I'm not sure if this is news to anyone, but I'm going to write about it all the same. In the last year, the New York Times as exposed the fact that the NSA is tapping international phone calls originating from the United States going to terrorist hotbeds like Pakistan and Afghanistan (all of which is legal), gathers and analyzes phone numbers (also legal), monitors international banking transactions (which even the Times has acknowleged is legal), and now, on top of all of their other transgressions, has revealed a top-secret memo written by General Casey that there will be significant troop draw-downs in Iraq by the end of 2007. Way to go, New York Times! With publications like this, al Qaeda can make up for their lack of a spy network!
I can't think of any way to stop this crap, which clearly jeopardizes national security in a huge way, other than to begin prosecuting the New York Times ownership and staff, starting with Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Bill Keller, under the Espionage Act. Of course this will cause an uproar amongst the libs, but their blathering and complaining is small beer in comparison to the lives that could be potentially lost as a result of these latest outrages.
I fail to see the point of these stories being published. I fail to see who benefits or where the public good is being serviced. The New York Times is a rogue organization. About the best I can hope for at this point is that the shareholders of this company (NYT: NYSE) throw Sulzberger and his snotty 60's retreads out. Either that, or that the stock continues to go in the toilet. As a matter of fact, I think I'll put their symbol on my quote screen and look forward to taking delight in every point lost.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Thursday, June 22, 2006
One of History’s Great Failures--Marking the 50th Annniversary of the '56 Hungarian Uprising
By The Editors/National Review
Visiting Budapest at the moment, President Bush is in a position to celebrate a little ahead of time the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian revolution of 1956. And there is much to celebrate. That revolution was a classic national uprising in which the people of a small nation took up arms for the sake of independence. They had little or no chance of success, because their oppressor was the Soviet Union. Motivated by the ideology of Communism, the Soviet Union had long proved itself the killer and jailer of small nations.
The Red Army at the end of the world war had driven the Germans out of the country, but they could not bring freedom because, as the Hungarian writer Sandor Marai lamented, they had no freedom for themselves. Soviet occupation meant a large garrison, and instructions from the Kremlin. Thanks to the notorious “salami tactics,” the Soviets replaced local democratic parties with Communists carefully chosen for their obedience. Industry, finance, agriculture, everything, was taken into the hands of the party. Former aristocrats, landowners, intellectuals, journalists, artists, priests, were rounded up for mock trials, and many a memoir unforgettably evokes their experiences in concentration camps like Vac. Two days after celebrating mass on Christmas 1948, Cardinal Mindszenty, the Hungarian prelate, was arrested. President Bush can rejoice that Mindszenty eventually found sanctuary in the American embassy.
In a sinister development, Stalin was soon to purge all the Communist parties of the new Soviet bloc. In Hungary, the foreign minister, Laszlo Rajk, a picture-book Communist, was accused of treason and hanged, and so was the general who had set up the secret police. Once Stalin was safely dead, these horrors prompted his successor Nikita Khrushchev to admit some degree of criminality at the Party Conference in Moscow in 1956. An unintentional consequence of this speech was the replacement of Stalinist stooges in Hungary by Imre Nagy, a party man but willing to follow Khrushchev and admit the need for reforms.
A student demonstration was then enough to spark an uprising. President Bush might like to recall how the crowd pulled down the gigantic bronze statue of Stalin, just as another crowd was to pull down a similar statue of Saddam Hussein. The camps and prisons opened, and here and there in the country, secret policemen were killed. Yuri Andropov, then a Soviet official in Budapest but later general secretary in Moscow, organized the suppression of the revolution with a combination of deceit and force. By the time the Soviet tanks had finished, between two and three thousand freedom fighters were dead. Twenty thousand people were then arrested, and at least 200,000 more fled the country, many of them to have successful careers abroad. Imre Nagy and his closest collaborators were hanged.
At his execution, Nagy declared that one day he would be rehabilitated. So it proved. In 1989, Nagy was reburied in the cemetery where the nation’s great men lie. Almost immediately afterwards, the Hungarian authorities lifted the country’s iron curtain, and the consequent freedom of movement signified the ending of the Cold War. The revolution of 1956 may have been a costly failure, but Hungarian national pride, and today’s delight in freedom, stem from its heroism.
Visiting Budapest at the moment, President Bush is in a position to celebrate a little ahead of time the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian revolution of 1956. And there is much to celebrate. That revolution was a classic national uprising in which the people of a small nation took up arms for the sake of independence. They had little or no chance of success, because their oppressor was the Soviet Union. Motivated by the ideology of Communism, the Soviet Union had long proved itself the killer and jailer of small nations.
The Red Army at the end of the world war had driven the Germans out of the country, but they could not bring freedom because, as the Hungarian writer Sandor Marai lamented, they had no freedom for themselves. Soviet occupation meant a large garrison, and instructions from the Kremlin. Thanks to the notorious “salami tactics,” the Soviets replaced local democratic parties with Communists carefully chosen for their obedience. Industry, finance, agriculture, everything, was taken into the hands of the party. Former aristocrats, landowners, intellectuals, journalists, artists, priests, were rounded up for mock trials, and many a memoir unforgettably evokes their experiences in concentration camps like Vac. Two days after celebrating mass on Christmas 1948, Cardinal Mindszenty, the Hungarian prelate, was arrested. President Bush can rejoice that Mindszenty eventually found sanctuary in the American embassy.
In a sinister development, Stalin was soon to purge all the Communist parties of the new Soviet bloc. In Hungary, the foreign minister, Laszlo Rajk, a picture-book Communist, was accused of treason and hanged, and so was the general who had set up the secret police. Once Stalin was safely dead, these horrors prompted his successor Nikita Khrushchev to admit some degree of criminality at the Party Conference in Moscow in 1956. An unintentional consequence of this speech was the replacement of Stalinist stooges in Hungary by Imre Nagy, a party man but willing to follow Khrushchev and admit the need for reforms.
A student demonstration was then enough to spark an uprising. President Bush might like to recall how the crowd pulled down the gigantic bronze statue of Stalin, just as another crowd was to pull down a similar statue of Saddam Hussein. The camps and prisons opened, and here and there in the country, secret policemen were killed. Yuri Andropov, then a Soviet official in Budapest but later general secretary in Moscow, organized the suppression of the revolution with a combination of deceit and force. By the time the Soviet tanks had finished, between two and three thousand freedom fighters were dead. Twenty thousand people were then arrested, and at least 200,000 more fled the country, many of them to have successful careers abroad. Imre Nagy and his closest collaborators were hanged.
At his execution, Nagy declared that one day he would be rehabilitated. So it proved. In 1989, Nagy was reburied in the cemetery where the nation’s great men lie. Almost immediately afterwards, the Hungarian authorities lifted the country’s iron curtain, and the consequent freedom of movement signified the ending of the Cold War. The revolution of 1956 may have been a costly failure, but Hungarian national pride, and today’s delight in freedom, stem from its heroism.
Back Soon!
Sorry 'bout the lack of postings, folks. Defective modem means no posts for a time, but now it's fixed and all is well. Lots to talked about, comment about, and observe. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
"What Liberal Media?"
"Aided by surging tax receipts, President Bush may make good on his pledge to cut the deficit in half in 2006 — three years early."
The New York Times headline: "Bush deficit reduction plan falls off-schedule."
Hat-tip: Glenn Reynolds
The New York Times headline: "Bush deficit reduction plan falls off-schedule."
Hat-tip: Glenn Reynolds
Friday, June 09, 2006
VDH's Observation On Suicide Tactics
In Victor Davis Hanson's book, "Ripples of Battle", Hanson writes about how three battles in Western History have affected our modern day outlook on war and how we fight it. Below is VDH's theory on the use of suicide bomber tactics and the subsquent American military response to them, which I think it dead-on. It might've done a world of good for the muslim jihadists of this world to have studied the history of American warfare, for they might've saved the lives of tens of thousands of their fellow muslims. Alas, for all their sabre rattling and theatrical decapitations on video, one thing they'll never have is the technology to deliver a 500-lbs. bomb on top of someone's head from an F-16 going at Mach 2. Delightful as it is for them to bathe in their ability to inflict heartless cruelty, it will always pale in comparison to the mechanical wrath of the United States. Zarqawi obviously didn't get the memo...
In the battle of Okinawa, played out in May and June of 1945, the Japanese threw 200 suicide bombers at the American Navy per attack. Whereas the casualty ratio of U.S. Army/Marines on the ground to Japanese infantry was about 1 GI for 100 Japanese, the ratio for the U.S. Navy per Japanese suicide bomber was 5:2 (five sailor killed or wounded for every two suicide attacks by the Japanese). That the decision to drop the A-Bomb on Japan was hastened by the kamikaze tactics employed by the Japanese in the latter stages of the war is an understatement.
Victor Davis Hanson:
Much of the collapse of the kamikazes, then, had to do with the American counter-response. The terror of suicide brought out the greater terror of the Western way of war. Americans not merely devised immediate countermeasures to the kamikazes and suicide banzai charges-everything from picket destroyers to flame-shooting tanks-but also left the island with a changed mentality about the nature of war itself: from now on fanaticism of the human will would be repaid in kind with the fanaticism of industrial and technological power. Okinawa taught the world that the chief horror of war is not the random use of suicide bombers, but thhe response that they incur from Western powers whose self-imposed restraint upon their ingenuity for killing usually rests only with their own sense of moral reluctance--a brake thhat suicidal attack seems to strip away.
In the battle of Okinawa, played out in May and June of 1945, the Japanese threw 200 suicide bombers at the American Navy per attack. Whereas the casualty ratio of U.S. Army/Marines on the ground to Japanese infantry was about 1 GI for 100 Japanese, the ratio for the U.S. Navy per Japanese suicide bomber was 5:2 (five sailor killed or wounded for every two suicide attacks by the Japanese). That the decision to drop the A-Bomb on Japan was hastened by the kamikaze tactics employed by the Japanese in the latter stages of the war is an understatement.
Victor Davis Hanson:
Much of the collapse of the kamikazes, then, had to do with the American counter-response. The terror of suicide brought out the greater terror of the Western way of war. Americans not merely devised immediate countermeasures to the kamikazes and suicide banzai charges-everything from picket destroyers to flame-shooting tanks-but also left the island with a changed mentality about the nature of war itself: from now on fanaticism of the human will would be repaid in kind with the fanaticism of industrial and technological power. Okinawa taught the world that the chief horror of war is not the random use of suicide bombers, but thhe response that they incur from Western powers whose self-imposed restraint upon their ingenuity for killing usually rests only with their own sense of moral reluctance--a brake thhat suicidal attack seems to strip away.
Brit Hume and Fred Barnes on Zarqawi's Termination
BARNES: I think -- I agree with Mort on that 100 percent, they do need to do that. Really -- a mount a real counterinsurgency it might cause more American casualty, but it's the thing to do.
Now, what was Zarqawi's main goal in Iraq? It was to get the U.S. out. So now we have people saying, oh, Zarqawi's dead, let's start bringing our troops home. I mean, that's what he was for, that's because he knew with the American troops gone, or as John Murtha says, you know, immediate withdrawal, which Nancy Pelosi also endorsed, that that would allow the insurgency to be permanent. Now, also -- I forget which democrat, Brit, maybe you can tell me, said, well, we didn't need our troops there to do this attack, we could have...
HUME: Barbara Boxer.
BARNES: Well, she must not have seen what General Caldwell said. He said it was a painstaking mission. It took weeks for us to find out exactly where he was, and to make sure it was correct and everything, dealing with all kinds of Iraqis, getting a tip, and doing all this. You couldn't do that if you were in Kuwait.
(CROSSTALK)
HUME: Well, they also probably couldn't have carried out these 17 other operations.
BARNES: Well of course you couldn't. These people are just plain wrong and they're stupid in saying these things. I mean, I mean, don't they stop and think? Don't they think through what's going on? It's a war. You know, you wonder where these ideas come from. Maybe it's just their anti-Bush feelings, but they're -- I mean, you jump to the conclusion that Zarqawi's dead, now let's do what he wanted us to do? That's crazy.
Now, what was Zarqawi's main goal in Iraq? It was to get the U.S. out. So now we have people saying, oh, Zarqawi's dead, let's start bringing our troops home. I mean, that's what he was for, that's because he knew with the American troops gone, or as John Murtha says, you know, immediate withdrawal, which Nancy Pelosi also endorsed, that that would allow the insurgency to be permanent. Now, also -- I forget which democrat, Brit, maybe you can tell me, said, well, we didn't need our troops there to do this attack, we could have...
HUME: Barbara Boxer.
BARNES: Well, she must not have seen what General Caldwell said. He said it was a painstaking mission. It took weeks for us to find out exactly where he was, and to make sure it was correct and everything, dealing with all kinds of Iraqis, getting a tip, and doing all this. You couldn't do that if you were in Kuwait.
(CROSSTALK)
HUME: Well, they also probably couldn't have carried out these 17 other operations.
BARNES: Well of course you couldn't. These people are just plain wrong and they're stupid in saying these things. I mean, I mean, don't they stop and think? Don't they think through what's going on? It's a war. You know, you wonder where these ideas come from. Maybe it's just their anti-Bush feelings, but they're -- I mean, you jump to the conclusion that Zarqawi's dead, now let's do what he wanted us to do? That's crazy.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Ike's D-Day Message
June 6, 1944 was D-Day, the likes of which you will doubtlessly not be reminded of, save this blog. Perhaps the most important day in the 20th Century, the invasion of Normandy hastened the end of WWII in Europe AND saved Western Europe from Stalin's post-war communist domination. Airborne drops started around midnight the night before the landings; the beaches were stormed starting around 6 am. By August of 1944, Paris had been liberated.
Below is Eisenhower's message, delivered to every soldier, sailor, and airman on June 5th:
Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have
striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The
hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.
In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on
other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war
machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of
Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well
equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of
1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats,
in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their
strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home
Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions
of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.
The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to
Victory!
I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in
battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!
Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great
and noble undertaking.
SIGNED: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Below is Eisenhower's message, delivered to every soldier, sailor, and airman on June 5th:
Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have
striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The
hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.
In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on
other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war
machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of
Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well
equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of
1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats,
in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their
strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home
Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions
of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.
The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to
Victory!
I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in
battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!
Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great
and noble undertaking.
SIGNED: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Chill out over global warming
By David Harsanyi
Denver Post Staff Columnist
DenverPost.com
You'll often hear the left lecture about the importance of dissent in a free society.
Why not give it a whirl?
Start by challenging global warming hysteria next time you're at a LoDo cocktail party and see what happens.
Admittedly, I possess virtually no expertise in science. That puts me in exactly the same position as most dogmatic environmentalists who want to craft public policy around global warming fears.
The only inconvenient truth about global warming, contends Colorado State University's Bill Gray, is that a genuine debate has never actually taken place. Hundreds of scientists, many of them prominent in the field, agree.
Gray is perhaps the world's foremost hurricane expert. His Tropical Storm Forecast sets the standard. Yet, his criticism of the global warming "hoax" makes him an outcast.
"They've been brainwashing us for 20 years," Gray says. "Starting with the nuclear winter and now with the global warming. This scare will also run its course. In 15-20 years, we'll look back and see what a hoax this was."
Gray directs me to a 1975 Newsweek article that whipped up a different fear: a coming ice age.
"Climatologists," reads the piece, "are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change. ... The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality."
Thank God they did nothing. Imagine how warm we'd be?
Another highly respected climatologist, Roger Pielke Sr. at the University of Colorado, is also skeptical.
Pielke contends there isn't enough intellectual diversity in the debate. He claims a few vocal individuals are quoted "over and over" again, when in fact there are a variety of opinions.
I ask him: How do we fix the public perception that the debate is over?
"Quite frankly," says Pielke, who runs the Climate Science Weblog (climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu), "I think the media is in the ideal position to do that. If the media honestly presented the views out there, which they rarely do, things would change. There aren't just two sides here. There are a range of opinions on this issue. A lot of scientists out there that are very capable of presenting other views are not being heard."
Al Gore (not a scientist) has definitely been heard - and heard and heard. His documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," is so important, in fact, that Gore crisscrosses the nation destroying the atmosphere just to tell us about it.
"Let's just say a crowd of baby boomers and yuppies have hijacked this thing," Gray says. "It's about politics. Very few people have experience with some real data. I think that there is so much general lack of knowledge on this. I've been at this over 50 years down in the trenches working, thinking and teaching."
Gray acknowledges that we've had some warming the past 30 years. "I don't question that," he explains. "And humans might have caused a very slight amount of this warming. Very slight. But this warming trend is not going to keep on going. My belief is that three, four years from now, the globe will start to cool again, as it did from the middle '40s to the middle '70s."
Both Gray and Pielke say there are many younger scientists who voice their concerns about global warming hysteria privately but would never jeopardize their careers by speaking up.
"Plenty of young people tell me they don't believe it," he says. "But they won't touch this at all. If they're smart, they'll say: 'I'm going to let this run its course.' It's a sort of mild McCarthyism. I just believe in telling the truth the best I can. I was brought up that way."
So next time you're with some progressive friends, dissent. Tell 'em you're not sold on this global warming stuff.
Back away slowly. You'll probably be called a fascist.
Don't worry, you're not. A true fascist is anyone who wants to take away my air conditioning or force me to ride a bike.
David Harsanyi's column appears Monday and Thursday. He can be reached at 303-820-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
Denver Post Staff Columnist
DenverPost.com
You'll often hear the left lecture about the importance of dissent in a free society.
Why not give it a whirl?
Start by challenging global warming hysteria next time you're at a LoDo cocktail party and see what happens.
Admittedly, I possess virtually no expertise in science. That puts me in exactly the same position as most dogmatic environmentalists who want to craft public policy around global warming fears.
The only inconvenient truth about global warming, contends Colorado State University's Bill Gray, is that a genuine debate has never actually taken place. Hundreds of scientists, many of them prominent in the field, agree.
Gray is perhaps the world's foremost hurricane expert. His Tropical Storm Forecast sets the standard. Yet, his criticism of the global warming "hoax" makes him an outcast.
"They've been brainwashing us for 20 years," Gray says. "Starting with the nuclear winter and now with the global warming. This scare will also run its course. In 15-20 years, we'll look back and see what a hoax this was."
Gray directs me to a 1975 Newsweek article that whipped up a different fear: a coming ice age.
"Climatologists," reads the piece, "are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change. ... The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality."
Thank God they did nothing. Imagine how warm we'd be?
Another highly respected climatologist, Roger Pielke Sr. at the University of Colorado, is also skeptical.
Pielke contends there isn't enough intellectual diversity in the debate. He claims a few vocal individuals are quoted "over and over" again, when in fact there are a variety of opinions.
I ask him: How do we fix the public perception that the debate is over?
"Quite frankly," says Pielke, who runs the Climate Science Weblog (climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu), "I think the media is in the ideal position to do that. If the media honestly presented the views out there, which they rarely do, things would change. There aren't just two sides here. There are a range of opinions on this issue. A lot of scientists out there that are very capable of presenting other views are not being heard."
Al Gore (not a scientist) has definitely been heard - and heard and heard. His documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," is so important, in fact, that Gore crisscrosses the nation destroying the atmosphere just to tell us about it.
"Let's just say a crowd of baby boomers and yuppies have hijacked this thing," Gray says. "It's about politics. Very few people have experience with some real data. I think that there is so much general lack of knowledge on this. I've been at this over 50 years down in the trenches working, thinking and teaching."
Gray acknowledges that we've had some warming the past 30 years. "I don't question that," he explains. "And humans might have caused a very slight amount of this warming. Very slight. But this warming trend is not going to keep on going. My belief is that three, four years from now, the globe will start to cool again, as it did from the middle '40s to the middle '70s."
Both Gray and Pielke say there are many younger scientists who voice their concerns about global warming hysteria privately but would never jeopardize their careers by speaking up.
"Plenty of young people tell me they don't believe it," he says. "But they won't touch this at all. If they're smart, they'll say: 'I'm going to let this run its course.' It's a sort of mild McCarthyism. I just believe in telling the truth the best I can. I was brought up that way."
So next time you're with some progressive friends, dissent. Tell 'em you're not sold on this global warming stuff.
Back away slowly. You'll probably be called a fascist.
Don't worry, you're not. A true fascist is anyone who wants to take away my air conditioning or force me to ride a bike.
David Harsanyi's column appears Monday and Thursday. He can be reached at 303-820-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
No....This Isn't A Joke....
England afraid to fly its own flag
Following threats by extremist Islamic group, several corporations, chain of pubs ban England flag
Modi Kreitman
Following warnings by extremist Islamic group al-Muhajiroun, in which the group said that the red cross in the England flag symbolizes the 'blood thirsty crusaders' and the occupation of Muslims, some of the largest companies in England have ordered their workers not to wave the flags.
The flag has recently appeared in England on everything from bikinis to cars, and sold in endless versions in stores.
But the Islamic protest forced some corporations, such as cable companies NTL, Heathrow airport in London, and even the Drivers and Vehicles Licensing Agency to ban the flag in every form due to fears from reactions of Muslims.
The Sun tabloid newspaper has in recent days launched a campaign to bring back the flag, and has published a blacklist of companies preventing their workers from expressing their patriotism at work.
The Sun said that a large pub network has banned drinkers from entering with symbols of the national team.
The hero of the day is a two year-old toddler, who was thrown out with his parents from Leicester, because he wore the England team's uniform.
Following threats by extremist Islamic group, several corporations, chain of pubs ban England flag
Modi Kreitman
Following warnings by extremist Islamic group al-Muhajiroun, in which the group said that the red cross in the England flag symbolizes the 'blood thirsty crusaders' and the occupation of Muslims, some of the largest companies in England have ordered their workers not to wave the flags.
The flag has recently appeared in England on everything from bikinis to cars, and sold in endless versions in stores.
But the Islamic protest forced some corporations, such as cable companies NTL, Heathrow airport in London, and even the Drivers and Vehicles Licensing Agency to ban the flag in every form due to fears from reactions of Muslims.
The Sun tabloid newspaper has in recent days launched a campaign to bring back the flag, and has published a blacklist of companies preventing their workers from expressing their patriotism at work.
The Sun said that a large pub network has banned drinkers from entering with symbols of the national team.
The hero of the day is a two year-old toddler, who was thrown out with his parents from Leicester, because he wore the England team's uniform.
Thoughts and Thangs....6/4/06
Reading the New York Post a week or two back, I was struck by the utter cantankerousness of the paper. The headline? "Bad Lay", in referring to the conviction of Enron CEO/scam-artist Ken Lay. A few days later, the Post referred to Paris Hilton as a "celebutard". They've consistently referred to Britney Spears' husband Kevin Federline as "trash-tastic".
Ahhh....I love the Post. And it's easy to read on a subway, to boot.
___________________________________________________________________
Celebrities might want to become more aware of how they act in public, what with the Smoking Gun and other websites about. Here's one I recently discovered: a website dedicated to "outing" crappy celebrity tippers. Enjoy.
___________________________________________________________________
Recently, John J. Miller of the National Review posted his top 50 most conservative rock songs. I wouldn't say that the list necessarily points out bands that are conservative in their personal convictions, but rather it points out songs that rail against big government, overt and abusive governmental authority, the clear understanding and recognition of good and evil, lack of personal responsibility, the insidiousness of collective thought, and, of course, high taxes. Pete Townshend, bless him, posted his response here. Far from slagging the inclusion of "Won't Get Fooled Again" on it, he merely points out that he's been rather energetic in never having his name (or that of The Who) connected to any political cause for any reason. (A conservative, individualistic sentiment in and of itself!) Clearly Pete distrusts the so-called "do-gooders" of the world, and the useful idiots who back people like Castro (though without naming Castro or the useful idiots who flock to kiss his ring...though he does wail on the African National Congress and their gun-running schemes, of which he was duped into supporting in the 80's).
Have fun reading 'em, as well as the encore here. (Thankfully, Rush gets two nods on the list, with "Red Barchetta" and "The Trees" making the cut. I could come up with about ten or more to add to the list, but I'm happy anytime anyone acknowledges this very underrated, stellar band.)
___________________________________________________________________
I came across this quote by Pete Townshend on Woodstock in Neil Peart's book, Traveling Music. I think it emphatically encapsulates Pete's worldview. While everyone in the 60's generation thought that Woodstock was the high-water mark of the 60's, Pete said this of it:
"If rolling around in the mud and smoking bad weed is the American Dream, you can have it. I'm taking my money and going back to Shepard's Bush* where people are people."
He also said this of Woodstock:
"I hated it."
How cool is Pete!?!
*Shepard's Bush is the neighborhood in London where the members of The Who grew up.
Ahhh....I love the Post. And it's easy to read on a subway, to boot.
___________________________________________________________________
Celebrities might want to become more aware of how they act in public, what with the Smoking Gun and other websites about. Here's one I recently discovered: a website dedicated to "outing" crappy celebrity tippers. Enjoy.
___________________________________________________________________
Recently, John J. Miller of the National Review posted his top 50 most conservative rock songs. I wouldn't say that the list necessarily points out bands that are conservative in their personal convictions, but rather it points out songs that rail against big government, overt and abusive governmental authority, the clear understanding and recognition of good and evil, lack of personal responsibility, the insidiousness of collective thought, and, of course, high taxes. Pete Townshend, bless him, posted his response here. Far from slagging the inclusion of "Won't Get Fooled Again" on it, he merely points out that he's been rather energetic in never having his name (or that of The Who) connected to any political cause for any reason. (A conservative, individualistic sentiment in and of itself!) Clearly Pete distrusts the so-called "do-gooders" of the world, and the useful idiots who back people like Castro (though without naming Castro or the useful idiots who flock to kiss his ring...though he does wail on the African National Congress and their gun-running schemes, of which he was duped into supporting in the 80's).
Have fun reading 'em, as well as the encore here. (Thankfully, Rush gets two nods on the list, with "Red Barchetta" and "The Trees" making the cut. I could come up with about ten or more to add to the list, but I'm happy anytime anyone acknowledges this very underrated, stellar band.)
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I came across this quote by Pete Townshend on Woodstock in Neil Peart's book, Traveling Music. I think it emphatically encapsulates Pete's worldview. While everyone in the 60's generation thought that Woodstock was the high-water mark of the 60's, Pete said this of it:
"If rolling around in the mud and smoking bad weed is the American Dream, you can have it. I'm taking my money and going back to Shepard's Bush* where people are people."
He also said this of Woodstock:
"I hated it."
How cool is Pete!?!
*Shepard's Bush is the neighborhood in London where the members of The Who grew up.
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