Miscellany 7/2/06

Work has been the source of much fatigue, thus the paucity of entries. That said, I've had my eyes fixated on the prevalent stories of the day, none of which make me particularly amused. So....here's my take on all, or at least, most of 'em.

• So the liberals on the Supreme Court think that al Qaeda is now a signatory on the Geneva Conventions, even though they're not a sovereign nation, have no uniform/rank/serial number, and adhere to none of the statutes....yet the United States has to treat them as such. Mark Steyn delves into this ridiculousness here. About the only saving grace regarding this ruling is that it leaves open the prospect that the president can force through legislation giving himself the already existing right to put these rabid animals through the military tribunal process. Make no mistake, folks. The left want this country to lose in every way, on every level.

• The New York Times once again can't stop their preternatural tendency towards treason, this time revealing that terrorist international bank transactions are being monitored by a central hub in Belgium called SWIFT. Despite the fact that the Times itself has said that the program is legal, editor Bill Keller wrote that the secrecy of the program was outweighed by the public's "right to know". Keller's default position since this outrage has been that, "...hundreds, if not thousands, of people know about this," and thus publishing what was already widely known was no big deal. Well, if that's the case, why did James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, the authors of the SWIFT story, say the "[SWIFT program] was a closely held secret"? Sounds like they haven't gotten their stories straight. Look....I work in finance. I know that transactions are closely monitored, and were monitored even before 9/11. I clearly remember attending a lecture by a federal district attorney where she said flat out that she would prosecute any one of us if it was proven that we had facilited an act of money laundering, even if unknowingly. The problem with the Times piece, then, is that it gave away the particulars of the SWIFT system and how it is used. Everyone might've known that banking transactions were monitored....they just didn't know HOW. In 1944, everyone knew that there would be an invasion of the Western Europe by the Allies, they just didn't know where or when. Giving up those particulars wouldn't be defensible by claiming that everyone knew it was coming. Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose were convicted for less than what the Times is clearly guilty of.

• Boy, the Finnish sure make awful music. But their choreography is tops. See here.

• There's a new documentary out called "Who Killed the Electric Car?" Of course, the guilty parties are big oil, Republicans, and various other greedy, unethical capitalists. One problem that the electric car had that the documentarians didn't get into was that it takes four hours to recharge the battery per 100 miles driven. That's problematic, no? Read all about the real reason the electric car got "killed" here.

The Traitorous New York Times

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.

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.

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.

"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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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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.

So Sayeth Thebes

"Good deeds do not require long statements; but when evil is done, the whole art of oratory is employed as a screen for it."

--Theban speaker, appealing to the Spartans to eliminate the duplicitous Plataeans, "History of the Pelopennesian Wars", Thucydides, page235

Lest We Forget...

...the meaning of Memorial Day, set aside as it was to commemorate those those that lost their lives in the Civil War, I reprint the Gettysburg Address:


Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Is There Anyone....

...who can fix this margin problem I'm having with this blog? If you notice, the text is hugging the left margin to the point of where there is none. Any suggestions any of you can give to fix this problem would be greatly appreciated.


Iran

Protests are filling the streets as we speak. Pictures here.

I've been harping on the Iranian protests for a few years now. The government had succeeded up 'til this point in suppressing the students a year or two ago, but as the line from Peter Gabriel's Biko stated, "You can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire..." Let's hope that the people overthrow the mad mullahs before we do.

Mark Levin's Post.....Of Which I Have Nothing More To Add

Rank Abandonment
05/28 02:00 PM
From the Sunday Washington Post:

Republican House members facing the toughest races this fall are overwhelmingly opposed to any deal that provides illegal immigrants a path to citizenship — an election-year dynamic that significantly dims the prospects that President Bush will win the immigration compromise he is seeking, according to Republican lawmakers and leadership aides.

The opposition spreads across the geographical and ideological boundaries that often divide House Republicans, according to interviews with about half of the 40 or so lawmakers whom political handicappers consider most vulnerable to defeat this November. At-risk Republicans — from moderates such as Christopher Shays in suburban Connecticut and Steve Chabot in Cincinnati to conservative J.D. Hayworth in Arizona — said they are adamant that Congress not take any action that might be perceived as rewarding illegal behavior. ...

... House Republicans appear inalterably opposed to any bill that paves the way for citizenship. They plan to name representatives to the House-Senate conference committee who share this view. They will fight for the security-only approach and are prepared to walk away from the conference if they don't get their way, according to GOP leadership aides. ...

... Rep. John N. Hostettler (R-Ind.), a top Democratic target who represents a district so competitive it is known as the "bloody 8th," warned that if House Republicans do not oppose guest workers, temporary workers and anything "that looks like amnesty," they could very well lose the House.

"There are lot of people on Capitol Hill that have no clue what November is going to bring them on immigration," he said. "It could be something like a tidal wave that could benefit the Democrats simply because Republicans don't do the right thing. To survive through November, the folks up here [on Capitol Hill] are really going to have to understand the passion behind this."

More here.

And here’s Bill Kristol’s posting, in part, on the Weekly Standard’s website:



… They can talk themselves into a frenzy about illegal immigration, of course. But on this issue, the Senate managed—contrary to the conventional wisdom of late April—easily to pass a sensible and comprehensive immigration reform bill. And House Republicans now show some signs of coming to realize that talk radio is not always the best source of policy guidance. Enough of them may come to realize that passing legislation they regard as flawed would be better than going home to the voters having achieved nothing. So Bush could have an immigration reform signing ceremony to look forward to in the fall.


More here .


Certain Republican elites think they have the pulse of the conservative movement, but they don’t. In fact, many of them have never been active in the conservative movement. They often throw around Ronald Reagan’s name, having never campaigned for him in either 1976 or 1980, as if they share both his ideology and courage. They don’t realize that they’ve become part of the Republican establishment that Reagan fought most of his political life. And they look down on talk radio (except when they’re trying to hawk their books) because they look down on the grassroots. Talk radio is far more engaged with and responsive to the conservative base than those holed up in office buildings writing for others who are holed up in office buildings. And so the intensity of opposition from conservatives and many, many other Americans to the cynical ethnic pandering and dangerous open-borders viewpoint by the administration and the Senate is condescendingly dismissed as coming from a bunch of “yahoos.” (Here .) They arrogantly attack the very people whose views they claim to represent.

The elites and McCain Republicans seem to lack a well-developed understanding of conservatism. Conservatism is about more than a hawkish foreign policy. And for many reasons discussed here and elsewhere, it’s the open-borders crowd urging the country to adopt a massive expansion of our government (including entitlement programs and taxes) and transformation of our society (an unprecedented invitation to tens of millions of aliens to settle here without the ability to assimilate them into our culture), which neither conservatives nor the public in general want.

The Republican party faces an electoral disaster in November if the president and Senate prevail in this battle. And the ranks of the House Republicans will be the first to take the hit.

The Wisdom of Pericles

Pericles was a Greek general, orator, and statesman that led Athens through what many consider to be its golden age (approx. 450 BC). Through reading Thucydides' "History of the Peloppenesian Wars", I came across Pericles 'Funeral Oration', what was and is one of the most amazing pieces of rhetoric I've ever read. (You can read it on the page on Pericles on his wikipedia.com page.) More thought provoking and touching than his 'Funeral Oration' is Pericles' speech in defense of his position to go to war against Sparta and the Peloppenese, which though democratically and popularly arrived at, soon became unpopular due to military setbacks, as well as a thoroughly devastating plague that swept through Athens, killing large swathes of the population in the process. As a result of these events, the people of Athens developed an intense anger towards Pericles. His response to it was quite extraordinary. Here are some excerpts:

"I expected this outbreak of anger on your part against me, since I understand the reason for it and I have called an assembly with this object in view, to remind you of your previous resolutions and to put forward my own case against you, if we find that there is anything unreasonable in your anger against me and in your giving way to your misfortunes. My own opinion is that when the whole state is on the right course it is a better thing for each separate individual than when private interests are satisfied but the state as a whole is going downhill. However well of a man may be in his private life, he will still be involved in the general ruin if his country is destroyed; whereas, so long as the state itself is secure, individuals have a much greater chance of recovering from their private misfortunes. Therefore, since the state can support individuals in their suffering, but no one person by himself can bear the load that rests upon the state, is it not right for us all to rally to her defense? It is not wrong to act as you are doing now? For you been so dismayed by disaster in your homes that you are losing your grip on the common safety; you are attacking me for having spoken in favor of war and yourselves for having voted for it.

'So far as I am concerned, if you are angry wth me you are angry with one who has, I think, at least as much ability as anyone else to see what ought to be done and to explain what he sees, one who loves his city and one who is above being influenced by money. A man who has the knowledge but lacks the power clearly to express it is no better off than if he never had any ideas at all. [Bush?] A man who has both these qualities, but lacks patriotism, could scarcely speak for his own people as he should.[Kerry? Pelosi? Murtha?] And even if he is patriotic as well, but not able to resist a bribe, then this one fault will expose everything took the risk of being bought and sold. [Both Bill and Hilllary Clinton?] So that if at the time when you took my advice and went to war you considered that my record with regards to these qualities was even slightly better than that of others, then now surely it is quite unreasonable for me to be accused of having done wrong."

"Confidence, out of a mixture of ignorance and good luck, can be felt even by cowards; but this sense of superiority comes only to those who, like us, have real reasons for knowing that they are better placed than their opponents. And when the chances on both sides are equal, it is intelligence that confirms courage-the intelligence that makes one able to look down on one's opponent, and which proceeds not by hoping for the best (a method only valuable in the depserate situations), but by estimating what the facts are, and thus obtaining a clearer vision of what to expect.

'Then it is right and proper for you too to support the imperial dignity of Athens. This is something in which you all take pride, and you cannot continue to enjoy the privileges unless you also shoulder the burdens of empire. And do not imagine that what we are fighting for is simply the question of freedom or slavery; there is also involved the loss of our empire and the dangers arising from the hatred which we have incurred in administering it. Nor is it any longer possible for you to give up this empire, though there may be some people who in a mood of sudden panic and in a spirit of political apathy actually think that this would be a fine and noble thing to do. Your empire is now like a tyranny; it may have been wrong to take it, it is certainly danngerous to let it go. And the kind of people who talk of doing so and persuade others to adopt their point of view would very soon bring the state to ruin, and would still do so even if they lived by themselves in isolation. For those who are politically apathetic can only survive if they are supported by people who are capable of taking action. They are quite valueless in a city which controls an empire, though they would be safe slaves in a city that was controlled by others."

Relevent to today's situation here in America? You be the judge. But I happen to think these words, spoken almost 2500 years ago, succinctly describe what is going on today in this country.

The Story So Far....Book-wise

Almost to the halfway mark of 2006, I figured it would be a good time to take inventory of Spitfire's completed reading for the year. Here goes:

a.) Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic, by Tom Holland

Clearly written and gripping, this book details the last hundred or so years prior to the end of the Roman Republic, starting with the bloodfeud between two competing Roman generals (Sulla and Marius) that tore apart Roman society and eventually resulted in Sulla marching into Rome under arms (an egregious violation of the Roman constitution) and rigging a senate vote to himself declared dictator. Even though Rome eventually reverted back to a representative republic when Sulla retired, the precedent had been set for future generals to act in the same manner. It didn't take but a few decades after for it to happen, when Gaius Julius Caesar did the same thing, only this time, the prospect of a reversion back to republicanism looked much more remote. His assassination and the civil war that grew out of it, between the republicans led by Caesar's assassins, Cassius and Brutus, versus Octavian (later Augustus) and Marc Antony (Caesar's second in command) destroyed the republic for good, with Augustus assuming absolute power and delcared emperor. A well-written book by a thorough historian.

b.) Twelve Caesars-Suetonius

Why read modern day historians when you could read the real McCoy? Suetonius, a contemporary of the Emperor Hadrian, puts to record all the rumors, innuendos, reputations, physical and mental characteristics of the first twelve caesars, starting with Gaius Julius Caesar. "Too many rulers are a dangerous thing", said Suetonius, and rightly so. With few exceptions, virtually every Roman emperor was a cruel, lacked judicious temperament, was immoderate, and murderous. (The exceptions were, strangely enough, Julius Caesar and Augustus.) A worthwhile read, and pretty salacious, too.

c.) Goshawk Squadron-Derek Robinson

A work of fiction (gasp!) that I got talked into reading by my friend Fireman John. About a squadron of First World War pilots in France, the book describes the mercilessness of the air war fought between the British and Germans, destroying the misconception that there was something romantic about war in the air in the process.

d.) Makers of Rome-Plutarch

Back to the non-fiction! Plutarch's works were written around the end of the first century, and this book, which chooses nine lives of prominent Roman figures, gives a pretty good idea of all the major players of the Republic, from about 500 BC to 10 BC. Profiled here are most of the "big" names: Marcus Antonius (Marc Antony), Brutus, Marcellus and Fabius Maximus (two generals who fought Hannibal). Though a truncated version of Plutarch's "Lives", it was worth the read.

e.) History of the Peloppenian Wars-Thucydides

Not even close to being done with this one, this book is considered one of the earliest works of objective history in...well...history. Athens and Sparta go through twenty seven years of war and succeed in essentially grinding down Greece to impotence, leading inevitably to Roman domination. More on this one when I'm done.

Enough of my self-indulgent post. Have a great Sunday!

Getting Serious About Security

By Mark Levin


I honestly am appalled at the arguments I hear against our intelligence activities in the face of an enemy who has already infiltrated our country and unleashed attacks from within, killing thousands of our fellow citizens. I get the impression that too many do not take this war seriously.

The NSA intercept program shouldn't be controversial. The Constitution and precedent make clear that the president, especially during war-time, can intercept enemy communications, including if those communications involve U.S. citizens within the United States. It is absurd to argue otherwise.

And now, we're supposed to be offended when the government data-mines third-party phone records. This doesn't involve eavesdropping, but merely running these millions of phone numbers and tens of millions of phone contacts through some kind of computer analysis.

This has nothing to do with the Fourth Amendment. The case law couldn't be clearer. And those who demand judicial oversight do so not because they want or hope the courts will affirm these intelligence-gathering methods, but because they oppose them and hope some activist court will kill them.

Disarming as this enemy plots against us, even where the Constitution doesn't require it, is a perverse view of civil liberties. It's not the lawyers in the courtrooms who are challenging or will challenge these basic intelligence gather practices who are protecting our civil liberties. It's the soldiers, spies, intelligence analysts, and law enforcement, led by a president with the guts to face down this enemy, who are doing so.

Is not life the most important of civil liberties? These intelligence programs are trashed without any curiosity as to whether they've prevented any attacks and saved any lives. The hostile responses are largely knee-jerk and lack any kind of context. The arguments are abstract and descend into fear-mongering. While I'm all for philosophical debates, how about a little more reality when it comes to fighting and winning this war—a real war against a horrific enemy.

New York City Observations

About a week ago I was riding on the M Train into Lower Manhattan and observed a fellow passenger sitting diagonally from where I was sitting. A rather large, burly fellow, this passenger seemed like a blue-collar sort, but he had his head buried in a somewhat serious, hardcover tome with a stylish jacket cover. Since this fellow appeared to be an anamoly of sorts, that being a blue-collar guy reading a serious book, I peered with a bit more focus to see what it was that he was reading. It turned out to be "The Best of Lebian Erotica". Go figure.

******************

About five years ago I was walking with a friend of mine named Danny, who bore an uncanny resemblance to the cartoon Beavis, of "Beavis and Butthead" fame. Danny was a quirky fellow, which is why I liked hanging out with him. He had strange theories about things, and while he was an intelligent guy, he was also semi-demented....which was why, again, I liked him. Anyway, I was walking down 3rd Ave with Danny to go eat at a Mexican fast-food restaurant named Fresco Tortilla (sadly no longer there) and we came across this homeless guy that Danny had made an acquaintance with. Danny was and is Jewish, and so was this homeless fellow, as evidenced by the yarmulke that he wore. Evidently, this homeless fellow had a previously in-depth discussion with Danny about Judaism, Kabbalah, and overall Jewish philosphy. But...I digress. So as we walk up on this homeless guy, who was sitting on the street, Danny enthusiastically says to the homeless guy, "Hey guy! How's it goin'?!?" The homeless guy takes a second, looks up at Danny with an incredulous look, and says, "Uh....terrible!", as if there could be any other answer a homeless guy could give. This story might lose something in translation, but the scene still makes me chuckle.

*****************

This story was conveyed to me by someone I used to know:

On the 6 Train, a guy dressed like Bootsy Collins (in other words, dressed like some kind of a funky space guy) came into the subway car, explained that his spaceship needed repairs to that he could get back to his home planet, and that he needed money to get it fixed so that he could get home. He then proceeded to play his saxophone in the most excrutiating, screaching manner possible, exclaiming that donations for his spaceship repair fund would make him cease playing saxophone. So bad was he that he elicited a fair amount of change from the tortured passengers.

A Few Thoughts

Why is it that some people say that the release of "United 93", a film about 9/11, is "too soon", yet no one said as much about "Fahrenheit 9/11", Michael Moore's conspiratorial (and largely apocryphal) documentary? I guess it wasn't too soon to accuse President Bush of being complicit in 9/11, but it is too soon to remind people, in a truthful way, what really happened on 9/11. God forbid that Americans are reminded that we're at war, versus being out of their wits about, say, global warming.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Why do lefties always seem to hide behind their ugly, ad hominem, and mostly ill-informed statements about Bush by saying that "they're only asking tough questions"? When Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, who I'm sure knows less about history and politics than I did when I was, say, seven, goes to London and says, "I just want to let it be known that we're ashamed that President Bush is from the same state as us, Texas" (or something like that), then comes back and claims that she's only "asking tough questions", I have to scratch my head at the excuse. Where was the question? Sounded more like a statement. If they're only asking "tough questions", perhaps they should take it upon themselves to find out the answers. There are no questions, just bitter, rancorous idiocy.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Have a nice day!

The Longview of History

In May of 1945, after VE Day, Allied intelligence debriefed a number of high-level government Nazis regarding their knowledge of their departments. Primary amongst these officials was Albert Speer, originally Hitler's official architect, who rose to the level of Minister Of Armaments in the regime. The information Allied interrogators gleaned from the debriefing was eye-opening, to say the least. Speer had communicated to the Allies that contrary to their intelligence reports, Allied bombing sorties, which numbered in the tens of thousands over a two year period and cost the Army Air Corps 26,000 men (not to mention thousands of British RAF personnel) had made but a negligible dent in the German military-industrial capacity. Interrogators were stunned, but Speer was smart enough during the war not to centralize German industrial production, and thus, negated the efforts of Allied bombers to destroy German industrial might. Seems the Americans in particular, who lauded the effectiveness of daylight precision bombing, had it all wrong. Speer also went on to say that the Germans were operating at 80% industrial capacity right to the very end, particularly in regards to German aircraft production. What was ironic about this was that the primary focus of the American bombing campaign was specifically to target the German's ability to produce Luftwaffe aircraft; clearly this aim was not achieved. What WAS achieved was that the Germans, as a result of unsuccessfully attempting to ward off all these bombing sorties, wound up burning out and/or losing all of their fighter-interceptor pilots through attrition. Too many Allied bombers, not enough German fighter pilots to take them down. Allied intelligence never even picked up on this until after Speer told them post-bellum. The Allies didn't stop the production of aircraft; they destroyed the supply of pilots to fly them.

Which brings us to Iraq.

The Left have blathered their usual crap about how our presence in Iraq has made the Islamo-terrorist threat more acute, though they have nothing to base this theory on, save their own anti-American feelings. That said, there's really no way to know for sure if they're right or not. I happen to think they're full of it (not a stretch; they usually are), but there's no statistical way to know, not one that anyone can cite, that is. Perhaps our presence in Iraq has created "1000 bin Ladens" as some have said, but I'd say it actually has dissuaded, more than persuaded, potential jihadists, particularly since the jihad in Iraq is failing so egregiously. And how would I know that? Perhaps it might have something to do with the al Qaeda documents that were intercepted by our forces in Iraq. Here's what these docs had to say:

"At the same time, the Americans and the Government were able to absorb our painful blows, sustain them, compensate their losses with new replacements, and follow strategic plans which allowed them in the past few years to take control of Baghdad as well as other areas one after the other. That is why every year is worse than the previous year as far as the Mujahidin's control and influence over Baghdad."

Is this a de facto admission on the part of the jihadists in Iraq that they're losing? (By the way, al Qaeda isn't in Iraq, the war in Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism or Iraq....or 9/11, and it's all about cheap oil for our gluttonous SUVs and Hummers...no wait, it's al about making oil expensive to line the pockets of Bush's oil company buddies...no wait...doesn't compute....) Maybe, maybe not. It could be a psychological ploy, a forgery, as some on the Left have said, put out by our own military intelligence. I'm not willing to dismiss that outright, but I doubt it. Almost five years after 9/11, and the jihadists haven't been able to launch a successful attack on American soil. Some say it is because they're lying in wait, but I doubt that. Bin Laden's last few recordings keep on making the charge that a big attack is coming, but nothing seems to have happened. My theory is that all the jihadists are losing their lives in Iraq, and all of the money and support is drying up. How do I know this? I don't, and least not factually. Like all of us, I'm going to have to get my answers when the war is over.

If the Left had any brains, they would too.

But then, I'm a trained historian. I take the longview. I'll get my definitive, factual answers to this after we win in Iraq, the Islamic world is liberalized (if not democratized), and their government's files are opened. (Can't wait to read what was going on behind the scenes in Syria and Iran; that'll be quite a read.) Then we'll see, from primary source documents, what really was going on in Iraq. Already the American military has seized documents from the Saddam Hussein era which clearly articulate a working relationship with al Qaeda dating back to the mid 90's. Of course, you probably didn't read that in the mainstream media....did you....

The history of this administration, this war, and this era has yet to be written. Two decades after the Reagan era, even liberals are now heaping encomiums on the man. Bush might have the last laugh yet.

The Lost Standard Of Journalism Found

Given the fact that the vast majority of reporters in Iraq are getting their stories from outside sources via phone, whilst ensconced in their secure hotel rooms, I found this excerpt from "The History of the Peloponnesian War" to be particularly illuminating. Kind of makes one think wistfully of what the real stories from Iraq (and elsewhere) would be if the standard set down by Thucydides, two thousand forty seven years ago, were followed today. One can only dream:


And with regard to my factual reporting of the events of the war I have made it a principle not to write down the first story that came my way, and not even to be guided by my own general impressions; either I was present myself at the events which I have described or else I heard of them from eye-witnesses whose reports I have checked with as much thoroughness as possible. Not that even so the truth was easy to discover; different eye-witnesses give one side or the other or else from imperfect memories. And it may well be that my history will seem less easy to read because of the absence in it of a romantic element. It will be enough for me, however, if these words of mine are judged useful by those who want to understand cleary the events which happened in the past and which (human nature being what it is) will, at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeated in the future. My work is not a piece of writing designed to mee the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last forever.

--Thucydides, Book One, Page 48, "The History of the Peloponnesian Wars", 431 BC

Shareholder Revolt @ The New York Times

Well, as my friend Fireman John has oft repeated, "the markets are ALWAYS right". And so it goes at the New York Times. Not sure if readers of this blog are aware of this, but the New York Times is a publicly traded company on the NYSE under the symbol NYT. At the moment, the investment bank Morgan Stanley, which has a sizeable stake in NYT, is leading a shareholder revolt against the Sulzberger family and their confederates, who Morgan Stanley feel are inept and are running the newspaper, and as a result, the stock, into the ground. Additionally, NYT trades two sets of shares, an A and B set, in which one is a voting class for shareholders, and the other is not. The Sulzberger family owns the majority in one class, which they use to put their cronies and such into positions of power by vote, whereas the other class has no voting rights to say a thing. Morgan Stanley is looking to put an end to these dual classes so as to destroy the monopoly on management decisions that Arthur (Pinch) Sulzberger Jr. has at the moment. It is not an exaggeration to say that the New York Times has become a journalistic joke these last couple of years, specifically since the beginning of the W. era. No story that reveals state secrets is sacrosanct (witness James Risen's NSA story regarding warrantless wiretapping of international calls from domestic sources), nor is any story of dubious veracity halted before publication (witness the al Qaaqaa, Iraq story on the eve of the election in '04, which purported that the U.S. military had allowed intermediate range missles to be looted AFTER American troops had secured the surrounding area....a story which later turned out to be apocryphal). And so....the New York Times stock is tanking, down 50% from its 2000 highs to below 25, despite the powerful bull market we've witnessed starting in October of 2002. Here's an excerpt from the Journal about this story:

"Investors are increasing their bets that the slumping New York Times stock, which has plunged 25 percent in the past year, won't bounce back anytime soon.

Short sellers, who profit when a stock's price falls, increased their positions to 14.6 million shares in April. Short sellers held 14 million shares in March and just 6.4 million shares last April.

Yesterday, the stock closed at $24.24, down 6 cents or 0.25 percent. The stock has not been this low since October 1998.

The blossoming short selling in Times stock is a key sign that investors feel the newspaper titan and its boss, Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger, Jr., have done little to quell stockholder unrest that cropped up at its mid-April board meeting."

Allow me to be the first.....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

Okay....got that piece of shadenfreud out of the way. Have to get Saturday started.

Random Thoughts 4/29/06

Greetings, Mein Froinds!

Pardon, once again, the rather skint entries to the blog. Work has been busy, profitable, and exhausting, and thus, posting at the end of these vigorous workdays can be nigh impossible. That said, it has been an interesting few weeks news-wise (when isn't it?). Nothing out of the ordinary, mind. Gas prices went higher, leftist demogogues came out in full force decrying price gauging (when is someone going to teach these people Economics 101?), Iran once again thumbed its nose at the perpetually impotent United Nations (so much for multi-lateralism!), the Fitzgerald special prosecution has called Karl Rove for a FIFTH time to talk about who leaked Valerie Plame's name (while, of course, failing to disclose to the public whether she was a covert agent or not; more on this later), and Dana Priest of the Washington Post and James Risen of the New York Times won the Pulitzer for their seditious journalism, aiding al Qaeda in the process. (Thanks, folks! I'll touch on that later, as well.) Anyway....


* I read an article that Andy Garcia has written, directed, and produced a movie called The Lost City (pardon the lack of link; writing on the Mac today!), which depicts Che Guevara in his true (ie bad) light. Seems this has a few people upset out there, and thus he didn't have the easiest time getting the movie made. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of people that scream, curse, yell, and cry about the supposed erosion of civil liberties here (four years plus since 9/11, I haven't felt any erosion at all; then again, I'm not a muslim and/or attempting to sabotage the United States...), call Bush every name in the book (King George, George W. Hitler, etc...etc...ad nauseum), but defend the Castro-ite regime to the fullest. Said Garcia, "There have been festivals that wouldn't show it. That will continue to happen from people who don't want to see the image of Che be tarnished and from people who support the Castro regime. He still has a lot of supporters out there. Some people think Castro is a savior, that he looks out for the kids and the poor. It's a bunch of hogwash. In the 45 years since Castro came to power, Cuba has been in the top three countries for human rights abuses for 43 of those years. People turn a blind eye to his atrocities." Go Andy. And thank you for revealing, yet again, the complete falsehood that the leftists of this world are interested in peace, human rights, and liberty for all. It couldn't be further from the truth.

*The Left once again has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted with security issues in this country, unless of course, you're the enemy. Then they can be consistently counted on to publish classified information which damages the United States, as was the case with Dana Priest of the Washington Post (who published the story that the U.S. was working with Romania, Poland, and a few other Eastern European nations in setting up secret holding sites for al Qaeda captives) and James Risen of the New York Times (who published the NSA wiretapping of international calls story). For this, these two seditious morons won a Pulitzer Prize. (Think Claudia Rossett, who doggedly unearthed the United Nations oil-for-food scandal got a Pulitzer? Nah....she wasn't even nominated.) I fail to see how publishing these stories was of any benefit to anyone, save giving the seditious Left yet another cudgel from which to beat on Bush and, obviously, al Qaeda.

*On a related note, the CIA fired the leaker of the secret prisons story, a woman named Mary McCarthy. Not coincidentally, McCarthy was a campaign contributor to the John Kerry campaign ($2000 contribution) and was a Clinton appointee to several positions during his tenure. Of course, in the eyes of the seditious Left, McCarthy isn't a "leaker", but rather a "truth-teller". Well, yeah....she told the truth. So what? She also jeopardized the war effort against Islamo-fascism. And for what? Because her favored nominee lost the election? I'll tell you, if the security of this nation is consistently compromised by people within government who put their party (Democratic, in this (and most) cases) above the safety and security of the American people, I fear for the future in a deep way. And yet, this ridiculous Valerie Plame investigation continues. Which brings me to....

*...the Valerie Plame investigation. Why can't Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald just say flat-out whether Plame was an undercover agent or not? My guess is that she wasn't, that the revealing of her name was a non-story, and this thing is gone completely off the rails. Just to recap for all of you, Valerie Plame's husband, Joe Wilson, was sent by the CIA (at her urging) to Niger to verify whether Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy uranium from them. Turns out that Saddam DID in fact attempt to buy uranium from Niger in '99, just as he had succeeded in doing in the early 90's. Wilson told this to the CIA, but then, in a fit of Bush hatred (this should be diagnosed and entered into psychiatric journals as a bonafide mental illness, no?), wrote the opposite in a New York Times op-ed piece. So, the Bush White House, when asked who Wilson was and why he was sent to Niger, told the truth: we didn't send him, his wife did. So....how do we know that Wilson lied in his NYT op-ed piece? Because a.) he said the opposite to his CIA debriefers, and it was reflected in the bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Estimate report, b.) the British Government's Butler Report also verified that Saddam sought to acquire uranium from Niger, and c.) Wilson claimed that the forged documents that had been floating around, that were ancillary to his original observations regarding this story, had dates and names wrong....though Wilson, while using this as additional evidence that Saddam HAD NOT sought to acquire uranium, had never seen the documents himself. (And later admitted that he hadn't.) And yet, Scooter Libby has been indicted for perjury for supposedly lying about who told him about Valerie Plame, even though Valerie Plame wasn't even undercover, and Karl Rove is STILL getting questioned over this non-leak. And yet, Dana Priest and James Risen parade their Pulitzers around with pride in having weakened their country with a REAL and damaging leak. Unbelievable.

*On a different note, I'm almost through Plutarch's "Makers Of Rome", which is a truncated version of "Lives". Many interesting short biographies on the great Roman figures. I was struck by this quote by Sertorius, as recorded by Plutarch, "A man of noble spirit welcomes victory if he can achieve it with honor, but he will not embrace dishonor even to save his own life".

Except, of course, if you're seditious leftist. (Pardon the redundancy there.)

ANZAC Day

Today, our compatriots in the Anglosphere, Australia and New Zealand, commemorate ANZAC Day. The story of what this day is and what is means is below:

What is ANZAC Day?

ANZAC Day - 25 April - is probably Australia's most important national occasion. It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The soldiers in those forces quickly became known as ANZACs, and the pride they soon took in that name endures to this day.

Why is this day so special to Australians?

When war broke out in 1914 Australia had been a federal commonwealth for only fourteen years. The new national government was eager to establish its reputation among the nations of the world. In 1915 Australian and New Zealand soldiers formed part of the allied expedition that set out to capture the Gallipoli peninsula to open the way to the Black Sea for the allied navies. The plan was to capture Constantinople (now Istanbul), capital of the Ottoman Empire and an ally of Germany. They landed at Gallipoli on 25 April, meeting fierce resistance from the Turkish defenders. What had been planned as a bold stroke to knock Turkey out of the war quickly became a stalemate, and the campaign dragged on for eight months. At the end of 1915 the allied forces were evacuated after both sides had suffered heavy casualties and endured great hardships. Over 8,000 Australian soldiers were killed. News of the landing at Gallipoli made a profound impact on Australians at home and 25 April quickly became the day on which Australians remembered the sacrifice of those who had died in war.

Though the Gallipoli campaign failed in its military objectives of capturing Constantinople and knocking Turkey out of the war, the Australian and New Zealand troops' actions during the campaign bequeathed an intangible but powerful legacy. The creation of what became known as an "Anzac legend" became an important part of the national identity of both nations. This shaped the ways they viewed both their past and their future.

Al Gore, Scaremonger

Seeing red over 'green scare'
Jonah Goldberg

April 20, 2006

MEET AL GORE, scaremonger. In 2004, Gore denounced President Bush for "playing on our fears." Today, he is at the forefront of a "green scare" about global warming intended to terrify Americans into submitting to his environmental policies.

Consider the trailer for "An Inconvenient Truth," Davis Guggenheim's documentary about Gore's green crusade. It promises to be the most adept piece of scaremongering ever captured on film, making "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" seem like "Toy Story 2." The movie's poster shows penguins walking across a desert. The trailer says, "If you love your planet … if you love your children … you have to see this movie." In case you're thick in the head, the producers spell it out for you: "By far, the most terrifying film you will ever see!"

Of course, Gore is not alone. A host of new environmental scare books are out or on the way. Last month, Time magazine's cover warned, "Be Worried. Be Very Worried." Those renowned climatologists who make up Vanity Fair's editorial board have unveiled a "green issue" that informs us that "green is the new black" and that global warming is a "threat graver than terrorism." It says so right there on the cover, above Julia Roberts' hip. And she's dressed like a forest nymph, so it's got to be true.

Now, it's true that Earth has gotten warmer — one degree since the 19th century — and it will probably get warmer still. And it's probably true that human activity plays a significant part in all that. But it's also true that we don't have a clear picture of what's happening now, never mind what will happen. Just ask the 60 climatologists from around the world who wrote Canada's prime minister that "observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future." But that's all beside the point to Gore & Co., who say the time for debate is over. And if you disagree, get ready for the witch hunt. Major news media have gone after scientists who argue there's still time to study global warming rather than plunge into some half-baked environmental jihad that could waste possibly trillions of dollars.

As Richard Lindzen, professor of meteorology at MIT, recently lamented in the Wall Street Journal: "Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science."

In Vanity Fair, writer Mark Hertsgaard alleges that Frederick Seitz, the former president of the National Academy of Sciences and the former president of the prestigious Rockefeller University, was a shill for, of all things, the tobacco industry. A press release by the National Environmental Trust proclaims "Scientist Who Spearheaded Attacks on Global Warming Also Directed $45M Tobacco Industry Effort to Hide Health Impacts of Smoking." Seitz, a giant in American science, says this is all "ridiculous, completely wrong." Now 94, Seitz explained to TCSDaily.com that R.J. Reynolds had given Rockefeller University $5 million a year for basic research. Seitz says he directed the money toward non-tobacco-related efforts in the study of prions (the virus-like proteins that cause mad cow disease), tuberculosis and other diseases. Prion researcher Stanley Prusiner thanked both R.J. Reynolds and Seitz in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

But Gore & Co. aren't troubled by such details because the smears are all for a good cause. That's why Gore saw nothing wrong in bullying dissident climate change scientists when he was a senator or waging a mean-spirited campaign to discredit the work of his old mentor, Harvard oceanographer Roger Revelle, because Revelle thought alarmism was unwarranted.

Hence the irony of the title "An Inconvenient Truth." It is the green scare that has no patience for inconvenient truths. For example, Gore blames the disappearing snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro on global warming, but a 2003 study in Nature identified the clear-cutting of surrounding moisture-rich forests as the culprit. In the famously fact-checked New Yorker, Editor David Remnick pens a love letter to Gore in which he laments that Earth will "likely be an uninhabitable planet" if we don't heed Gore's jeremiads. Oh … come … on!

This is just a small taste of the millenarian battiness running through the green scare. Sure, a one- or two-degree-per-century rise in average global temperatures may have unpleasant consequences — with some pleasant ones as well — but in what study did the New Yorker's fact-checkers verify that Earth will become uninhabitable? Moreover, the greens' proposed solutions to global warming are even more otherworldly. Reducing global carbon dioxide emissions to 60% of 1990 levels before 2050, while China, India and (hopefully) Africa modernize, is inconceivable, ill-conceived and also immoral because it would consign generations to poverty.

But none of that seems to matter to the greens. To them, the only thing we have to fear is the lack of fear itself.

Happy Easter....

To all readers of this blog. Let us never forget who we are, what we are, and the civilization that we have built. Let us also take stock of the fact that it is under assualt from the leftist fifth column within our ranks, and the Islamic hordes seeking to infiltrate and destroy our culture. And Happy (belated) Passover.

More Catonian Wisdom

Something to remember when people of low character and bitter dispositions verbally attack you(an excerpt from Plutarch's Lives):

"When he himself (Cato the Elder) was attacked by a man who led an infamous and dissolute life, he retorted: 'We can never fight on equal terms: you are so hardened to abuse that you can return it just as easily as you suffer it, whereas for me it is as unusual to hear as it is unpleasant to utter'."

Pop V. Soda

One of the stranger things I recall coming across when I was a wee lad was the difference in terminologies from region to region. At age ten, I visited some relatives in West Virginia, and wheneven I was a guest in their house, they would ask me if I wanted a "pop". What they heck was "pop"? Eventually realizing that they meant "soda", I accepted, but never could get over how weird it was to call soda "pop". Well, here's a map that makes sense of it all. If any of you plan on traveling throughout the United States and/or Canada, this will help you tremendously to make sense of where to order a soda, a pop, or a Coke.

Quote Of The Day

"How can a body lke this be on any service to the state, when everything in it from the gullet to the groin is devoted to the belly?"

--Cato The Elder, 234-139 B.C.

The observation above was in reference to a certain Roman senator, a contemporary of Cato's. Take a moment on ponder which current U.S. Senator this quote would also be applicable to. Feel free to post your answers on the comments page.

"Life Coaches"

Penn and Teller's "Bullsh*t" show on Showtime did an episode on these people, and one needn't wonder what their take on them was. Below is an article by Myrna Blythe about the same people. Worth reading:

Grow Up Already
Mothers are the best life coaches.

"Maybe I need a life coach," a formerly sensible friend of mine said at lunch the other day. "Life coaches. Career coaches. They are really, really big." Yeah, I know. I read all about it this weekend in the "Style" section of the New York Times.

The New York Times, by the way, might need a coach itself fairly soon — a journalism coach. In the last couple of weeks the paper of record has made two major flubs, about which you may have heard. One was running a page-one hand-wringing story about a man who claimed he was the prisoner shown in one of most dismaying photos from Abu Ghraib. He wasn't. The Times' explanation: the guy had told the same whopper to Vanity Fair, so they believed him too. Another story was about a woman who claimed she came from Biloxi, Mississippi, and that after Katrina she was mistreated by FEMA. Only trouble: She was a complete phony and cheat who had never lived in Biloxi. It seems no reporter had bothered to check. Duh!

But back to those life coaches who, according the Times, have become a favorite in Hollywood where performers, writers, and producers have traded in their therapists for these very personal trainers. What do these life coaches do exactly? Well, Paul Towle, a psychotherapist and life coach, told the Times, "The difference between life coaching and psychotherapy is that therapy is about helping people heal their wounds and coaching is about helping people achieve the highest level of their fulfillment or happiness or success, whether they're wounded or not." He reportedly makes $40,000 a month saying things like that to members of rock bands. Clearly, it's a good gig.

Jeff Davis, a 30-year-old producer, told the Times he is very pleased with his coach, who, he said, has helped him get in touch with his "inner killer." Nancy Noever's coach helps her figure out "why I can't put myself first." Obviously life coaches, for their $100-a-phone-call fees, also teach their clients how to share their crassness and self-obsession with the press without blushing or considering how shallow they might sound.

But hey, shallowness nowadays is clearly bi-coastal. New York Magazine this week has a front page story on parents in their 30s and early 40s who look, talk, act, and dress as if they were -22 — and darn proud of it. (By the way, anyone who has an adult child knows most 22-year-olds today act like they're barely 15.) The article calls this "forever youngish" cohort "Grups" after a Star Trek episode in which Captain Kirk lands on a planet ruled by children because there's a strange virus and — actually, it doesn't really matter. Our New York Gruppies, in their hoodies and their retro sneakers, have decided it is really very cool to remain childish even when they have children of their own.

I know the media in its endless search for what's new, what's "in," and what's hot, is always making a big to-do over very little. For example, remember "metrosexuals," and how nowadays guys in great numbers — even straight guys — had supposedly fallen in love with grooming and non-stop shopping? Well, the two magazines launched with great fanfare for those "metrosexuals" have just folded because of lack of circulation. The lamented hordes of shopping-bag-toting men were more hype than reality.

So I only can hope that the rage for life coaches who encourage self-centered people to be even more self-centered, and parents who think they need play dates, are as much a media exaggeration as those two news gaffes in the Times.

But, just in case they are not, here is some advice that the best life coaches of all — mothers — often give: "Just stop always thinking about yourself! And, for goodness sake, grow up."

— Myrna Blyth, former long-time editor of Ladies' Home Journal and founding editor of More, is author of Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness — and Liberalism — to the Women of America. Blyth is also an NRO contributor.

Random Thoughts 3/26

I've been meaning to write about the last 'Sopranos' episode for a couple of days, and only now have I gotten the opportunity.

Pretty much everyone that I've spoken to, with few exceptions, hated the last episode of 'The Sopranos'. I'm not one of them. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how many people continue to wish for the show to be a straight gangster tale, when it should be obvious to any long-time watcher that it is anything but. Sure the last episode was arty, moody, and dark. Sure it was filled with all kinds of double-meanings and profound symbolisms. That's why I like about the show, and that's what I liked about the last episode. Right now (and I won't wreck it for any of you that have yet to dig into this season or the show in general) things are at a fever pitch and tensions are very high. But one episode to take stock in the significant damage that has been done, and the ripple effect that it is having, is called for.

At least that's what I think. I look forward to tonight's episode with burning enthusiasm.

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I came across a news story about this fellow General Sir Anthony Heritage Farrar-Hockley. Sir Farrar-Hockley passed away about two weeks ago, but I was struck by this man's resolve, among other attributes. Here's an excerpt from the story:

General Sir Anthony Heritage Farrar-Hockley has passed away at the age of 81. He was a true hero of the Korean War and afterwards fought against terrorists and insurgents all over the world, from Malaysia to Aden to Northern Ireland. The IRA in particular hated him because of his uncompromising attitude to them.

Even in his retirement to a village in Oxfordshire, the IRA remained a threat. In 1990 a bomb was attached to the reel of his garden hose, but was spotted by his gardener and defused. "I keep my eyes open," said Farrar-Hockley, "and I don't much care for people who place explosive devices in my garden."

I love that last quote, "....and I don't much care for people who place explosive devices in my garden." How very British, eh?

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While we're on the topic of the IRA, I've been following the goings-on in Northern Ireland for about a decade or more. It seems that with the Good Friday Agreement, which essentially brought peace (a precarious one, but peace nonetheless) to Northern Ireland, the more radical and violent elements of the Irish Republican Army have taken to gangsterism of the first order. A few years back they knocked off the Bank of Northern Ireland, taking it for the equivalent of $45 million dollars. They subsequently laundered the money through a number of banks in Central and Eastern Europe. They've bought up a large chunk of the pubs in Ireland proper as well, using them as legitimate fronts for their criminal enterprises. They've subcontracted their terrorist skills to the likes of Hamas. And they've been known to shake down civilians who have nothing to do with "the struggle". Worse than that, they've murdered two civilians who were innocent of nothing save being at the wrong place at the wrong time: Joseph Rafferty and Robert McCartney. In two of the last three St. Patrick's Days, George W. Bush has met with the grieving families of both of these men. (Events like these are the reason why I still hold faith in Bush: his vision of right and wrong is clear and unwavering.) At the same time, Bush has steadfastly denied an entrance visa to Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams. (Sinn Fein is considered the "political wing" of the IRA, even though they're fully connected to the "military wing" of the Irish Republican Army.) To date, the IRA has failed to produce the killers of both of these men, and their efforts to bribe the families of these two men have been for naught. Far from making a deal with the IRA, the families want Sinn Fein to produce the killers and have them tried in a legitimate court of law. Sinn Fein/IRA want nothing doing with this, as it would cause even more trouble and cause unnecessary attention to their criminality. They've also offered to execute the killers in both cases, but the families refused their offers.

Keep an eye on these stories, folks. The war on terrorism isn't just happening in the Middle East. And as the above link clearly notes, they're not different struggles, but the same one.

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Regarding Islam, I'd say it's a pretty hard sell at this point to convince the average American that this is a "religion of peace". The case of Abdul Rahman, the Afghani citizen who converted to Christianity and was set to be tried for apostasy (with the inevitable death sentence as the conclusive punishment, natch), has, in all likelihood, left little doubt in the minds of the American public that it isn't just fringe elements of this religion, but your average everyday adherent that is the practitioner and advocate of savagery. That there are moderate muslims out there, I have no doubt. But considering they're up against some pretty bloodthirsty opponents, I can't see how they wouldn't be cowed.

This story comes, of course, on the heels of the massive (and unbelievably ridiculous) reaction of the "muslim street" to the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist.

Mark Steyn has been particularly incisive on this and many other cultural issues. His column on this event is probably the best I've read.

Anyway....ten minutes to 'The Sopranos'. Hope everyone has a stupendous week.

Protesters

Yesterday, it was reported that world-wide protests over the war in Iraq had taken place. Today, the numbers are in: the turn-out was paltry. One needn't think too hard as to why this is the case, as it is self-evident: there's no draft. The principle reason why protests against the Vietnam War were so huge was because the vast majority of the males involved had at least a reasonable chance of getting drafted. When Nixon ended the draft, even Vietnam protests dwindled, even though the war had not. So it goes. That said, at least Mercedes can thank them for some free promotion.

Thank You For Smoking`

Most movies with a political theme out of Hollywood are crap. Movies like Dave or The American President usually involve plots that go something like this:

Mean, political animal of a president (usually a Republican, natch) suddenly has an epiphany, a moment of clarity and conscience, and decides to sign some sweeping environmental and/or socialist bill to the chagrin of his handlers, but to the everlasting joy of the woman in his life. Everyone in the country rejoices that the normally tight-fisted, Ebenezer Scrooge-like president now cares deeply for the endangered, impoverished hoi polloi. Everyone goes home happy, Q.E.D.

In other words, Hollywood movies about politics usually involve some kind of irritating liberal moralization. The underlying goal of this is to inevitably get audiences to think twice about who they pull the lever for, and more than that, how to live.

There are exceptions to the rule, mind. Wag The Dog was the clever exception to this rule. And now comes Thank You For Smoking, about a tobacco lobbyist named Nick Naylor. Nick's character, played by Aaron Eckhart, describes himself as such: "You know the guy who can get any girl? I'm that guy...on crack." Nick is so good at knowing every angle of every argument that he's virtually unbeatable in debate, even though he shills for a clearly unhealthy product. His two best friends are a gun lobbyist and and an alcohol industry lobbyist (David Koechner and Maria Bello), who routinely meet at a high-class Washington establishment for drinks, to compare war stories, and trade ideas on how to defend and promote the embattled industries that they work for. These three refer to themselves as the M.O.D. Squad (the acronym M.O.D. stands for Merchants of Death). One particular scene has them arguing which industry product is more dangerous, complete with annual fatality comparisons. (Nick wins that argument, too.) Throughout the movie, Nick spins, dodges, and invetably boxes in anyone and everyone who takes him on regarding the dangers of smoking. Does he suffer a crisis of conscience? An epipaphy that makes him turn against his former big tobacco employers? Become a voice of reason who joins forces with the liberal do-gooders in the end? That would be giving away too much, but I can tell you that this is a funny, intelligent movie that thankfully doesn't end up sanctimonious and heavy-handed. For Nick Naylor, it's not about tobacco being addictive or dangerous, it's about free will to choose to smoke or not smoke. Take him on, and he'll not only be you in debate, but have you believing he's right and you're wrong in the end.

A fun flick that is worth seeing, particularly for those with a libertarian streak.

The Cartoon Riots

Written by Robert Tracinski:


The West has long been aware that, while we hold freedom of speech as a centerpiece of our liberty, the Muslim world does not recognize this freedom. Before now, however, our worlds have rarely collided. The Muslims have not usually dared to extend their dictatorial systems to control our own behavior within our own cities. The Salman Rushdie affair—the Ayatollah Khomeini's 1989 death edict against the "blasphemous" novelist—was an ominous warning, but Americans did not take it seriously.

Now, seventeen years later, the Muslim fanatics are making it clear: you don't have to come to our country, you don't have to be a Muslim. Even in your own countries and under your own laws, you will not be safe from our intimidation.

For the whole Western world, this is an opportunity to learn an important truth about the goal of the Islamists. Their goal is not to achieve any specific political demand or settlement. Their goal is submission: our submission to their will, to their laws, to their dictatorship—our submission, not just to one demand, but to any demand the Muslim mobs care to make.

Europe particularly needs to learn this lesson. The Europeans have deluded themselves into thinking that this is our fight. If only Israel weren't so intransigent, if only the US weren't so belligerent, they told themselves—if only those cowboys didn't insist on stirring up trouble, we could all live in peace with the Muslims. And they have deluded themselves into thinking that they can seek a separate peace, that having the Danish flag on your backpack—as one bewildered young Dane described it—would guarantee that you could go anywhere in the world and be regarded as safe, as innocuous.

Now the Europeans know better. With cries of "Death to Israel" and "Death to American" now being joined by cries of "Death to Denmark", every honest European can now see that they are in this fight, too—and they are closer to the front lines than we are. Threats against American cartoonists, when anyone bothers to make them, are toothless; there is no mob of violent young Muslims in the United States to carry them out. European writers and filmmakers, by contrast, are already being murdered in the streets. The first people to find themselves living under the sword of a would-be Muslim caliphate are Europeans, not Americans.

The lesson here is not just that the Islamist ideology of dictatorship is a threat to Europe. It is also that the dictatorships themselves are a threat. The advocates of cynical European "realpolitik" deluded themselves into thinking that, if they just made the right kind of deals with Saddam Hussein, or with the Iranian regime, or with the Syrian regime, then the dictatorships over there would have no impact on us over here.
But we can now see that the anti-Danish riots did not explode spontaneously: they were instigated by the dictators, by the regimes in Iran and Syria.

FDR's Revenge

An interesting take on second-term administrations and why they inevitably wind up sucking for virtually every president that's had to live with the 22nd Amendment:

Second-term administrations have the deck heavily stacked against them thanks to a constitutional amendment that limits their capacity to influence events. It is high time for that limitation to be removed. A President who is able to go to the voters repeatedly is a President with political power and the capacity to make his/her administration more of a success than a President who becomes a lame duck the moment after he/she wins a second term. If we are interested in helping to ensure that the office of the Presidency remains consequential and influential -- and by the way, if we are interested in respecting the opinions of voters who may like a particular President and may want that President to remain in office for longer than two terms -- we will do ourselves and our political institutions a great favor by repealing the 22nd Amendment.

Read the whole thing here.

Port Deal: DOA

I don't like to make too many predictions on this blog or in my personal conversations regarding politics or current events. However, when I DO make prognostications, I'm usually 75%-80% sure that they're going to come to fruition. In other words, I don't gamble; I make calculated bets. Additionally, I try to steer clear of the predominant news stories of the day, as there are plenty of bloggers, op-ed columnists, and television talking heads weighing in on those topics. My own humble opinions will, no doubt, wind up echoing that which has already been opined elsewhere. Taking all this into account, and without going too far into the particulars, I think the U.A.E. port deal is a dead one. Here's why:

Second terms are notoriously crappy for most presidents. Taking a look at the last few two-term presidents pretty much bears this fact out. Eisenhower had his second term wrecked by the Gary Powers-U2 incident over the Soviet Union, Nixon had the obvious Watergate debacle, Reagan had Iran-Contra (which I still think he was right to be involved in, given the particulars), Clinton had Lewinsky (which I think did not warrant impeachment; letting the lower courts slap him around for his malfeasance would've been much smarter for the congressional GOP'ers), and Bush has got any number of things bogging him down. In essence, presidents seem to get sloppy in their second terms. It could be burn-out to some extent, both for the presidents and their staffs, or it could be that without the burden of re-election hanging over their heads, they stop monitoring the particulars. Either way, this UAE port deal is going to be killed. Congressional Republicans like Pete King (a Queens guy who's constituency is Nassau County on LI) claim that they came out of a White House briefing regarding the port deal MORE worried about it than before. In essence, Bush is going to lose his congressional Republicans if he doesn't kill this deal. Worse than that, his congressional Republicans are being put in vulnerable positions by the president's stubborn refusal to even consider killing the deal. I don't think that the Democrats will regain the House on this issue, but it's not out of the question that it is a possibility. Democrats taking a stand on defense is almost laughable at this point, with their vehement rhetoric regarding the Patriot Act renewal, NSA wire-tapping of international calls emanating from domestic locations, etc. But if people get pissed off enough, the Democrats might gain seats merely from protest votes alone. And what happens if the Democrats get the House? Payback time, in the form of the Articles of Impeachment, which the likes of the lunatic John Conyers would just love to invoke.

Bush is terribly tone deaf on this one, just the same as he was tone-deaf with the Harriet Mieirs nomination. He'll eventually get it, because he has no choice BUT to get it. But in the process of all this, he's got people, not just on one side of the aisle but BOTH sides, questioning the sanity of this deal.

It's dead. That's my prediction.

Random Thoughts 3/2/06

A fondness for Rush at an early age lead me to delve into the writings of Ayn Rand. Why Rush had to do with Ayn Rand in those days was due to the fact that primary lyric writer and drummer extraordinaire, Neil Peart, had dedicated the 2112 suite "to the genius of Ayn Rand". In retrospect, I think even Peart would back away from that observation, but at the time, Rand had a pretty powerful impact on me. A brief background on this woman: Ayn Rand was a Russian author who grew up in the early years of the Soviet Union. She later grew virulently dissaffected with the system, adapted a fierce libertarian streak (quite unfashionable for the times amongst the intellectual set in the 1950's, who were still in thrall of the collectivist USSR), defected to the US, then wrote the best-selling novels "Atlas Shrugged" and "Fountainhead". I read the latter at the age of 15, and its message of uncompromising independence in the face of staggering odds resonated deeply with me. (In many ways, it still does.) I have to pat myself on the back for having the mental tenacity to blow through a book like "The Fountainhead", as it was, to my recollection, about 800 pages long. (But hey, if Neil Peart liked it, that was more than enough sustenance for me to complete it!) When I graduated from college, I decided that I'd read the other major work of Rand, "Atlas Shrugged". Far from being enamored with it like I was by "The Fountainhead" seven years before, I found it to be boring and pedantic, with flat character development and no drama. In short, it sucked. I later had a conversation with a friend who has significant grounding in philosophy, who consequently described Rand as "low-grade Neitzche" (or something to that effect). I'd never read Neitzche (still haven't), but I usually take his word on matters such as this. All I can say is that Rand, in the end, was a crappy fiction writer. Her essays stand up a bit better, and I agree with more than 50% of her views. I'll always be mostly anti-socialist, anti-collectivist, anti-big government, pro-business, pro-free market, all of which dovetails easily into Rand's philosophy. But in the end, I'd rather read...anything but Rand again. The following quote sums it all up quite nicely:

"It's okay to think Atlas Shrugged is the greatest book you've ever read until you're 18. Then you should stop."

--John Podhoretz

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"He went about complaining how bad the times were, and particularly that there had been no public disasters...the prosperity of his own reign, he said, would lead to its being wholly forgotten, and he often prayed for a great military catastrophe, or for some famine, plague, fire, or earthquake."

--Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, commenting on Emperor Gaius, aka Caligula

Sound like some we all know? A certain former president, by chance? One who openly wished it would've been HE who was president in 9/11?

Think about it.

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Apologies to those of you who live in New Jersey. (And you know who you are...)

"Not familiar with the Jersey Smell? Start your car, then lie under it with your half-eaten goat."

--Steven Colbert

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Story of the Day:

ROME (Reuters) - Leaders of the former Soviet Union were behind the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in 1981, an Italian parliamentary investigative commission said in a report.

A final draft of the report, which is due to be presented to parliament later this month, was made available to Reuters on Thursday by the commission president, Senator Paolo Guzzanti.

"This commission believes, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the leadership of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate Pope John Paul," the report said.

[Shocker. But hey, they were going to collapse on their own anyway, right?]

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A friend ofJohn Derbyshire at NRO, this fellow did some low-level grunt work for Nixon in '72:

"A Republican president and a Republican Congress--both houses! We could only dream of it back then. And yet, after all, what has it got us? Spending out of control, open borders, Wilsonism all over the bloody world, congressmen's pockets stuffed with lobbyist dollars, huge dysfunctional govt bureacracies springing up all over the place, sucking in public money to finance their stupid turf fights..."

Kind of hard to dispute that, sadly.

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And in the "some things never change" department:

"Augustus Caesar married his wife Scribonia, but divorced her, 'because', as he wrote, 'I could not bear the way she nagged at me'"

--Suetonius, Twelve Caesars

[Sidenote: Augustus Caesar ruled Rome at the time of the birth of Christ, some two thousand years ago.]

Quote

“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”

--H.L. Mencken