The ACLU house organ

otherwise called the New York Times is at it again, trying to raise our fears of our fellow countrymen while denying that we have anything to fear from terrorists. Between losing our liberties to the Bush administration, and losing our lives, peace or security to terrorists and their defenders on the other, I fear the latter more. Those who fear Americans more than OBL, Iranians, Chinese, North Koreans, or even the resurgent Russians are the ones who scare me the most, because they're more likely to lower our defenses and prevent us from acting before things have gone beyond the threat stage.

They are the king-men of our age. They'd gladly watch the rest of us be incinerated if they thought it would get them nationalized health care and a permanent socialist government, which they think would give them power. They're deluded by the E.U./U.N. ideal which more practical people have seen through long ago. If they'd pay half as much attention to protecting our lives as they do to excusing the fecklessness and defalcations of world bureaucracies, we might have a chance, but they put their own fantasies ahead of hard reality.

Football!

I don't know enough to be sure of anything. It seems to me, though, that the Superbowl is usually not as good as the playoffs leading up to it. One exception was when Tennessee fell short on the final play by a few feet. That was classic. San Diego with LaDainian Tomlinson vs. Chicago's defense could be good.

Best free agent acquisition: Adam Venatieri
- Is this guy really human or an advanced robotic kicking device? Five field goals! Too bad they're probably going to have to play San Diego next week.

Democrats

How many kids does one have to have to have the right to support the war?

Apparently, to Barbara Boxer only mothers will pay a price for this war. Condi Rice, who has no children, therefore will pay no price. If there's another Al Qaeda attack on U.S. soil, I hope it hits Marin County.

You want sacrifice? You CAN'T HANDLE sacrifice!

At least that's my reaction to lefties like Markos Moulitsas when they complain about the war. They don't want casualties. They don't want deficits.

Does anybody believe that they really favor reinstating the draft except as a means to give their criticisms more leverage? I'd be perfectly willing to ration gasoline and save tinfoil if that's what they want. How about building another 250 A-10s? Or 20 more B-2 bombers? Is that enough sacrifice? We could cut student loan assistance. Is that enough?

This sounds like they're complaining about not having enough to complain about.

Making up the Rules as They Go Along

Harry Reid came out yesterday complaining that the president hadn't given him and Pelosi an opportunity to talk him out of his new plan. "He listened to us. He was attentive, but the speech was written." Pelosi added, "There's a difference between notification and consultation. This was notification."

I wasn't aware that the checks and balances went that far. If I'd had to listen to all the insults coming from these pinheads for the past 5 years, I wouldn't have them in my office. They won seats in Congress, not the presidency, after all. Where did they get the idea that they're entitled to participate in drafting his speeches?

Heh.

"Hold onto your butts!"

Reuters:

Three strong explosions jolted southern Iran on Thursday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, but gave no information about possible casualties.

"Three explosions were so strong that they shook windows of houses," the agency said, adding that the explosions happened in Khorramshahr in the border province of Khuzestan.

Khuzestan, the heartland of Iran's oil industry, has been simmering with unrest among the province's mostly Arab population for more than a year.

The left will be wetting its collective pants, but I don't think this has anything to do with us.

Update: Maybe I'm wrong. There's been an explosion in the U.S. Embassy Compound in Athens. They must be unhappy that we whacked the folks responsible for our two African embassies.

And Jawa is speculating that they were nukes! Gateway Pundit suggests they had to do with the hanging of 7 dissidents today by the Iranian regime, but points out that the Fars news agency is claiming that they were desposing of defused landmines and that one in the Kerman regions was a UFO!

Grab the extinguisher

Their hair is on fire, again. You'd think Bush was drafting everybody on the left.

Why is it that everybody who is not the President seems to think he needs their position for everything he does?

No place to hide.

The rules of engagement in Iraq are being loosened to allow our troops to operate free of interference from politicians. How have we gone this long without making this clear? The Prime Minister made it clear that anyone operating outside the government would be fair game for American and Iraqi Security Forces.

Somebody should take Muqtada al Sadr aside and let him know that there are no more sacred cows in Iraq. I'm not thrilled with the idea of killing him, but if he's operating as an agent of the Iranian Revolution he should be treated as an insurgent.

The new STD

It's called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA spread by heterosexual intercourse and is resistant to antibiotics.

I think matters are about to be taken out of our hands.

Amir Taheri:

Foreign Minister Philippe Douste Blazy calls it "unthinkable;" his Russian colleague Sergei Lavrov prefers "unimaginable." The terms are also used in Western diplomatic circles to describe an event few wish to contemplate: a military showdown with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet a recent tour of Arab capitals presents a different picture: Arab leaders appear resigned to such a showdown as inevitable, and are preparing for it.

Beneath contempt.

Read the first sentenc. As if nobody dies in this country. This is today's version of Kos's famous "Screw 'em." The Huffington Post is trash, pure and simple.

Reagan's mastery of communication

Consider the poetry, economy and clarity of this example, cited by John Fund:

By the late 1950s Reagan was lambasting those "who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without automatically concluding the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one."

The left can't compete with that.

Nothing succeeds like 30 mm cannons

Mohammed at Iraq the Model:

[Y]esterday was the first time in months that I hear the familiar characteristic sound of the 30 mm cannon that is usually mounted on A-10's and Apache helicopters. This particular weapon is an indication of the seriousness of the battles even though was fired only a few times. Anyway, military aircrafts are still roaming the skies above us occasionally at low altitudes and making significant sounds.

It's not the kind of thing the media at home can easily ignore. Unless they have clips of this kind of action, we'll get clips of terrorist suicide bombers killing crowds of women and children. Let this be a lesson. We need shock and awe here at home, too.

Bring on the AC-130 gunships!

My thoughts exactly.

Robert Samuelson lays it on the table. As one of the first of the Baby Boomers, he writes:

Shame on us. We are trying to pillage our children and grandchildren, putting the country's future at risk in the process. On one of the great issues of our time, the costs of our retirement, we have adopted a policy of selfish silence.

Of course, it didn't start with us. The New Dealers laid the foundation, but we have done nothing to deal with the problem. Social Security is a welfare program, pure and simple, and the day will come when our children will curse us for our selfishness and refusal to face up to our responsibilities.

Computers More Accurate than Pencil and Paper

The New York Times is attacking the funding cuts for the Census Bureau, snidely implying that the figures to be used for assigning congressional seats will be untrustworthy because the census workers won't have handheld computers to record the information. This is a tactic which the media have adopted, sowing doubt on everything we are told by the government, and it's a dangerous one. If we dismiss what the government tells us, why should be trust the media any more? They are all the powerful elites. There isn't much difference between them in the minds of ordinary people. (Via Best of the Web)

Computers More Accurate than Pencil and Paper

The New York Times is attacking the funding cuts for the Census Bureau, snidely implying that the figures to be used for assigning congressional seats will be untrustworthy because the census workers won't have handheld computers to record the information. This is a tactic which the media have adopted, sowing doubt on everything we are told by the government, and it's a dangerous one. If we dismiss what the government tells us, why should be trust the media any more? They are all the powerful elites. There isn't much difference between them in the minds of ordinary people. (Via Best of the Web)

CHECK OUT this photo of Harry Reid. I'm sure it's supposed to look like a halo, but it reminds me of a flying saucer.

Tell me how this ends.

The answer to a fatuous question is that fighting for freedom never ends. If it does, we won't have peace, we'll just be seeing more foreigners die in misery as the victims of people like Saddam Hussein, the Islamic Courts movement recently driven from Somalia, the Taliban, the Soviet Union, North Korea, the Janjaweed in Darfur and the mullahs in Iran. We have allowed millions of people to suffer and die because we wanted peace for ourselves. This is shameful.

There are limits to what we can do, and we have to respect them, but this stupid insistence on peace at any price only means more wars allowed to fester until we have no choice but to fight them after the enemy has gained strength. People like "Scarecrow" can say "Peace, Peace," but there will be no peace until we guarantee that war against us will not prosper. In the end, the only real peace will come when "the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ."

We as a people have been greatly blessed, but we are turning our backs on Him who gave us freedom, and turned to the wisdom of men and wishful thinking.

Update: Gateway Pundit supplies the perfect answer to Scarecrow's question, and demonstrates the plan the media won't acknowledge.

Edward Luttwak(subscription required) offers a different strategy in Iraq, based on the supporting the Shia in their struggle to hold the power we gave them over their own lives, not with more troops but providing the means to fight for their own freedom.

Edward Luttwak(subscription required) offers a different strategy in Iraq, based on the supporting the Shia in their struggle to hold the power we gave them over their own lives, not with more troops but providing the means to fight for their own freedom.

Senator Foghorn

Every time I hear Ted Kennedy speak, I think he's going to blow up like a sack of flour dropped from a 3rd storey window. He huffs and puffs and proclaims powers he knows he doesn't have.

Now, he's claiming that the President doesn't have the authority to increase the troops in Iraq without the permission of Congress. Vietnam is a quagmire, all right. The politicians who opposed it and brought about the shameful abandonment of our ally the South Vietnamese, are stuck seeing everything as a second Vietnam, making the same queasy arguments and forever reenacting their shame.

Does Islam need an intervention?

I heard a discussion today on talk radio about CAIR, the Congress of American Islamic Relations, which functions for Muslims the way PETA does for animals, or the Sierra Club for spotted owls; it attacks anybody and everybody who even suggests that it might not be as precious as it thinks. One point made by the guest was that there are many moderate Muslims here who are cowed by the radicals for fear of being branded as less than zealous or being booted from their mosques which are nearly all controlled by groups like Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Wahhabi Sect of Islam, all three are the sort that would establish another Taliban the first chance it was given.

So, thinks I, since mosques are not really sacred buildings the way Christian Churchs puport to be, what would be wrong with a Christian congregation offering space on Fridays for Muslims who only seek to say their prayers without being harangued and threatened by radicals? It would be an expression of good will, and call attention to the fact that you don't have to authorized by any central authority to lead prayers. Islam has no priesthood, as such, but the role of preachers, pastors and priests has been taken by those who attend seminaries become scholars. They're authority comes from their collection of and administrations of donations for the poor and social services. Nevertheless, they aren't really representatives of God or Islam, since all Muslims are equal, in theory at least.

The Buzzword for the next two years is "Transparency"

John Edwards is trying to be transparent. People like transparency. Once you can fake it you've got it made.

However, there's a pitfall. If you're completely transparent there has to be something interesting to see. Some transparent people are more like the glass than what's behind it.

Dumb Headlines

The AC-130 gunship is capable of firing thousands of rounds per second. And by the way, we aimed one at the terrorists suspected of blowing up our African embassies. Maybe this is a new style--giving specs on the equipment before getting into the actual story.

Then there's this triumphant discovery by CREW: "Bush and Abramoff have met. Here is the photo." Ah, the smoking gun, as though every other person in Washington hasn't had a photo taken with the President.

41-14

I sent Hugh Hewitt an email this p.m. telling him how impressed I was by Urban Meyer when he was coaching at the University of Utah. I don't know what it is, but his teams were always winners. He was born and raised in Ohio and coached at Bowling Green before coming to Utah for two years then off to Florida. He says the only job that would lure him from Florida would be Notre Dame. Charlie Weis signed a 10 year contract, but that doesn't necessarily mean he couldn't be dumped. After the shellacking Meyer's Gators gave the Buckeyes tonight, I wouldn't bet that he'll be there for very long.

I thought this could be an upset, but wow!

Funny how often these "championship" games turn out to be duds. This wasn't really a laugher until the fourth quarter and OSU still couldn't get past 14 points. Then when Florida scored again raising the score to 41 it was all she wrote.

Maybe he just does well in Arizona. His Utah team won the Fiesta Bowl there after breaking the BCS Barrier last year.

The Warrior Ideal

Victor Davis Hanson:

Creating new political systems on the ground is far more difficult than simply blasting away terrorist concentrations. Such engagement demands that American soldiers leave the relative safety of ships, tanks and planes to fight subsequent messy battles in streets and neighborhoods. Once that happens, the United States loses its intrinsic military advantages.

I think that anybody who thinks these things through, must realize that we cannot afford to fail in Iraq, and that those clamoring for withdrawal are like frightened livestock in a barn fire. Their judgment can't be trusted.

His piece sets out the problems simply and plainly and the solutions are just as simple and plain: We have to harden our resolve to fight without qualms and view our casualties with implacability. The Ottomans fought the West for hundreds of years before they finally realized that they were outmatched. The current Jihadis have dreams of world conquest based not on military power, but on unending oil money and sneak attacks. They will not go away until their visions of glory in martyrdom are dissipated. That won't happen so long as we dither about historically minuscule casualties and the number of civilians the insurgents are willing to murder.

Our fretting over the execution of Saddam Hussein must be comical to Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, as does our agonizing over the deaths of our men and women in battle. The West must recover its warrior spirit, and I have one, very good way to do that.

In the Book of Mormon, we read the story of Moroni, a military leader who arose, like Epaminondas of Thebes, to lead his people against a murderous foe, not for empire or conquest, but to put an end to attacks on themselves. It's a great and thrilling story, as is the story of the 2,000 Stripling Warriors, who volunteered to fight after their parents had buried their own weapons with an oath never to shed blood again as a sign of their conversion and repentence.

But behold, it came to pass they had many sons, who had not entered into a covenant that they would not take their weapons of war to defend themselves against their enemies; therefore they did assemble themselves together at this time, as many as were able to take up arms, and they called themselves Nephites.

And they entered into a covenant to fight for the liberty of the Nephites, yea, to protect the land unto the laying down of their lives; yea, even they covenanted that they never would give up their liberty, but they would fight in all cases to protect the Nephites and themselves from bondage.

Now behold, there were two thousand of those young men, who entered into this covenant and took their weapons of war to defend their country.

And now behold, as they never had hitherto been a disadvantage to the Nephites, they became now at this period of time also a great support; for they took their weapons of war, and they would that Helaman [a prophet] should be their leader.

And they were all young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all—they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted.

Yea, they were men of truth and soberness, for they had been taught to keep the commandments of God and to walk uprightly before him.. . .

[T]hey said unto [Helaman]: Father, behold our God is with us, and he will anot suffer that we should fall; then let us go forth; we would not slay our brethren if they would let us alone; therefore let us go, lest they should overpower the army of Antipus.

Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.

And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.

I'm sure that this is not the way our troops have been trained, but I also know that there are many among them who conduct themselves with maturity and faith. We pray for such young people.

Yitshak Nakash writes that if the U.S. drops the ball, Iraq shatters, and offers some suggestions for weakening Sadr's ability to create Civil War.

The big problem with all such talk is that no one has any credible plan to end the meddling by foreign governments, particularly Iran. Imagine the problems we'd have if Mexico and Canada were smuggling arms to insurgents in this country. Prohibition failed in large part to the government's inability to put a stop to smuggling alcohol into this country. Iraq has a long border without any good way of controlling it.

One lesson from Vietnam that hasn't been learned is that until we take the fight to the source of the weapons and fighters outside the country, we'll make no progress pacifying the country. One of the things that brought the North Vietnamese to peace talks was our bombing of Nanoi and Haiphong Harbor. A local insurgency in Iraq can't be stopped until we cut off its supplies from outside.

Who are our enemies?

Peter Wehner provides a primer on Islam, Arabs, Sunnis and Shias. The state of play in the Muslim world changing and there are lots of actors and veiled intentions.

The most reasonable thing we could do would be to 1) insulate ourselves from OPEC, by developing our domestic oil resources, at higher costs if necessary; and 2) control our borders and know who we're letting in.

Who are our enemies?

Peter Wehner provides a primer on Islam, Arabs, Sunnis and Shias. The state of play in the Muslim world changing and there are lots of actors and veiled intentions.

The most reasonable thing we could do would be to 1) insulate ourselves from OPEC, by developing our domestic oil resources, at higher costs if necessary; and 2) control our borders and know who we're letting in.

Biden, his time

This will put the cat among the pigeons. I'll bet Hillary and Barak are worried.

Update: Power Line notes his statement that hanging Saddam was "Abu Ghraib all over again." This man is just too dumb to be president. Bush may mangle his sentences, but he has more moral clarity than the entire Democrat party.

That sick, sinking feeling.

Checks and Balances. Weren't they supposed to promote bipartisanship? It brings up the issue of whether a new Congress can repeal a declaration of war or an authorization for use of force.

What are the limits of the President's authority to establish foreign policy?

We are on the verge of throwing away our international credibility. Meet the New Boss.

The Dems' New Clothes

Ryan Lizza seems impressed by the new "Macho" Democrats. I wonder how well this will play with the Cindy Sheehan wing of the party.

Football!

Watching the Wildcard games, I've heard Boise State's game mentioned by commentators in most of the games. That had to be the game that everybody will remember, especially the good coaching and play calling. So when will the BCS add few games for the WAC, MWC and the other "non-champion"h conferences?

The OSU-Florida game will have to go some to be as memorable as BSU-Oklahoma.