Final Protective Fire

Thursday, February 27, 2003

 

I don't wish to link to a Los Angeles Times story, as they continue to pay that lying slimebag Robert Scheer ... but here is Matthew Hoy posting on a LAT story that quotes an Iranian as wishing we'd get Iraq over with so we can go invade her country. Yep, that "Arab Street" ( yes, I know, she's Iranian ...) sure hates us ...

Robin 9:15 PM

 

Here is a really stupid "news" story. Evidently, a poll of Bush's reelection chances has dropped below 50% this week. Like I give a goddamn. These kind of polls are always completely stupid. What they are, are ways that pathetic irrelevant "news" organizations like CNN fake news by commissioning an idiotic poll and then reporting it breathlessly. The New York Times, Washington Post, the network "news" organizations and CNN do this completely lame act all the time. And I got tired of this stupidity a long time ago.

But now, its especially stupid when our nation approaches an important task - the liberation of Iraq. Grow up CNN.

Robin 8:52 PM

 

Michele has a great idea about sending CD's to our servicemen. I'm going to miss the great enjoyment we got during the Gulf War sending packages to servicemen - as this time due to anthrax worries, packages addressed to "Any Serviceman" are not going to be accepted. So I've decided to join in Michele's program.

Robin 8:47 PM

Wednesday, February 26, 2003

 

Donald Sensing has a transcript of President Bush's speech. Thanks Donald.

Robin 8:27 PM

 

It's long, but Mean Mr. Mustard shreds Dowd and a complete job it is.

Robin 8:18 PM

 

Charles Johnson points us to the key question for anti-war protestors: If you succeed, what will you do then?

Robin 7:35 PM

 

Howard Bashman has an extraordinary ability to write absolutely devastating arguments in a plain, matter-of-fact manner. And he gives such a devastating reply to Sen. Reid's silly attack on Miguel Estrada's nomination.

Robin 3:03 PM

 

A Selection from PoemsForPeaceThroughStrength.org.

Robin 10:28 AM

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

 

I haven't said much about the Miguel Estrada nomination controversy, mainly because Stuart Buck and Eugene Volokh et al have said so much so well to date. Howard Bashman has also had a lot of good material. Don't miss Stuart Buck's description of Ted Kennedy embarrassing himself in public.

At NRO, Byron York has been doing yeoman work such as this piece about the White House response to Sen. Schumer. That page supplies links to other York pieces.

Robin 11:47 AM

 

Henry Hanks has some fun shredding Jeanne Garofalo. Only one disagreement, Henry, I liked Mystery Men.

"[To her father's skull, after avenging his death] OK, now I'm going back to graduate school. That was the agreement. "

Robin 11:34 AM

 

Charles Murtaugh is called a racist by Atrios' irrational bunch, but uses the occasion to write an interesting piece about biological determinism, argument over science and more.

Robin 11:26 AM

Monday, February 24, 2003

 

Henry Hanks points us to this interesting comparison of the funding of Left/Liberal foundations and think tanks versus Libertarian/Conservative.

Robin 10:33 AM

 

Trent Telenko has this great piece on the rise of anti-semitism among the Left. For a long time, I was baffled by this believing, erroneously, that the Left was a sincere but misguided ideology. Years ago, I realized that in reality the dialectic, the post-modernism rhetoric, the voluminous essays, all were just tools to camoflage the motivations of the bile-filled and hate-filled juvenile mind.

Robin 10:10 AM

 

Joyce Lee Malcolm in Reason Online summarizes the Bellesiles controversy.

Robin 10:04 AM

Thursday, February 20, 2003

 

Jacob Sullum has this piece in Reason which details the surprise of Congressmen who are being educated on the details of McCain-Feingold's campaign "reform" provisions. And yes, these "surprised" people are the ones who voted for it. Those of us who opposed this were being reviled by these same people as corporate lackeys.

Robin 10:54 AM

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

 

Charles Johnson has this great photo. Saddam Hussein touring a French nuclear reactor with Jacques Chirac in 1975. This is what France's opposition is about - concealing their continual policy of collaboration.

Robin 1:25 PM

Monday, February 17, 2003

 

A story from San Francisco about the "peace" protestors. Violent and anti-american as usual.

Robin 10:48 AM

 

NRO has this piece on Sen. Mary Landrieu's lying about her support of Miguel Estrada.

Robin 10:44 AM

Friday, February 14, 2003

 

Someone emailed me this:
The Complete Military History of France
Gallic Wars - Lost. In a war whose ending foreshadows the next 2000 years of French history, France is conquered by of all things, an Italian.
Hundred Years War - Mostly lost, saved at last by female schizophrenic who inadvertently creates The First Rule of French Warfare: "France's armies are victorious only when not led by a Frenchman."
Italian Wars - Lost. France becomes the first and only country to ever lose two wars when fighting Italians.
Wars of Religion - France goes 0-5-4 against the Huguenots
Thirty Years War - France is technically not a participant, but manages to get invaded anyway. Claims a tie on the basis that eventually the other participants started ignoring her.
War of Devolution - Tied. Frenchmen take to wearing red flowerpots as chapeaux.
The Dutch War - Tied
War of the Augsburg League/King William's War/French and Indian War Lost, but claimed as a tie. Three ties in a row induces deluded Frogophiles the world over to label the period as the height of French military power.
War of the Spanish Succession - Lost. The War also gave the French their first taste of a Marlborough, which they have loved every since.
American Revolution - In a move that will become quite familiar to future Americans, France claims a win even though the English colonists saw far more action. This is later known as "de Gaulle Syndrome", and leads to the Second Rule of French Warfare: "France only wins when America does most of the fighting."
French Revolution - Won, primarily due the fact that the opponent was also French.
The Napoleonic Wars - Lost. Temporary victories (remember the First Rule!) due to leadership of a Corsican, who ended up being no match for a British footwear designer.
The Franco-Prussian War - Lost. Germany first plays the role of drunk Frat boy to France's ugly girl home alone on a Saturday night.
World War I - Tied and on the way to losing, France is saved by the United States. Thousands of French women find out what it's like to not only sleep with a winner, but one who doesn't call her "Fraulein." Sadly, widespread use of condoms by American forces forestalls any improvement in the French bloodline.
World War II - Lost. Conquered French liberated by the United States and Britain just as they finish learning the Horst Wessel Song.
War in Indochina - Lost. French forces plead sickness, take to bed with the Dien Bien Flu.
Algerian Rebellion - Lost. Loss marks the first defeat of a western army by a Non-Turkic Muslim force since the Crusades, and produces the First Rule of Muslim Warfare: "We can always beat the French." This rule is identical to the First Rules of the Italians, Russians, Germans, English, Dutch, Spanish, Vietnamese and Esquimaux.
War on Terrorism - France, keeping in mind its recent history, surrenders to Germans and Muslims just to be safe. Attempts to surrender to Vietnamese ambassador fail after he takes refuge in a McDonald's.
The question for any country silly enough to count on the French should not be "Can we count on the French?", but rather "How long until France collapses?"
(Author unknown)

Robin 10:26 PM

Thursday, February 13, 2003

 

As Jacob Levy says, Gary Hart ain't talking about Armenians.
UPDATE: Talkleft has been defending Gary Hart, but Jacob isn't convinced. Granted this is a much softer version of the usual Leftist antisemitism.

Robin 4:54 PM

 

I hadn't visited Man Without Qualities for a bit, but today I found two gems, here and here discussing Greenspan's testimony and statements on the proposed budget and dividend tax reform respectively.

Robin 3:59 PM

 

I was going to post today's Doonesbury cartoon because it has one of those rare jabs not aimed at President Bush. But Stephen Green beat me to it.

Robin 1:03 PM

 

Some people have claimed that the prosecution of Johnny Walker and the upcoming trial of Zacarias Moussaoui show that civilian courts are adequate to try terrorists instead of military tribunals. While the tribunal method troubles me in some ways, this story shows that its not clear cut that the civilian court approach is workable.

Robin 9:54 AM

 

With respect to Miguel Estrada, Ruben Navarrette gets it.

He gives us this zinger:You can't fault Democrats for the doubletalk. If they told you the truth, you'd lose what little respect you have left for them.

And then the best line:
And yet, the Honduran immigrant still packs a wallop. If Estrada makes it onto the appellate court -- despite the best efforts of Senate Democrats to prevent it -- Hispanics might ask what the party of Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy has done for them lately.
That's a good question. And one that is a lot tougher than any the Democrats threw at Miguel Estrada.

Robin 8:56 AM

Monday, February 10, 2003

 

On Sunday, Democrat Senator Carl Levin was on Fox News Sunday and was questioned by Tony Snow and Brit Hume in this transcript. Hume and Snow brought out the essence of the dishonesty and confusion of Democrat opposition to President Bush's policies. Read the transcript to see just how stupid and dishonest, sometimes both at once, Senator Levin is.

Here's a section where Carl Levin, asked if inspections can succeed absent Iraqi cooperation, misrepresents the whole point of Resolution 1331 and misrepresents what Hans Blix has said and ducks the question. All at once:

HUME: Not even Hans Blix believes that they can succeed, absent a cooperative government.
LEVIN: I disagree with you. I talked to Hans Blix for an hour last week. Hans Blix wants a cooperative government. Obviously, we want them to cooperate. But inspections are relevant. They're highly relevant. We ought to be supporting them.
And it's amazing to me that we have not given the inspectors the information that we have. And I want to be very precise on this. We've only given the inspectors a small percentage of the suspect sites.

No wonder the Democrats can't even appear serious on foriegn policy, they have blithering idiots like Levin as their leadership.

Here, see Sen. Levin redefine english words:

SNOW: At this point, the charge of unilateralism seems interesting, because we now have 18 European nations on the record saying they support the United States, three on record saying they have qualms. It appears that we've got the majority of Europe on our side. A number of our allies now in the region, including Jordan and Turkey, seem to be on our side as well.
So it certainly no longer is fair to say the administration is acting unilaterally, is it?
LEVIN: The way the word "unilateral" is used means without the authority specifically of the U.N. to use military force. That's the way the term "unilateral" is used, because that U.N. authority makes a big difference.

In other words, if the entire world supported our invasion of Iraq, except France ( which has a Security Council veto ), Carl Levin would claim that we, not France, were acting "unilaterally" by his convoluted definition.

Robin 9:10 PM

 

Glenn Reynolds points us to this copy of the Franco-German UN Security Council proposed resolution....

Robin 5:54 PM

 

I've been trying to digest the leaked "proposal" on new anti-terrorist legislation. Orin Kerr has a tentative posting on these supposed new anti-terrorist legislation proposals. He has a very good point in that the coverage of this will probably be as bad as that for the original PATRIOT Act. Several organizations put out blatant misinformation and exaggeration with respect to that Act. We'll see it again. Ah, and sure enough, Oliver is sputtering.

UPDATE: Orin Kerr writes here that he believes that the sentence enhancement for using encryption - a proposal in the paper - isn't really a big deal. He has some good points. I myself am wrestling with the proposal of creating a DNA database of convicted terrorists and terrorist suspects. It makes me nervous at first glance but I'm having difficulty distinguishing it philosophically from a fingerprint database in this case. Yes, I know the supposed abuses of a government DNA database but those are all mostly based on violations of medical privacy that seem irrelevant to the discussion.

Robin 10:12 AM

Wednesday, February 05, 2003

 

Dave Kopel takes on TAPPED's egregious misrepresentations. The original subject, in case you've forgotten, was a Washington Monthly article that tried to carry anti-gun groups water in claiming that the D.C. area snipers were able to buy their rifle because of GOP hamstringing of the BATF - a notion Dave Kopel had evicerated in this exchange.

Robin 7:34 PM

 

Several blogs have pointed to this New Yorker piece on links between Iraq and Al-Queda. It is really more an essay on the limits of intelligence and how difficult it is to separate good analysis from the existing biases. But toward the end of the piece, links between Iraq and Al-Queda are made with explicit names. A must-read.

Robin 5:30 PM

 

Secretary of State Powell did a wonderful job today demonstrating two things: the first, that Saddam Hussein was deliberately continuing to obstruct the inspectors and was in breach of the Security Council resolution. The second, that the United Nations was on the verge of collapse . Meanwhile, not wishing to be upstaged by the pathetic example of the United Nations, Sen. Tom Daschle decided that he had to be even more incompetent. Daschle announced his support for more inspections. And so he shows that he not only doesn't intend to change the fact that the Democrats are incapable of acting like a party of adults, he announced it at the top of his lungs.

Robin 4:57 PM

Saturday, February 01, 2003

 

To Mars.

We learned in the Challenger investigation that the root cause of the deaths of that crew was not ignorance but bad management in NASA making fatal decisions. I look forward to this investigation and am very pessimistic that we will learn that little changed at NASA after Challenger. Glenn Reynolds says it well, we must not, whatever the root cause, allow the small minds use this to keep us from space.

To Mars.

Robin 7:46 PM

 

HIGH FLIGHT
by
John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bounds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a thousand things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hovering there,
I've chased the shouting wind along , and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God. 

Copied from Winds of Change.

Robin 11:54 AM

 

It is with great grief that I learned this morning of the loss of Columbia. The condolences of myself and my family go to the families of Cmdr Husband and his crew. We are heartbroken too at the lost of Col. Ramon and extend our condolences to Israel.

Robin 10:31 AM