for brevity's sake. The topic of gun control came up. Ventura stated his opposition to gun registration and cited "what happened in the Philippines" in support of his view. I'm assuming that what he was referring to was registration followed by systematic confiscation of firearms by the government. Lauer said, "This isn't the Philippines," to which Ventura replied, "So?" He was exactly right. While it is less likely to happen in this country, historically registration of firearms by a nation's government has almost always been followed by confiscation. Ventura earned significant respect from me that day.

However, he just blew it all.

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura vehemently savaged the official 9/11 story on a syndicated national radio show today, saying the WTC collapsed like a controlled demolition and was pulverized to dust as he also highlighted the impossible 10 second free fall speed of the towers.

Wow, I guess taking steroids really does mess with your brain. He apparently watched "Loose Change," the movie which purports to show how 9/11 was a big government conspiracy, and now his eyes have been opened.

"To me questions haven't been answered and are not being answered about 9/11," said Ventura, before highlighting the collapse of Building 7, a 47-story tall skyscraper that was not hit by a plane but collapsed in its own footprint in the late afternoon of September 11.

That's because it was next to one of the collapsing towers and suffered substantial damage from the debris that struck it as the tower collapsed. When that tower came down, that kinetic energy had to go somewhere. A lot of it ended up in material shooting out the sides at substantial velocity.

"How could those buildings fall at the speed of gravity - if you put a stopwatch on them both of those World Trade Center buildings were on the ground in ten seconds - how can that be?" asked Ventura.

When that much weight starts falling, the remaining floors will present very little resistance to that kind of momentum. The entire structure above the impact point of each tower started falling as a single unit. Once it fell even a few feet, there was no stopping it and the lower structure only barely slowed it down.

The former wrestling star then questioned how low-temperature burning jet fuel could melt steel.

"Jet fuel is four fifths kerosene - which is not a hot burning fuel - and they wanted us to believe it melted these steel structured girders and caused these buildings to pancake collapse to the ground?" he stated. "I was on the site within two weeks after it happened and I saw none of these pancakes - wouldn't they all be piled up in a huge mass on the ground and yet everything was blown into dust - when you look at it from that aspect none of it makes any sense," said Ventura.

Rosie O'Donnell was wrong about this, and so is Ventura. Pour some jet fuel on the ground and light it. If it burns, it'll burn slowly it's true. But when those planes hit those towers, their kinetic energy was translated into an enormous amount of heat. The jet fuel burned, but it wasn't the only thing burning. Paper, wood, and other flammable materials all contributed to the heat, and they can burn mighty hot when in a concentrated area with good airflow. Not to mention the initial weakening of the structures by the impacts themselves.

As for the "pancakes" see above about the tremendous kinetic energy. When the concrete floors came down, they were pulverized, and as noted above a lot of that material was blown out the sides, damaging adjacent buildings.

"Never before in the annuls (sic) of history has a fire caused a steel structure building to fall to the ground like these two did," he concluded.

Never before has a steel structure building been subjected to that much initial structural damage and had that much concentrated fire in the damaged area. The event was completely unprecedented.

Having undergone Basic Underwater Demolition Seal training, Ventura is speaking from an experienced standpoint and he unequivocally stated that he thought the buildings were deliberately imploded.

The kind of training he underwent had nothing to do with bringing down large structures. It's a completely different kind of demolitions than what SEALs do. And since there's no mention of him actually using what he learned in a practical application he probably doesn't have any real world experience to back up his assertion.

How much explosive material do you think is required to bring down a building, even one like the Las Vegas hotels he mentions? How long does it take to prepare the building? The structural members have to be exposed and, in many cases, deliberately weakened. The explosives have to be placed and wires have to be run. Does he honestly think all the required activity could have occurred with absolutely nobody observing any of it? Does he honestly think that, with all of the people it would have required, especially those with experience in demolishing large buildings, that it could have stayed a secret?

Ventura also questioned the lack of wreckage outside of the Pentagon after Flight 77 allegedly struck the building.

"When I was watching Loose Change with a friend of mine - he happens to work for a company that helps build the Boeing airplanes and they said that when the engines completely disappeared and were destroyed, his response was, excuse my French - bullshit!," said Ventura.

"I turned to him and said why and he said because they're made of titanium steel - they can't disintegrate."

What does this guy's company do? Is it involved in materials science? Without a name and company, this particular argument is meaningless; it’s a classic example of the “appeal to authority” logical fallacy. And though I don't doubt titanium is used in jet engines, it certainly doesn't comprise the majority of material and isn't used for the engine housings. Like with a collapsing building, a large aircraft flying at speed has tremendous kinetic energy and when it impacts the ground or a building, much of that energy becomes heat. The rest simply causes the aircraft to be pulverized. There's a video of an F-4 Phantom being crashed at high speed into a concrete block wall. The plane is simply flattened and powdered like it's made of chalk. Look at pictures of any airliner crash site and you'll see the same thing. Every time I have I've wondered where the plane went. And there was indeed wreckage found, quite a bit actually, just not a lot of large pieces.

The definitive debunking of these myths, for myths they certainly are, was done by Popular Mechanics. I humbly suggest that Mr. Ventura read it before spouting any more Truther nonsense.

What media bias? Part the uncountably infinite

Well here's another go at trying to post regularly here. My brother has finally started posting here and now has his own place as well so go check it out. Now on to the story....

It's old news now but Detroit's Mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, has been criminally charged for lying about a sexual affair that he had with his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty, who has also been charged:

In a Monday morning press conference, Wayne County's top prosecutor, Kym L. Worthy, charged Kilpatrick with eight felonies, including perjury, obstruction of justice and misconduct for the text messages he allegedly traded with his paramour, Christine Beatty.

But the reason I'm bringing this up is one that has been repeated time after time. I searched around for the various news stories describing this situation. I probably looked at about twenty in total. Of those, only two mentioned that Kilpatrick is a Democrat. Yet another example of the media attempting to downplay the party affiliation of a Democrat involved in scandal. At this point I can safely say that if the party is not mentioned in the first paragraph (or the headline), the story is about a Democrat. Republicans' party affiliation is almost invariably revealed early.

Wow, this Blogging stuff gets addictive!

So, I've decided to start my own blog, Griffon's Lair, right here on Blogger. Check out my first post. I get to use my favorite word again!

Arthur C. Clarke, RIP

Sir Arthur C. Clarke has died.

A profound moment of silence is indeed called for.

I did not give as much of my time to Arthur C. Clarke's work as I gave to Isaac Asimov or Robert Heinlein (the other two of the Big Three described by Bruce Webster here).

But! There's no question that his impact on future writers and scientists has reverberated down through the years and affected me in my daily life constantly.

I may not have the words to properly eulogize Sir Arthur, but others will. Break out your google fingers this morning and check around.

Fare thee well.

Hat tip: Instapundit

Flouting the rules=disenfranchisement?

Facing strong opposition, Florida Democrats abandoned plans to hold a do-over presidential primary with a mail-in vote and threw the delegate dispute into the lap of the national party.

(But wait a minute; why is there an issue here? The DNP already settled this question, before the primary!!)

Of course, is anybody surprised it's coming down to this? I know Hillary Clinton isn't. (Come to think of it, she probably is surprised, and steaming mad, that the whole primary hasn't been settled in her favor already.)
It's also no surprise that now when things become important, suddenly the democrats shouldn't have to follow the rules, not even their own!
According to the rules of the Democratic National Party, if Florida held their primary before a certain date, the DNP would not recognize it as a valid primary, and would not be counted toward choosing which candidate the democrats would put up for President. Florida, and Florida's democrat voters *knew* this. They defied the party anyway, and the DNC enforced their rules. Well, so far anyway...

So of course, what happens when things start getting a little rough in Democrat-Land? Here comes that word:

Michael Steinberg, a lawyer for Victor DiMaio, a Democratic Party activist from Tampa, said Florida's Democratic voters are being disenfranchised by not being permitted to have their say in choosing their party's nominee. The action violates DiMaio's constitutional right to equal protection, he argued.

So check me on this; The primary is a way for a certain group of voters to decide who they're going to back for office in a general election. This is a procedural vote for members of a subset of the american voting public. No office is being filled here. Where's the disenfranchisement? Not to mention, where were the state's democrats when the state decided to forge ahead with this defiance? Where were their voices then? (Same question to Florida Republicans actually).

Question: When a vote is called, and you flagrantly violate the procedures for how your vote is cast, are you disenfranchised? I say no. I say you played yourself. In fact, Florida knew this going into the vote. They didn't agree with the rules, didn't follow the rules, and did it hoping that something just such as this would occur. So arguably, Florida is getting exactly what it wants, at the expense of it's representation within the Democrat party.

Pardon me if I giggle. Would the word 'schadenfreude' be appropriate here? It is probably one of my very favorite words of all, and I very rarely get to use it (much less experience it). So permit me my moment... ah. Go Florida!!

In a very rare case for me, I find myself agreeing with the DNP:

"The citizens of the state of Florida are not being treated equally," Steinberg told the judges. But Joe Sandler, a lawyer for the Democratic National Committee, said the party has the right to set its own ... rules and not seat delegates who refuse to follow them.

Actually Michael Steinberg, I daresay the (democrat voting) citizens are being treated exactly equal. Equal to any set of members within the DNP who violate the procedures of the party. Just ask Michigan. Hehe. (of course, we can already predict what's going to happen next in Michigan, can't we?) And, oddly enough, ask the members of the Republican Party in Florida and Michigan. Their primaries violated their party procedures as well, and they also are being treated according to their party's rules. Of course, on the Republican primary side, the question is settled already, without FL or MI.

(Of course, to a Democrat, equal means "I get it my way." Again, this time it's being used against other Democrats. Schadenfreude? Me? Hehe.)

...let me tell you what your tax dollars bought...

On one hand, it's great to hear that a soldier is proud of his equipment. On the other hand, he's kind of busy you know... fighting a war. Couldn't he be doing something better with his time then being made to defend his ride against his own government (the one that supplied him with it in the first place).
Anyway, I enjoyed reading this first-hand account of how the Stryker MGS [Mobile Gun System] is being used in the field. I didn't even know it (this variant of the Stryker) existed. Actually, I don't know too much about the Stryker at all except that everybody seems to badmouth it.
And as you read this, tell me that you never had some criticisms of your own when it came to *your* favorite ride. Nothing's perfect, eh? (Yeah, I know; your old Chevette can't truly be compared to a soldier's armored fighting vehicle, but hey.)

Hat tip: Instapundit

PS: I'm RadarRider's little brother. You can see me listed as a contributor to this blog. So perhaps I should contribute? My first post here at Flying Above the Radar. :-)

Fred bows out of the race

Fred Thompson has withdrawn his candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination. I'm pretty disappointed at this news. I won't second-guess Fred's decision because I am not him, nor am I an expert at campaigning for President. However, I would have liked to see him stay in it and campaign in Florida, especially since only Republicans can vote in the Republican primary in that state. It's possible that Democrats voting in earlier Republican primaries (such as South Carolina) had an effect on the outcomes so Florida would have been a better indicator of true Republican sentiment.

Again, I am not an expert but I do think there are some things Fred could have done better. Jim Geraghty has some words on the subject that I agree with. And it's too bad that the opportunity to refuse to do a show of hands in a debate didn't come sooner. But what's really sad is that more people didn't see Fred for what kind of President he would have made, whether because of the distortions of the media or their perception that he was "lazy" or didn't have the required "fire in the belly." And now too many of use who did won't have the chance to demonstrate it.

Nevertheless, what's done is done. I know I speak for a lot of folks when I say I'm sorry to see you go, Fred. I was really looking forward to voting for you in the Washington State primary and now I won't be able to unless I write your name in. Thanks for trying, and I hope you don't give up on politics altogether. This country needs as many people as possible for whom Federalism is the central tenet of their political views.

And now I have to figure out who I'm going to vote for and, with Fred no longer in the race, it will be a difficult decision indeed.

Update: The ever-irascible Kim du Toit is not as charitable in his initial reaction. I know how he feels. I want to be mad at Fred for pulling out so soon but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and temper my response. Perhaps in the coming days his reaction will prove to be justified. Until and unless that happens, however, I stand by the above.

Dan Rather plays the victim

LGF points to an Associated Press article which explains that Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS for firing him may be allowed to proceed. As noted toward the end of the article:

Rather was removed from his "CBS Evening News" post in March 2005, six months after he narrated a report that said Bush disobeyed orders and shirked some of his duties during his National Guard service. The report also said a commander felt pressured to sugarcoat Bush's record.

As noted at LGF, the article makes no mention of the following facts:

• The story was based on documents which were later proven to be fraudulent. (They were not forgeries which would imply that they were copies of legitimate original documents.)
• Even after the documents' validity was disproven, Rather continued to assert that the story was true even though he had no real proof.

As these were germane to the case, the fact that the article omitted them is, well, not surprising at all. This is the AP after all.

So why is Rather suing CBS?

Rather, whose last months at CBS were clouded by a disputed story on President Bush's Vietnam-era military service, says his employers made him a "scapegoat" to placate the White House after questions arose about the story.

No, Dan. They let you go because you are a partisan idiot who wanted so badly for the story to be true that you kept saying it was so even though your evidence was shown to be false. You were sullying CBS's name every minute you kept it up and they decided they already had plenty of problems with their credibility without you making things worse.

You have freedom of speech. You have the right to speak your opinions. However, CBS is under no obligation to facilitate it. You work for them, you represent them and what you say reflects on them regardless of any disclaimers to the contrary. They had every right to let you go.

Why the media dislikes Fred

The Fred File blog at Fred Thompson's official web site linked to a post by Ron Winter addressing among other things the media's criticism of Fred on his "late" entry into the race and how he's running his campaign. He writes:

Thompson has been roundly criticized in the media for not entering the fray earlier, and for not making a big splash when he did formally declare. It should be noted that the media which is criticizing Thompson is the same media that decides whether or nor a candidate has made a "splash" - contingent entirely upon the level of play the media gives to the story.

Thompson has been slammed by the media because he isn't playing by the media's rules. Yet for all the criticism, Thompson is moving steadily upward. The truth is, Thompson is simply walking a different path to the same goal, and it may be a better route.

But Fred's sticking to his guns and doing it his way. This leads to the following comment of which the last paragraph is the money quote:

There is a tenet in public relations and political circles that you never argue with the media, not matter how badly they have misquoted you. I don't agree.

If the media is being partisan, and unprofessional, I believe you should grab the offender straight on and demand a correction. If the media outlet refuses to correct its mistakes, take out an ad pointing out the discrepancy, the refusal to tell the truth, and let the voters see what you really said. I also believe in bringing your own tape recorder or video camera to any interview so you have your own evidence of what was said.

The media is not sacrosanct and it is long past time to be treating irresponsible and unprofessional reporters as saints who can't be questioned or challenged.

Emphasis mine.

Read the other posts linked to at Fred File as well. It's clear that the media doesn't like Fred Thompson and they provide several good reasons for this. Yet I'm thinking that there is something more behind this.

I posit the following:

• The mainstream media is, in general, biased toward liberal views and thus, again in general, towards Democrat elected officials and candidates.
• The mainstream media is thus scared witless by the prospect of President Fred Thompson.
• The mainstream media fears that Thompson has a good chance of becoming president if nominated, regardless of who the Democrat nominee is.
• The mainstream media thinks that certain other Republican candidates can more easily be defeated by Hillary or Obama.
  

It therefore follows that the media would very much like someone other than Fred Thompson to be the Republican nominee, someone they feel has a good chance of losing to either of the two Democrat candidates most likely to be nominated. And thus we can conclude that the media will do what it can to drag Thompson down and elevate one or more other Republican candidates which is what appears to be happening.

Personal Privacy and False Familiarity

The ever-irascible Kim du Toit has some thoughtful words about the expectation of privacy in our personal lives and how we interact with people we don't know. He contrasts the culture here in the United States with that of his home country of South Africa:

We Americans are too quick to impose ourselves on other people, too quick to want to establish some kind of personal bond with total strangers.

”Hi; my name is George, and I’ll be your server tonight.”

1.) I don’t care who you are.
2.) Obviously you are my server, because you came up to my table carrying a menu.

It’s that kind of false familiarity which gets on my nerves, and makes me want to say something extremely rude back to the person—because assuming familiarity with me is horribly rude to start off with.

He also addresses the privacy of "public" people such as celebrities and those who have been caught up in important events.

Now I admit that I tend to be very friendly to the people who are providing me service. Part of the reason is that I'm a generally gregarious person, though I do have times when I just want to be left alone. Another part, however, is that I've done that type of job myself when I was in college and I've learned not to be a jerk. Of course, if service is poor or I have an issue with the establishment I'm not going to ignore it, but being friendly up front tends to result in better service. Imagine that.

Even so, I don't offer details of my private life nor solicit such details from them. I'm more than polite, which may push Kim's comfort boundaries, but I save the private stuff for if and when I get to know someone better.

Fred Thompson's problems

Paul Ibrahim compares and contrasts the Republican candidates. He begins:

Mitt Romney said it best in last week’s debate: “We're not going to get the White House nor strengthen America unless we can pull together the coalition of conservatives and conservative thought that has made us successful as a party. And that's social conservatives. It's also economic conservatives. And foreign policy and defense conservatives.”

After going through the issues he has with all of the others, he comes to Fred:

This leaves us with Fred Thompson, who, ironically, is the candidate best described by Romney’s words about the Republican tripod. In short, Thompson holds the same conservative positions of all the other candidates combined, and has none of their flaws. In fact, any close observer of the campaign season would tell you that Thompson has been on the receiving end of barely any substantive attacks on policy issues. This is no coincidence. And it is the reason he has had to bear the brunt of shallow attacks about his demeanor, campaigning style, and laziness (whatever that means).

Of course, Fred isn't without his issues either:

You know a candidate is solid when his biggest problem is his unwillingness to follow the pack on campaigning styles. You know you can trust a candidate when, unlike his opponents, he is regularly unmentioned by accuracy watchdogs like FactCheck.org following debates. And you know what you’re getting in a candidate whose campaign rhetoric so closely matches his legislative record.

I'm sure there are a lot of people in the media that are scared witless by the prospect of President Fred Thompson. So when you read opinions about how he's "lazy" or "doesn't seem to care" about his campaign, keep in mind the source. And then read the updates at Fred08, see just how busy he actually is, and note where he's making his appearances. From the reports it's clear that he's taking his message to the people where they live and work, eschewing such events as fancy campaign dinners at a thousand bucks a plate. Leave that to the Democrats.

Krauthammer on religion and politics

I think he pretty much nails it:

In the same way that civil rights laws established not just the legal but also the moral norm that one simply does not discriminate on the basis of race -- changing the practice of one generation and the consciousness of the next -- so the constitutional injunction against religious tests is meant to make citizens understand that such tests are profoundly un-American.

Now, there's nothing wrong with having a spirited debate on the place of religion in politics. But the candidates are confusing two arguments.

The first, which conservatives are winning, is defending the legitimacy of religion in the public square. The second, which conservatives are bound to lose, is proclaiming the privileged status of religion in political life.

There's nothing wrong with one's opinions and decisions being informed by one's religious beliefs. To ask someone to go against those beliefs simply because of how they are arrived at is asking him or her to violate their integrity.

I don't know if I necessarily agree with his statement that "Europe is one of the freest precincts on the planet." Why this is so I leave as an exercise for the reader.

Don't forget Afghanistan

In case anyone is wondering if we're making any progress in Afghanistan, I present this:

Afghanistan's government flag was raised Wednesday on what had been one of the biggest strongholds of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan and a leading world center of heroin production.

Coalition forces aren't messing around. When you're dealing with an enemy that respects only force, you use a lot of it:

Embedded with a team of British troops and a detachment/"A–team" of U.S. special forces, I watched the Taliban being pounded these last few days with overwhelming force -- vapor trails circled in the clear blue sky over the Helmand desert as B1 and B52 bombers backed by A10 tank busters, F16s, Apache helicopters and Specter gunships were used to kill hundreds of Taliban fighters.

As in Iraq, the enemy isn't just indigenous:

U.S. forces believe the Taliban were backed by a large strength of foreign fighters, including those linked to al Qaeda. Soldiers who I accompanied found one dead fighter whose notebook revealed he was from Pakistan.

It just further hammers home the point that Afghanistan and Iraq are two campaigns in a larger war. Iran is yet another, albeit one that hasn't escalated to the point where we take military action.

H/T Mike at Cold Fury.

Fred's the man

Yeah, I know I said I'd start posting again and I haven't. It'll probably take a while to get back in the habit of regular updates. For now, though, I have an announcement.

I hereby declare that I support Fred Thompson for President of the United States.

Having said that, should he not be the Republican nominee, next November I will vote for whoever is, and do so with a clear conscience.

Ascending back above the radar

As we move further into the 2008 political season, I've decided to start posting here once again. You will note that I'm using Blogger's hosting service now rather than contracting with a separate service. Blogspot has improved greatly since I first set up this blog so I'm comfortable using it now.

I'm still working out the site layout so some of the things that were here before are currently missing. Most will be added back in one form or another. Also, I'm going to try Blogger's comment system so all the old comments made with HaloScan won't be accessible unless I decide to switch back to it. As few comments were ever made, I don't think this will be an issue.

Another hiatus

This blog is being hosted on the Geekette's virtual server at her hosting service. She has switched hosting services and this domain will be going away at some point in the future. I don't know if I'm going to switch over to her new domain, set up one of my own, or just not do this anymore. For now, this will likely be the last post here unless and until I post the link to the new location. Until then, good luck to you all, and God bless America and those who fight to keep us free.

The video surfaces

In an earlier post, I speculated on why there hadn't been any video of the murder and desecration of two US soldiers by terrorist animals in Iraq. Yesterday, that video was made available. Warning: The images, should you choose to view them, are quite graphic.

In that earlier post, I wrote:

If no such video ever appears, one can only speculate why not but I wouldn't be surprised if it was because our men showed exceptional courage in the face of death and defiance of their killers.

Once the RCOB passes, it is interesting to note that, in this video, our soldiers are already dead. It shows the desecration of their bodies, but it does not show their murders. I maintain, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, that our soldiers met their death bravely, so much so that our enemies dare not let us see it.

Hat tip Misha for the link.

Rest in Peace, Acidman

Rob Smith, aka Acidman, the author of the blog Gut Rumbles, has passed away. I used to read his blog regularly until the pressures of daily life forced me to cut back on my blog habit but I would still occasionally check in from time to time to see how he was doing.

He was crass, he was rude, and he called it like he saw it. His voice was a refreshing wind, sometimes gusty, sometimes gentle, but always interesting. Like he said in the quote on his side panel, "If my blog does not meet your standards, then LOWER YOUR STANDARDS. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?" If you didn't like what he had to write, you didn't have to read it.

His love for his son, and his hatred of the boy's mother, were equally on display for the world to see. One brought out the best in him, the other the worst, but it was all laid out on the screen right from his soul. His life wasn't easy, with more than its share of lows to go with the highs. But he made the best of it that he could.

Rest in Peace, Rob. I wish I'd had the chance to meet you. May the angels carry you gently to the peace you weren't able to find in life.

Remembrances by other bloggers:
Emperor Misha
Kim du Toit
Velociman
Boudicca
...and many more, I'm sure. Just click through Acidman's blogroll.

Perverse anti-Westernism

Back in February, The Sydney Line published this article by Keith Windschuttle titled "The Adversary Culture" and subtitled "The perverse anti-Westernism of the cultural elite." In it, he attempts to illustrate how certain groups have vilified Western culture while espousing multi-culturalism: the belief that all cultures are equal in value, with the exception of ours. This belief has led to some very interesting and, on the surface, non-intuitive results:

For instance, although Western feminists once found the overt misogyny of many tribal cultures distasteful, in recent years they have come to respect practices they once condemned. Feminist academics now deny that suttee, the incineration of widows, is barbaric. The Indian-American cultural studies theorist, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak gives suttee an honourable place in Indian culture by comparing it to the Christian tradition of martyrdom. Feminists once denounced the surgical removal of the clitoris of Muslim women as female genital mutilation. Lately, the procedure has been redefined as genital “cutting”, which the literary and art critic Germaine Greer now argues should be recognized as an authentic manifestation of the culture of the Muslim women concerned

.
He tackles the prevalent assumption in intellectual circles that Western culture is "inherently genocidal." One example oft cited is that of the aboriginal people of Tasmania.

In 2001 and 2002 I undertook the task of checking the footnotes of the major authors on Tasmania to verify their original sources, I found to my surprise that their interpretation of frontier warfare and genocide was based on invented incidents, concocted footnotes, altered documents and gross exaggeration of the Aboriginal death toll. I could find credible evidence that white settlers had killed a total of 121 Aborigines, mostly in self defence or in hot pursuit of Aborigines who had killed or assaulted white settlers. The rest of the population of about 2000 natives had died from diseases to which their long isolation on their island had given them no immunity, principally influenza, pneumonia and tuberculosis. On top of this, venereal disease rendered most of the women infertile.

The Tasmanian colony had been founded in 1803 in the middle of the British campaign to end the slave trade. Its longest-serving governor was George Arthur, a supporter of William Wilberforce, and who in his previous post in British Honduras had set the colony's indigenous slaves free. His sensitivity to the native question, in fact, was what got him the job in Australia. He wanted to civilize and modernize the Aborigines, not exterminate them. His intentions were not to foster violence towards the Aborigines but to prevent it. The charge of genocide is not only wrong, it is maliciously wrong — the defamation of a good man and a wilful misrepresentation of the truth.

And then, of course, we come to Muslims. After providing examples of terrorism on a personal level, he addresses the reaction of the Muslim world to the publishing of certain cartoons in a Danish newspaper, ones which Muslims claimed mocked the prophet Mohammed and insulted Islam.

The truth is that the riots, the arson, the death threats were not spontaneous outbursts from passionate religious believers but were carefully stage-managed by Muslim leaders. The imams of the Danish Muslim community consciously ignited the response some four months after the cartoons were published. They travelled to the Middle East where they generated support for a campaign quite deliberately targeted at Western culture's principle of freedom of expression.

And why are they doing this?

Their real aim is not religious respect but cultural change in the West. They want to prevent criticism of its Muslim minority and accord that group special privilege not available to the faithful of other religions. Instead of them changing to integrate into our way of life, they want to force us to change to accept their way of life.

Muslim rage over the cartoons is not an isolated issue that would have been confined to Denmark and would have gone away if nobody had republished them. It is simply one more step in a campaign that has already included assassination, death threats and the curtailment of criticism. And our response, yet again, has been one more white flag in the surrender of Western cultural values that we have been making since Khomeini's fatwa against Rushdie in 1989.

Contrary to the opinions of these groups, Western culture has been responsible for much that is considered good in this world.

The concepts of free enquiry and free expression and the right to criticise entrenched beliefs are things we take so much for granted they are almost part of the air we breathe. We need to recognise them as distinctly Western phenomena. They were never produced by Confucian or Hindu culture. Under Islam, the idea of objective inquiry had a brief life in the fourteenth century but was never heard of again. In the twentieth century, the first thing that every single communist government in the world did was suppress it.

But without this concept, the world would not be as it is today. There would have been no Copernicus, Galileo, Newton or Darwin. All of these thinkers profoundly offended the conventional wisdom of their day, and at great personal risk, in some cases to their lives but in all cases to their reputations and careers. But because they inherited a culture that valued free inquiry and free expression, it gave them the strength to continue.

Just for the record, in case it wasn't obvious, I reject the tenets of multi-culturalism. I believe that some cultures are objectively superior to others. Western culture has its flaws and its low points in history, all cultures do. But I submit that it is responsible for more progress in this world than any other and we should not be ashamed of it.

Britain continues its descent beneath the waves

Theodore Dalrymple, writing at City Journal, notes that in Britain, "In a strange inversion of proper priorities, important matters are taken lightly and trivial ones taken seriously."

He provides tow examples of the former, two examples of the latter, and a further example of, as he says, "the soft and creeping totalitarianism that comes with unctuous offers of benefits and avowals of purity of intention, rather than the boot-in-the-face variety of Orwell’s description."

Unfortunately, Britain may be beyond hope, and it may take a true revolution for it to be put right. But there's certainly no guarantee. It's the frog in the pot on the stove and the water's already near the boiling point. We can only hope that enough Brits awaken to and understand the danger before it's too late.

And just because it's happening "over there" doesn't mean we're not in danger of the same thing happening here. We're well on the way, though we're still some distance back. We also have the advantage of having experienced a true revolution that birthed our nation, and the examples of Britain and others to observe and, hopefully, learn from. I fear less for this country than I do for Britain, but I fear nonetheless. But my voice is only one in a growing chorus, and that gives me hope.

Hat tip to unixronin, a British expat who will hopefully take the oath of citizenship soon.

Daily Kos apologizes, sort of

The author of the post that I linked to yesterday (I don't know if it was Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, the founder of Daily Kos or another contributor) has modified the post to remove some of the more inflammatory language and offered an explnation and an apology of sorts:

My heart is broken by the brutal and senseless murder of these two young men. The fact that they were tortured makes the grief all the more grievous. I have not a shred of doubt that the barbarians who did this to them - who alone among all humans, are 100% responsible for their actions - will pay the price for their heinous acts, whether in this life or the next. In the meantime, I pray for the souls of those killed and for the comfort of those who loved them, and for all who care about their fate.

I wrote this diary because I was enraged that our government - my government - could have taken - and repeatedly defended - a position that the provisions of the Geneva Conventions - provisions written with the understanding that war is a brutal and savage activity at its core, and that humans engaged in war often are prone to brutal and savage behaviors - are merely "quaint" anachronisms, no longer applicable to our current world situation, and that torture is an acceptable practice for our society.

I respect him for recognizing that the terrorists are responsible for their actions. This is entirely correct. He is to be credited for recognizing that the language referring to the families of Rumsfeld, Yoo, and others was over the line and retracting it.

I understand that he was angry when he heard the news. I was, too. However our big difference is how we expressed that anger. I was angry with those who murdered our soldiers and my opinion is that they would have done what they did regardless of any actions or behavior on the part of the United States and its military. The post's author believes that it is in retaliation for what he perceives as violations of the Geneva Conventions by the United States and that such violations reduce us morally to the level of our enemy.

I would like to address his statement that the administration asserts that the Geneva Conventions are quaint. The memo from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to President Bush that he cites is located here. The Justice Department had determined that the Geneva Convention III on the Treatment of Prisoners of War (GPW) did not apply to al Qaeda and the Taliban. The President agreed with this assessment. The Secretary of State had asked the President to reconsider his decision and Attorney General Gonzales wrote this memo to support the DOJ's position. This is the relevant paragraph:

As you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war. It is not the traditional clash between nations adhering to the laws of war that formed the backdrop for GPW. The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians, and the need to try terrorists for war crimes such as wantonly killing civilians. In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, scrip (i.e., advances of monthly pay), athletic uniforms, and scientific instruments.

The word "quaint" here is applied to certain provisions, which he specifically names, and not the entire Convention. He does state that certain limitations on questioning prisoners are obsolete but he does not use the word "quaint" to describe them.

And of course, the last two paragraphs of the memo are overlooked:

• In the treatment of detainees, the U.S. will continue to be constrained by (i) its commitment to treat the detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of GPW, (ii) its applicable treaty obligations, (iii) minimum standards of treatment universally recognized by the nations of the world, and (iv) applicable military regulations regarding the treatment of detainees.


• Similarly, the argument based on military culture fails to recognize that our military remain bound to apply the principles of GPW because that is what you have directed them to do.

Emphasis mine -RR

Where's the video?

In the past, when terrorist thugs have beheaded or otherwise murdered people, they've recorded the act on video and released the footage. So where's the video of the two soldiers that were recently tortured and killed? Not that I wish to see such video, nor add to the grief and suffering of the families of these two men, but I can't help but wonder.

If no such video ever appears, one can only speculate why not but I wouldn't be surprised if it was because our men showed exceptional courage in the face of death and defiance of their killers. To allow Americans to see such bravery and spirit would only serve to embolden our troops and show the terrorists for what they truly are.

Human Rights Watch backs off blaming Israel

As a followup to my earlier post it appears that Human Rights Watch, which initially blamed the Israeli Defence Forces for the blast, is backing down somewhat:

On Monday, the Human Rights Watch, while sticking to its demand for the establishment of an independent inquiry into a blast on a Gaza beach 10 days ago that killed seven Palestinian civilians, conceded for the first time since the incident that it could not contradict the IDF's exonerating findings.

On Monday, Maj.-Gen. Meir Klifi - head of the IDF inquiry commission that cleared the IDF of responsibility for the blast - met with Marc Garlasco, a military expert from the HRW who had last week claimed that the blast was caused by an IDF artillery shell. Following the three-hour meeting, described by both sides as cordial and pleasant, Garlasco praised the IDF's professional investigation into the blast, which he said was most likely caused by unexploded Israeli ordnance left laying on the beach, a possibility also raised by Klifi and his team.

Of course this will mean nothing to the Palestinians who bear absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for the conflict with Israel.

Hat tip to Dale at QandO who succinctly sums up the likelihood that the Palestinians will apologize to the IDF for falsely accusing them.

Radical left spits on corpses of US soldiers

Two soldiers were captured last Friday after an attack at a traffic checkpoint outside the city of Youssifiyah, located just south of Baghdad. Their names are Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore. Our worst fears were realized when the bodies of the two were found and recovered:

The director of the Iraqi defense ministry's operation room, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed, said the bodies showed signs of having been tortured. "They were killed in a barbaric way," he said.

They were probably tortured before being killed and I mean real torture, not the type of activities the media and the left call "torture" that happened at Abu Ghraib and are occurring at Guantanamo Bay during interrogations.

Predictably, the moonbat left blames Bush for this even though the terrorists would happily have killed these soldiers in this way regardless of our presence in Iraq. From this post at Daily Kos:

The bodies of the two captured U.S. soldiers were found in Iraq - bearing signs of "barbaric torture."

How quaint.

I hope Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo will sleep well tonight, with visions of those boys' bodies and the horrible barbarities inflicted upon them dancing in their heads. Perhaps Gonzales, and Yoo, and Rumsfeld and Bush will be able to envision the same inhumanities being visited upon their family members and loved ones as they drift off to peaceful slumber.

Read through the comments for more gems.

Naturally the Geneva Conventions are brought up. Here's the deal. The Geneva Conventions were created to deter torture, mistreatment of prisoners of war, etc. The way they do this is by essentially saying: "If you, as a signatory to these conventions, are in conflict with another signatory, and you violate the terms of these conventions, then your opponent is no longer obligated to observe the terms. They are then free under the conventions to commit similar acts against any of your soldiers or civilians that they capture." In other words, do it to them and expect them to do it back to you.

Our enemy in this conflict is not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. They commit atrocities like the killings of these soldiers, the killings of the contractors in Fallujah, the beheadings of Nick Berg and others, as a matter of course. For them it is standard operating procedure. Yet we adhere to the terms of the conventions despite this, and we are blamed when our enemy does not. I do not think that we should start torturing and killing terrorist prisoners. I believe we should continue as we have. It proves that we are morally and ethically superior to our enemy. Even the aberrations such as Abu Ghraib and recent events in Haditha, assuming it is proven that the Marines are guilty as charged (and pre-convicted by ex-Marine John Murtha), do not approach the level of barbarity that our enemy commits on a daily basis.

Unfortunately the radical left is so blinded by hatred of Bush and Republicans that they will never see it. We can't make them shut up, nor should we try. We can only marginalize them and expose them for the barking moonbats that they are.

The latest from Bill Whittle

First, an update on what's going on in his world.

Second, the introduction to the new book he's working on.

Go forth all ye who read this and enjoy.

Airport security: Can the Isreali model work in the US?

Bruce Schneier links to a couple of articles by Patrick Smith regarding airline security. The first one addresses the Isreali method of securing their major airport, and their national airline. Mr. Smith believes, however, that the model won't work here, at least not without modification:

But it's not draconian strictness or bullying regulations that make Tel Aviv so impressive -- not on the surface, anyway. It's common sense and efficiency. The place isn't merely safeguarded; it's downright passenger friendly. So it would seem those letter writers are right. We could do worse than emulate our allies in the Middle East. Why can't we, or why don't we, have a system like theirs?

Unfortunately, that's a bit like asking why America's streets can't be as clean as Singapore's. Mostly it's a case of scale. The United States has dozens of mega-terminals, and hundreds more of varying sizes; the nation's top 25 airports each process more than 20 million people a year. Tel Aviv is Israel's sole major airport, handling 9 million passengers annually -- about the same as Raleigh-Durham, N.C. The ability to focus on this single, consolidated portal makes the job comparatively simple. There are aspects worth borrowing, for sure, but it's naive to think Israeli protocols can, in whole, be fitted to a nation that is 50 times more populous, and immeasurably more diverse and decentralized.

The same applies when talking about El Al, the Israeli national airline. No carrier has taken more care to protect its fleet against sabotage, it's true. Among other measures, every El Al jet is outfitted with an anti-missile system. Crews are trained in hand-to-hand combat, and a minimum of six armed marshals ride aboard every El Al flight. But in addition to being one-third owned and funded by the state, El Al is a relatively tiny airline. It operates fewer than 40 aircraft, all hubbed from a single city, and transports just over 3 million passengers yearly. Compare that with American, United or Delta, just to name three, each with more than 500 planes. American Airlines carries roughly 1.7 million passengers every week.

These are valid points and probably correct. As he says, there are aspects worth borrowing. Certainly we should be able to adapt them to our circumstances.

In a followup article he talks about racial profiling and how it won't work because not all terrorists fit a single racial profile:

The 19 skyjackers succeeded not because we failed to flag them -- in fact several of the cabal, including Mohammed Atta, were singled out by the CAPPS-1 (for computer-assisted passenger prescreening system) program then in place -- but because they knowingly anticipated what levels of resistance they would face, from previously gathered intelligence available to check-in staff, and, most important, physical resistance (or lack thereof) from passengers and crew aboard the four doomed Boeings. The attackers took advantage of the skyjack paradigm as it existed at the time. They did not exploit a loophole in airport security; they exploited a loophole in our mind-set and expectations. And whatever can be said of terrorists, they're generally not stupid; the more narrowly we profile, the easier the system becomes to skirt. Routine, as any security or antiterror expert will tell you, is weakness. The trouble with profiling isn't necessarily that it's racist or discriminatory. The trouble is that it doesn't work.

Later in the article, he refers to a different type of profiling, one which Isreal has been using to great effect for years and which I personally think we should adopt:

For more intelligent reading, I highly recommend Bruce Schneier's "Beyond Fear -- Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World." Again, the title says it all. Among his many cogent arguments, Schneier smartly maintains that the most valuable front-line defense against terror is not a one-dimensional preoccupation with skin color. He advocates a mix of random screening and a cadre of well-trained, experienced professionals, skilled in the art of behavioral profiling.

Fortunately, as he notes later, the TSA has a program that it is testing where exactly that type of profiling is being applied. Hopefully it will be done right, succeed, and be adopted at all airports.

In the course if his article, he refers to a "quiz" that is meant to illustrate why we should profile Muslim males. Here's a sample:

• In 1979, the U.S. Embassy in Iran was taken over by:

a. Norwegians from Ballard
b. Elvis
c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

Living as I do in the Puget Sound region, of which Ballard is a part, I immediately got the reference. After some discussion he suggests this alternate quiz of which this is one question:

• In 1994, who nearly succeeding in skyjacking a DC-10 and crashing it into the Federal Express Corp. headquarters?

a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
b. Michelle Malkin
c. Charlie Rose
d. Auburn Calloway, an off-duty FedEx employee and resident of Memphis, Tenn.

Although he has a good point, I would note that this example is the most recent and it happened twelve years ago. Since then, the majority of international terrorism has been committed by Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40. So while we certainly shouldn't assume that all terrorists will be people that fall into that demographic, it's a pretty good bet that most will be. Certainly don't limit scrutiny to that group, but we should recognize that membership in that group does indicate an increased risk.