Speaking of Viet Nam

If you’re going to, at least get it right.

It is also a mistake to assert, as many have asserted in recent days, that the United States never should have intervened in Vietnam in the first place because Vietnam was predestined to become capitalist. In my research, I found that American intervention in Vietnam saved Indonesia from going Communist in 1965. It probably also prevented countries such as Thailand, Japan, the Philippines, and Malaysia from becoming Communist or pro-Communist. Furthermore, American intervention fractured the Sino-North Vietnamese alliance and tamed China. In the absence of these developments, socialism might well have persisted in Vietnam and other Asian countries to this day.

You know you are winning

when the shooting stops.

Michael Yon’s latest dispatch is a thing of beauty.

Marines and Soldiers who are in areas of Anbar where fighting has abated are sometimes criticized by commanders who think they are avoiding contact with the enemy. I have heard this complaint at least a couple dozen times.

These Marines definitely weren’t avoiding contact. They were just winning.

The Wages of Misogyny

Amy Alkon looks at the consequences of Arab culture coupled with Islam. It’s not just the women who get sexually mistreated.

WaPo Goes Dhimmi

First, be sure to see the cartoons which make fun of radical Islam.

Then read about the cowardly caving at Breathed’s home newspaper. Score another victory for the Jihadi in the MSM.

Then look at the cartoons again, just because making fun of radical Islam is something the whole world needs to be doing.

Get the Hankys

Sit down.

Read.

(Hat tip: LGF)

Ghosts of Anbar, Part II

Yon’s latest is up.

Many people know the old adage about restaurant kitchens: to know if the kitchen is clean, check the bathroom. The same holds true for Soldiers, only it calls for checking windows. If you are going on a combat mission and Soldiers have not cleaned all their windows to a sparkle (during times when it is possible to do so), do not go with them. Soldiers with dirty windows are not watching for tiny wires in the road, nor are they scanning rooftops. They are talking about women, football, and the car they will buy when they get home. I will not go into combat with Soldiers with dirty windows.

Read the whole thing. Unless truth about Iraq disagrees with your political world view.

Remember when England was Free?

Neither does anybody in England.

Front Page News

Well, the biggest terrorism funding trial in history would be if the MSM were interested in news and not just looking for new ways to lose the war.

Meanwhile, they still can’t figure out those declining subscription numbers. Go figure.

New Glass

A good metric of progress.

Update:

So is this, even if it didn’t happen in Iraq.

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

That would seem to be the Democrats’ current strategy. Ralph Peters observes.

Out here in Anbar Province – long the most troubled in Iraq – the change has come so swiftly and thoroughly that it’s dazzling. Marines who were under fire routinely just months ago are now directing their former enemies in battle.

Although this trend has been reported, our battlefield leaders here agree that the magnitude of the shift hasn’t registered back home: Al Qaeda is on the verge of a humiliating, devastating strategic defeat – rejected by their fellow Sunni Muslims.

If we don’t quit, this will not only be a huge practical win – it’ll be the information victory we’ve been aching for.

WindowsRG leaked!

There’s a full-screen demo here.

Hat tip: Secret Diary of Steve Jobs.

Zero Tolerance = Zero Intelligence

Another fine illustration of Mark Twain’s point:

“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then He made school boards.

Principal, Karen Martin and vice principal, Dave Constance should both be fired.

The kid’s parents should then sue them both into the poorhouse, and then take their kid out of that idiotic school.

Savages Among Us

They’re living in St. Paul, but their culture is still in Somalia.

Many years ago, in a state weapons class (taught to security guards and CCW applicants) the old-time CHP officer was talking about the legal and moral implications of the use of deadly force. “In the case of a rape in progress,” he said, then looked side to side as if to see who was listening, “Personally, I’d blow ’em away.”

That’s the civilized attitude.

But if you’re a sheep and not a sheepdog, at least pick up the damn phone and dial 911.

It’s Tough Out There For A Dad

Children are being taught that all men are dangerous. As some are pointing out:

Peter Stearns, a George Mason University professor who studies fear and anxiety, confirms that children are tending to regard every male stranger “as a potential evildoer.” Relatedly, he notes, “there’s an overconfidence in female virtues.”Putting the matter in perspective, Benjamin Radford, who researches statistics on predators, concludes, “The number of men who will hurt a child is tiny compared to the population.”

The Instapundit is right.

If you stereotyped on race the same way, you’d be regarded as a hopeless bigot

But he doesn’t go far enough. It is bigotry.

When a crow flies over Kandahar…

This is just too funny. The Taliban say, “I can’t quit you!“

Hurray for Our Side

John Derbyshire, in this excellent review of Robert Spencer’s book, shows what civil discourse really is.

I’m glad we have both Spencer and Derb on our side.

Spencer has promised to respond. That should be interesting.

I will never be impressed by a cheerleading squad again

Not after seeing this.

Update:

In case you missed it, they’re deaf. A coworker wrote:

I saw them live at at the Masonic Auditorium in SF last year. The dance is called Thousand-hand Bodhisattva (Guan Yin). They were amazing! The performers couldn’t hear the music. There were two directors off stage giving hand signals through out the show.

Yon’s Ghosts

Part 1 of what promises to be another great series from Michael Yon: Ghosts of Anbar.

The sheiks of Anbar turned against al Qaeda because the sheiks are businessmen, and al Qaeda is bad for business. But they didn’t suddenly trust Americans just because they no longer trusted al Qaeda. They are not suddenly blood allies. This is business, and that’s fine, because if there is one thing America is good at, it’s business.

The juxtaposition of his text and photos is particularly good.

Skewer in a Socket

Mullah TV in Iran has surveyed the cultural landscape and identified the threat.

Kiss and bad haircuts.

Eeew

If you eat in China, ask for a fork.

Pray it’s clean.

How to Spy in Iraq

Michael Totten has a very interesting piece up. And I doubt the MSM will have anything like it.

Ever.

Fred’s Shot Across Rudy’s Bow

Fred points out, correctly, something very wrong with New York: Bad, unconstitutional gun laws, and trying to export them.

Rudy’s folks take it a bit personally and respond that, well, at least the trains run on time.

“Those who live in New York in the real world – not on TV – know that Rudy Giuliani’s record of making the city safe for families speaks for itself. No amount of political theater will change that.” — Katie Levinson, Giuliani Communications Director

Does Rudy’s camp really think this will wash with the gun rights community?

Why move the goal posts

when you can install imaginary ones?

Anybody who thinks traffic laws are about safety and not money is living here.

The Last Sane Man In McMinnville?

Mark Steyn has a followup on the Oregon jackboots.

The guys who need the “boundaries education” program are the District Attorney, Bradley Berry, who originally was intent on getting the Seventh Graders registered for life as sex offenders; the McMinnville Police Officer Marshall Roache, who read the boys their Miranda rights in the principal’s office and led them away to spend five days in juvenile jail; and the Vice-Principal Steve Tillery, who started this whole thing. The only people guilty of “abuse” are the justice, law enforcement and education officials who determined to destroy these kids’ lives and who forced two very ordinary families to spend over $20,000 resisting the “harrassment” of the state.

He’s right. But Steyn misses the real problem.

Update:

Steyn says that if the law is “a ass”, society is a bigger one.

Why Astronauts Are My Heroes

And I mean the ones I grew up watching, not the ones wearing cross-country diapers. Buzz Aldrin, for example, when confronted by a troofer demonstrates the right stuff.

Battling Straw Men

Ready to get a little dizzy?

And here, Neiwert — who performatively redefines masculinity as that which talks incessantly about how it would never talk incessantly about masculinity (much less engage in any of its gendered conspicuous consumption). Those who refer to masculinity without the requisite disclaimers about how it is unmasculine to refer to masculinity can lay no claim to that real masculinity — which evidently comes from recognizing that real masculinity is seldom pointed out by really masculine people, unless they are pointing it out to show how pointing it out is unmasculine.

Breaking the First Law of Thermodynamics

After hearing that some studies indicate that dieting can sometimes lead to an increase in weight, I wondered how they were violating the First Law. I mean, the body can’t store calories it doesn’t take in, right? I still think that’s the law is true, but things other than calories can apparently generate fat cells. If it turns out to be true that a virus can do that, expect someone to work on a vaccine.

Silky Pony: Male Bimbo

I think that’d make a swell title when they make the biopic about this guy.

I wonder if the History Channel has ever run a cartoon biopic before.

Monkeys

A coworker of mine is obsessed with monkeys. An old film he was shown at age seven has just surfaced on the web, causing him to wonder if it triggered the obsession. It at least gave him nightmares.

And he’s not the only one.

Hall of Shame

The American Thinker has put together a list of MSM deceptions going back decades, along with a followup list.
He asks:

These offenses have been going on for years, long before the internet. But there does seems to be a rise in the number of reported offenses in recent years. Did the number of offenses go up, or did the fraction of discovered offenses go up?

I suspect the answer is “yes”. Fauxtography, in particular, has been much enabled by Photoshop. But the press has been lying for a long, long time.

Update:

Miniter writes How The New Republic Got Suckered. I don’t think a passive verb is appropriate. Did you know what position Beauchamp’s wife holds at TNR? And who the only person to be fired over the incident is?

Not to be missed.