Richard Miniter asks, “Would the Times have hired former Nazi officers to cover the three-year insurgency against the American presence in Germany in the late 1940s?”
31 March, 2008
Condell on Fitna
That equal-opportunity offender of religions, Pat Condell, sinks his choppers into the world’s most dangerous religion and the reaction to Fitna.
Can’t say as I find much to disagree with in this one.
What American Surrender Sounds Like
While following this story I hit a link to the last message broadcast before the surrender at Corregidor. Chilling.
Today LiveLeak is my favorite website
How sad it was when, under threat of violence from Islamic jihadists, they took down Fitna.
Well, today LiveLeak has shown that, unlike most of the dhimmi media, it has a backbone.
On the 28th of March LiveLeak.com was left with no other choice but to remove the film “fitna” from our servers following serious threats to our staff and their families. Since that time we have worked constantly on upgrading all security measures thus offering better protection for our staff and families. With these measures in place we have decided to once more make this video live on our site. We will not be pressured into censoring material which is legal and within our rules. We apologise for the removal and the delay in getting it back, but when you run a website you don’t consider that some people would be insecure enough to threaten our lives simply because they do not like the content of a video we neither produced nor endorsed but merely hosted.
Three cheers for LiveLeak!
This Just In
Hillary’s old boss says he fired her –
“Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”
Well, I’m crushed. Why didn’t he speak up before? All this time I thought I could trust Hillary. Now, for the first time, there is doubt.
Excuse me. I have to go look at my cattle futures portfolio.
30 March, 2008
Why would anybody work for Pizza Hut?
Pizza delivery drivers shouldn’t have to give up their right to self defense to have a job. Pizza Hut should be ashamed of this.
29 March, 2008
The Dying of the Light
The other day someone at work posted this link.
I couldn’t take it. I replied:
I know others are thinking it. I’ll be the one to say it.
This is one of the silliest things I’ve ever seen come down the pike, a
triumph of symbolism over substance.Balderdash. Poppycock. Flapdoodle.
OK, flame away. I can take it. The people with the hard job are the
guys at the Onion who have to try to come up with something funnier.
I mean, really. People who still try to blame Katrina on “global warming” are just beyond clueless.
Today I see that Samizdata did it better.
28 March, 2008
Hidden Mickey?
Disney fans claim that there are Hidden Mickeys in the animated films. Well, they aren’t all in the cartoons.
Big News
As Michael Ledeen points out, even if it’s only half true it’s the story of the year.
America is sitting on top of an oil field with an estimated 200 billion barrels of oil. If we can exploit that it’s a win-win: We get energy independence and stop sending money overseas to our enemies, and the worldwide price of oil drops, further denying our enemies funding.
I suppose the usual suspects will oppose it, of course.
Fitna
Geert Wilders’ film, Fitna, is available here.
If using Islam’s own words and actions is intolerant, then this is intolerance. This is a must-see, but know that there are some disturbing images. But the images aren’t half as disturbing as Jihad is.
Wilders is a brave man.
Update:
LiveLeak has taken the video down due to (cue rimshot!) death threats. You know, from the Religion of Peace. I wish I had downloaded it instead of just watching. There need to be lots of copies to keep uploading to YouTube. As of this writing there still is one there, but it’s not showing the option to download. Watch it soon.
Further Update:
Follow the link from the above update, and you’ll see that Charles has added an update with a link and instructions on how to download the film. I now have it on two separate computers. Download and spread it!
26 March, 2008
Actuarial Escape Velocity
Hillary’s Millions
People are rightly giving Hillary the business for this whopper:
“I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”
Thoroughly spanked by CBS, she whines this lame defense:
“You know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things—millions of words a day—so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement.”
Millions, Hillary? Let’s assume a fast talker who uses mostly monosyllabic words. Someone like that could say maybe 3 words per second. That’s 10,800 words per hour. Or 259,200 in a 24-hour day. I just don’t think she’s going to manage the nearly 12 words per second it would take to reach even one million.
What a math whiz.
I know! Let’s put her in charge of health care!
Update:
Perhaps I was hasty. (mature audiences only)
Another Update:
Malkin has artwork.
25 March, 2008
Reason Number One to Vote for McCain
I’m not a fan of McCain in general, but I like this McCain a lot.
Coming Soon
Soon, of course, doesn’t mean this year. But the fact that human trials have happened once is encouraging.
Who Reads Michael J. Totten?
Not just us stateside smarties. Guys who can get stuff done read his blog, too.
I Left My Heart…
Or was it my brain? Anyway, if you can scroll through Zombie’s report on the Iraq Fifth Anniversary demonstrations in San Francisco without laughing you must be a Code Pinko.
(Caution: language. And don’t skip the videos.)
24 March, 2008
It lacked the added virtue of being true
Clinton, still learning about the internet’s stubborn memory.
What Richardson Said
His Portland speech is here.
The first item of note is that he called Wright’s remarks “deplorable”. Shame Obama can’t say that himself.
Mixed in with the platitudes and hot air, he dropped into Spanish to say, Este es un hombre que nos entiende, y nos va a respetar. (This is a man who understands us, and is going to respect us.) Framed in the context of Richardson the “hispanic” (who is just as “hispanic” as Obama is “black”) the message is clear. Respeto is an important concept in latin culture. So yes, Obama’s proxy was pandering directly to hispanics, and the understood message is he’ll give you what you want. That’s red meat to people who grew up in a culture of dependency as did all of Mexico’s lower class. And it’s not the middle or upper class that is crossing the border illegally.
It’s at least consistent with his desire to grant drivers licenses to illegal aliens.
Another Heart-Pounder
from Michael Yon in Nineveh.
There are no guarantees, but this could be the endgame for major combat operations in Iraq. Combat is likely to heat up in Mosul and western Nineveh by about May. There likely will be some reports of increased US and Iraqi casualties up here, but this does not mean that we are losing ground or that al Qaeda is resurging – though clearly they are trying. If there is an increase in casualties here as we go into the summer of 2008, it is because our people and the Iraqi forces are closing in. We have seen just how deadly al Qaeda can be. This enemy is desperate. They know they are losing. They are not likely to go out easy. The enemy is smart, agile and adaptive. Likely they will land some devastating blows on us, but at this rate, our people and Iraqi forces appear to be driving stakes through al Qaeda hearts faster than al Qaeda is regenerating.
Read Yon and you know what’s going on in Iraq months before people who rely on the MSM.
Update:
Instapundit passes along this email from Michael:
“It’s important to contextualize the fighting in Basra. That the Iraqi Army apparently is fighting JAM is important; a largely Shia Government of Iraq is in command of the Iraqi Army. The Iraqi Army is fighting Shia militia. This is not bad news.”
At least Petraeus is saying it
Why the Bush administration hasn’t beaten the drums about Iran’s involvement in Iraq for all these years is beyond me. It’s not like it’s been a secret. Apparently our best General thinks it’s time to talk about it.
23 March, 2008
22 March, 2008
Reason and Common Ground
As eloquent and timely a defense of science as I’ve ever read. Hard to argue with this:
At a time when Americans are threatened by an enemy that rejects science and reason, and demands respect for dogmas entailing violence, persecution, and tyranny, nothing more deserves our attention than nourishing respect for reason.
The “Intelligent Design” charlatans have already been thoroughly routed in any scientific sense. What’s fun here is to see how he finds them hoisting themselves by their own petards when they use postmodernist arguments to support their so-called “theory” – since postmodernism is demonstrably incompatible with Christianity.
His conclusion:
The debate over evolution and creationism has raged for a long time, and will continue to do so. The science behind evolution is overwhelming and only continues to grow, but those who insist that evolution is false will continue to resist its promulgation in schools. The appeal to Postmodernism represents the most recent — and so far, the most desperate — attempt on the part of creationists to support their claim that the teaching of valid, empirically-tested, experimentally-confirmed science in government schools is somehow a violation of the Constitution. When shorn of its sophisticated-sounding language, however, this argument is beneath serious consideration. It essentially holds that truth is meaningless; that all ways of knowing — whether it be the scientist’s empirically tested, experimentally confirmed, well-documented theory, or the mumbo-jumbo of mystics, psychics, and shamans — are equally valid myths; and that government has no right to base its policies on solid evidence rather than supernatural conjurations. This argument has no support in epistemology, history, law, or common sense. It should simply not be heard again.
I can, and do, respect religious people. I can’t, and won’t, respect the dishonest. Those who confound science and religion by claiming that ID is science or, just as bad, that science is religion, are not honest. And when they try to be bullies it can lead to stories with very funny punchlines. If a religion can’t tolerate facts, (or those who aren’t members of it) maybe it’s not much of a religion.
Inconventient
“That’s right. The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that, when you’ve got warming from additional carbon dioxide, this will result in increased water vapour, so you’re going to get a positive feedback. That’s what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite … (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they’re actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you’re getting a negative rather than a positive feedback.”
