Proof Yet Again That Reagan Had Nothing To Do With The Collapse Of The USSR....

Read all about how the American arms build-up had nothing to do with bankrupting the Soviets here. In related news, the U.S. Constitution would've been written pretty much the same without Alexander Hamilton, and Germany would've went Nazi even without Hitler. Also, the Yankees would've won the 1977 World Series without Reggie Jackson, and the Civil War would've been won for the Union without Abe Lincoln's stewardship.

The Last Words Of Alexander Litvinenko

Murdered Russian Alexander Litvinenko, critic of Vladimir Putin and avowed democrat (note small 'd') made this signed statement shortly before he passed away:

I would like to thank many people. My doctors, nurses and hospital staff who are doing all they can for me; the British police who are pursuing my case with vigor and professionalism and are watching over me and my family. I would like to thank the British government for taking me under their care. I am honored to be a British citizen.
I would like to thank the British public for their messages of support and for the interest they have shown in my plight.
I thank my wife, Marina, who has stood by me. My love for her and our son knows no bounds.
But as I lie here, I can distinctly hear the beating of wings of the angel of death. I may be able to give him the slip but I have to say my legs do not run as fast as I would like. I think, therefore, that this may be the time to say one or two things to the person responsible for my present condition.
You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed.
You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilized value.
You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilized men and women.
You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life. May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people.

Fill In The Blanks

A former Russian spy and sharp critic of Vladimir Putin, Alexander Litvinenko, gets poisoned to death in London. Mr. Litvinenko had an intense interest in revealing who murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was just the latest in a string of Russian journalists who've been murdered in the last half-decade in and outside of Russia. Additionally, Boris Khodorkovsky, a billionaire critic and political rival of Vladimir Putin's, received 20 years for essentially trumped-up charges. At the same time, while Russia (and China) consistently block any sanctions against the soon-to-be nuclear Islamic Republic of Iran on the U.N. Security Council, they sell anti-aircraft missles to said Iranians. Putin has also dispatched the head of Russia nuclear agency to Iran this past week.

Draw your own conclusions from this, but these are mine:

Putin is consolidating his power by slowly but surely eliminating all dissent in the press, in business, or by Russian defectors. Putin is former KGB; he is a formidible man intellectually, and was inculcated with a cold-blooded, Stalinist ethic through his KGB experiences. He is clearly seeking to destroy Russian democracy (fragile as it is) internally, while he is using the Iranians to do his dirty work (i.e. wage jihad on the West). It would not surprise me to find out that Russia has increased its military budget significantly in the last five years. Where this leads to, I don't know. But it is no place desireable.

Funny Stuff

Parodies of those annoying Che Guevara t-shirts can be found here. Very entertaining.

Why We Won't Win (Until We Remember This....)

"War is cruel, and there's no use in trying to refine it. The more cruel it is, the sooner it is over."

--General William Tecumseh Sherman

Ralph Peters on Iraq

I take absolutely no stock in any left-wing op-ed writers at all when it comes to Bush, Iraq, terrorism, taxes, etc. So burdened are they with BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) that they're incapable of saying anything cogent or truthful. Ralph Peters, ex-military and former intel operative, is a whole different kettle of fish. Much as it pains me to read his pieces, they're spot-on, honest, and at times, brutal. He is one of the few writers worth reading regarding the War on Terror, and he's worth the read if you really want to know what is going on in Iraq. Catch it here.

Retired Husband Syndrome....A Japanese Phenomenon

I picked this up from John Derbyshire of the National Review. Seems that there's a bit of a crisis going on amongst retired Japanese men and their spouses. The Japanese, noted for their intense work ethic (twelve hour days are de rigeur), spend the better part of their adult lives at work; home is for sleeping...nothing more. As a result, man and wife develop separate lives under the same roof over the course of decades. When the man retires, he drives his wife crazy. Or so it goes in Japan. You can read all about it here.

Random Thoughts 11/10/06

Ah....so much to talk about.....where to start?

Election:

• Well, I guess it had to happen sometime. Consistently sloppy behavior from the numbskull members of the Congressional GOP for starters. Let's round it all up: Foley, Ney, DeLay, Cunningham, topped off with Jack Abramoff with a cherry on top. As for Bush, I don't blame him for Katrina per se (the governor and the mayor, who were largely responsible for the evacuation, rescue, and security of New Orleans revealed themselves to be empty suits), but he underreact in the aftermath, and clearly did not show leadership. Bush's appointment of this "Brownie" character to FEMA, obviously a sinecure granted as a favor to someone, paid bitter dividends. (Patronage NEVER works!) The nation isn't angry at Bush because of Iraq (in my opinion), they're angry because we're not playing to win. (We're quite clearly playing not to lose...which inevitably leads to losing.) Kudos to the Dems for finding right-of-center Democrats to run, which inevitably lead them to their majorities in both the House and Senate. (I do like Jim Webb of Virginia, btw.) In the end, a lack of competition in the war of ideas leads to sloth and corruption, and the GOP needs to get back to their core values: cuttings government spending, cutting taxes, vigorous defense. I'm also starting to gravitate towards Pat Buchanan's philosophy that perhaps its time for America to withdraw from the world and stop being everyone's nanny. Western Europe, with their sanctimonious tut-tutting, should take the leadership with this stuff. No more Americans in Germany, South Korea, or the former Yugoslavia. In the abstract, all of these people hate us. In the real world however, they quiver at the thought that the blanket of security that we provide the Europeans and the Asians (South Korea in particular) could possibly be removed. I also think it is high-time that America consider suspending its active participation in the United Nations. If the world hates us for all that we do for it, perhaps they should taste the bitter fruits of a world without the United States protecting it. That's my two-cents on that note.

Other Stuff:

• I'm shocked, shocked at the news that Britney Spears and her "trash-tastic" (a New York Post phrase) hubby Kevin Federline are breaking up. I'm similarly shocked about the Ryan Philipe/Reese Witherspoon break-up. I'm also utterly amazed at the new shampoo I'm using...Pantene. I've never gotten more compliments about my hair. Awesome.

• I pulled back from reading anymore ancient history stuff written by ancient historians. I recently got the urge to read Herodotus' The Histories, which documents the Greco-Persion wars. Written approximately 2700 years ago, this work is considered the first historical document in history. But after slogging through Thucydides' History of the Pelopennian Wars, I just couldn't bring myself to read another 500 to 700 page tome that is the textual equivalent of eating sand. So I settled on reading some relatively light stuff, like Lance Armstrong's biographical It's Not About The Bike, Andy Summers' (of The Police) One Train Later, and Neil Peart's journal on touring with band (and in-between gigs) on motorcycle, Roadshow. What I read after this welterweight fare, I do not know. But at this point, I'm not sure I can read anything political or martial for a while, so I might stay in this relatively light-hearted zone for the time being. Truth be told, I'm in a better mood when I'm reading the lighter stuff.

• Very much looking forward to the Borat movie. Might catch it this weekend. Jeshamesh.

That's all for now, folks. May the road rise up to meet you, and may the wind be at your back.

Online Radio

For those of you looking for some different music or stuff that you've never heard before, try Pandora. It's a free service, and I've heard some very good stuff on it. Just to give you an idea of how it works: You type in the band you want to hear, they find a station that plays that band, as well as other bands that are similar. Somehow after typing in "Emerson, Lake, and Palmer" I came across a band called Aphrodite's Child, featuring Vangelis. Never heard them before, and they turned out to be pretty good. As a result, I'm ordering one of their CDs from Amazon.

Current pop music is awful, but there's a wealth of stuff from the past that I've never heard. If discovering old music is my way of discovering new music....well, good enough.

Let Us Take A Moment This November 4th....

To reflect upon the legacy of the Jimmy Carter era. Please note the person center-right in the photo: Current Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has been identified by five former hostages as having been a participant in the storming of and subsequent imprisonment of the American embassy personnel.

Thanks Jimmy! (You f*ckin' loser.)

Heard At A New York Rangers Game

A lackadaisical hockey performance at the last game I attended at the Garden resulted in one of the more clever chants/screams I've heard at a hockey game: "Old time hockey!!!!" To which someone else screamed "Eddie f*ckin' Shore!!!"

It was more of a cry for help than anything else. Those of you who've seen Slapshot know what these chants mean.

If

Recently was reminded of this work by Kipling. Worth the read.

Perhaps Kerry Can Try This Excuse....

I suppose it is as good as any.....

And while we're still on the subject, read the great Victor Davis Hanson's take below:

Kerryism

Kerry surely must be one of the saddest Democratic liabilities around. Some afterthoughts about his latest gaffe, which is one of those rare glimpses into an entire troubled ideology:

(1) How could John Kerry, born into privilege, and then marrying and divorcing and marrying out of and back into greater inherited wealth, lecture anyone at a city college about the ingredients for success in America? If he were to give personal advice about making it, it would have to be to marry rich women. Nothing he has accomplished as a senator or candidate reveals either much natural intelligence or singular education. Today, Democrats must be wondering why they have embraced an overrated empty suit, and ostracized a real talent like Joe Lieberman.

(2) How could Kerry possibly claim that he was thinking of the uneducated in the context of George Bush, who, after all, went to Harvard and Yale?

(3) Some of the brightest and most educated Americans are not only in the military, but veterans of Iraq. Two of the best educated minds I have met-Col. Bill Hix and Lt. Col. Chris Gibson, both Hoover Security Fellows-were both Iraqi veterans. What is striking about visiting Iraq is the wealth of talent there, from privates to generals. Without being gratuitously cruel, the problem of mediocrity is not in the ranks of the military, but on our university campuses, where half-educated professors and non-serious students killing time are ubiquitous. Personally, I'd wager the intelligence of a Marine Corps private any day over the average D.C. journalist. Every naval officer I met at the USNA, without exception, seemed brighter than John Kerry, whose "brilliance", after all, has managed to offend millions of voters on the eve of a pivotal election. If the Democrats lose, it will be almost painful to watch the recriminations against Kerry fly.

(4) This is not the first, but third, time he has denigrated soldiers in the middle of a war-and there is a systematic theme: John Kerry's assumed superior morality allows him to pass judgment from on high about supposedly lesser folk who become tools of a suspect military: thus we go from limb-loppers and Genghis' hordes to terrorists to dead-beats. The only constant is that the haughtiness is always delivered in the same sanctimonious, self-righteous, and patronizing tone.

(5) The mea culpa that Democrats are blaming the war and not the warriors is laughable after Sens. Durbin, Kennedy, and Kerry have collectively compared American soldiers to Nazis, Pol Pot's killers, Stalinists, terrorists, and Baathists.

(6) The problem is that Kerry is not just a senator, but the most recent presidential candidate of the Democratic Party, and thus in some sense, especially given the diminution of Howard Dean, the megaphone of the entire party.

(7) His pathetic clarification, as he blamed everyone from Tony Snow to Rush Limbaugh, displayed the same Al Gore derangement syndrome, and thus raises a larger question: what is it about George Bush that seems to reduce once sober and experienced liberal pros to infantile ranting?

(8) And why is the supposedly lame Bush so careful in speech, and the self-acclaimed geniuses like a Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, or Howard Dean serially spouting ever more stupidities? For all the Democrats' criticism of George Bush, I can't think of a modern President who has so infrequently put his foot in his public mouth, and, by the same token, can't think of any opposition that on the eve of elections seems to have an almost pathological death wish.

The Democrats should use this occasion to have an autopsy of Kerryism, or this strange new tony liberalism, that has turned noblisse oblige on its head. It used to be that millionaire FDRs and JFKs felt sympathy for those of the lower classes and wished to ensure that the hoi polloi had some shot at the American dream. But today's elite liberals-a Howard Dean, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, George Soros, Ted Turner-love the high life and playact at being leftists simply because they are already insulated from the effects of their own nostrums that always come at someone poorer's expense while providing them some sort of psychological relief from guilt. Poor Harry Truman must be turning over in his grave-from bourbon, cigars, and poker to wind-surfing and L.L. Bean costume of the day says it all.

Supporting Our Troops

by Mark Steyn

If you talk to Democrats of the middle-class and upper-middle-class and (in John Heinz Kerry’s case) the neo-Gulf-emir-class, you’ll have heard the same thing a thousand times: these poor fellows in Iraq, they’re only there because they’re too poverty-stricken and ill-educated so they couldn’t become Senators and New York Times reporters and tenured Queer Studies professors like normal Americans do. That is, in fact, what they mean by the claim that they “support our troops”: they want to bring them home and retrain them so they’re not forced into taking jobs as Bush’s torturers and thugs. It’s part of the same condescension as describing soldiers as “our children”. If a 22-year old intern wants to drop to the Oval Office broadloom, she’s a grown woman exercising her freedom of choice. But, if a 28-year old guy wants to serve in Iraq, he’s a poor wee misguided Grade Six drop-out who doesn’t know any better. John Kerry’s soundbite is interesting not because it’s the umpteenth self-inflicted wound by Mister Nuance but because it gets right to the heart of the Democrats’ “support” for the troops.