(Note to literalists: the Watched column presently contains only a smattering of 'warblogs' because the facilitator of the template-change--Dr. Menlo--is not very familiar with them, and will be adding more as they are sent to him. Also, this blog may contain areas of allusion, satire, subtext, context and possibly even a dash of the surreal: wannabe lit-crits beware.)
Control
[Watch this space for: Pentagon and Petroleum, The Media is only as Liberal as the Corporations Who Own Them, Wash Down With, and Recalcify]
WARBLOGGER WATCH
Monday, July 08, 2002
Howard Owens asks, re my recent contribution, "Roy, so which specific Bible passage instructs Christians to kill infidels?"
Howard, that's why I said "pretexts," not "instructions." I don't believe the Bible tells us to kill (though a good editor would have cleaned up some of the more bloodthirsty passages).
This is no fault of the authors. If both of the sacred texts in question consisted of nothing but old Bar-Kays lyrics, people like the ones I mentioned would find divine justification for their rage.
Of course, these books don't consist of Bar-Kays lyrics, and some people, not normally persuaded by root-cause arguments, have blamed the Koran directly for terrorism. "Islam is a religion of war and conversion by the sword, not peace," says Armed & Dangerous, who also claims that the September 11 attacks were "the Koranically-correct expression of the tendency of Islam (Sunni fundamentalism) which is has been pre-eminent through most of Islamic history and now encompasses over 90% of the worlds Muslims... We need to face the fact that we are confronting not just a barbaric and evil group of men, but a barbaric and evil religion."
This leads to a simplified (and convenient) view of our enemies' motivations. But if it's true, why is this all happening only now? The Koran's been around a good long time, so why isn't American history studded with Arabic attacks on the Woolworth Building, the Pan-American Exposition, or the Corn Palace? If murderous Muslims have been "pre-eminent through most of Islamic history," why here and why now?
My guess is that, like most religionists, Muslims are lazy about their sacred texts, and till recently thought of jihad as some vaguely noble thing they really ought to look into sometime -- you know, like tithing. Of course, things have changed. Now we've got all these people talking Crusades ("In Arab lands the memory of Saladin burns as an unextinguished flame lighting the litany of wrongs to one day be righted"), and the energy seems to be flowing away from seeking out and cultivating moderate Muslims (and why would we? According to A&D and his friends, they doesn't exist), and toward Holy War.
To those of you who wonder why I've stopped harshing on Jim Lileks: get a whiff of this, in which Fightin'-Mad Suburban Dad rails against tattoos, undersized old supermarkets, the Guardian (natch), unions (except when they sustain his own pay scale), them there city folk, and Adam Sandler (well, even a stopped clock...).
He doesn't need me to make him look ridiculous. He's doing just fine by himself. posted by roy edroso12:18 AM
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Sunday, July 07, 2002
For want of more damning evidence, Andrew Sullivan obsesses on the "Read Koran" bumper sticker found on gun nut Hesham Hadayat's door. "Why should we be surprised," he says, "when, under the current circumstances and stoked by the new anti-Semitism from the Arab world and Europe, Hadyat [sic] took the Koran's injunction to kill Jews literally?"
Hadayat might have gotten his presumed murderous anti-Semitism anywhere. Here's one such source unaffilated with "the Arab world and Europe."
As to sacred texts, the Bible also offers a cornocopia of pretexts for killing infidels. Admittedly Fred Phelps hasn't shot any gay people yet, though he is awfully happy when they die, and his interpretation of Scripture is creepily seconded by some truly scary folks.
This sort of thing has, of course, been going on for a long time. As one who bows neither to Mecca nor Rome, but is dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, I would like to applaud Sullivan's Koran skepticism. But as he remains the world's preeminent gay Catholic apologist (who complains that "some of the most virulent anti-Catholic bigots in America are gay" as if this were not merely a favor returned), I don't see where he gets room to talk.
The profound embarrassment felt by Wall Street Journal newswomen and newsmen when they contemplate the cephalic protrusions and stooped gait of, say, accused woman-beater John Fund has been commented on widely. Discomfiting as the editorial lot is, they at least know how to hold a fork, and are able, nine times out of ten, to disguise their lunatic prejudices as scientific fact. Lummox Taranto cannot be bothered to deploy the camouflage and control his over-the-top enthusiasms. The distress his advent on the Journal's web pages occasioned among his colleagues on the other side of the Chinese Wall must have been colossal.
Twice last week I braved Taranto's obscenities, each encounter leaving me reeling. Twice last week, The New York Times flummoxed the lummox, leaving him both reeling and pining for the "semi-ordinary guy from Brooklyn" (from the Worcester Academy, actually): Ira Stoll, the erstwhile operator of smartertimes.com (where he casually juggled racist stereotypes) and current editor of the New York Sun (where he casually juggles racist stereotypes).
Where's Smartertimes.com When You Need It?
An embarrassing error in a New York Times editorial today: "The Bush administration's misguided campaign to demolish the International Criminal Court now threatens to undermine United Nations peacekeeping too, starting with Bosnia," it begins.
Of course, this should read: "The European Union's misguided campaign to establish the International Criminal Court now threatens to undermine United Nations peacekeeping too, starting with Bosnia."
Unremarkable and utterly typical of Taranto - aim for pith and achieve only pique. He did himself one better the following day with this:
The Times Goofs Again
The New York Times has really been slipping since Smartertimes.com closed up shop. Example: Prompted by Israel's latest military offensive in the West Bank and the Bush administration's demands for the ouster of Yasser Arafat, a debate is under way among Palestinians over suicide bombing. Today's New York Times has the story, but the lead paragraph of James Bennett's dispatch mistakenly uses the word muffled instead of prompted, which changes the whole meaning.
That word substitution game never grows old for the lummox does it?
Taranto and Saul Newton should conclude an executive session to determine the true nature of the Times' alleged precipitate crash. Was it the shuttering of an idiot's site which caught at least one spelling error a day in one of the thickest metropolitan dailies in existence or was it the barring of a self-important idiot who seems to have been diligently rewriting the same essay since 1993? posted by Grady8:56 PM
Dr Weevil writes in his blog his reason for using a pseudonym. This is the same Dr. Weevil that is fond of referring to anyone who disagrees with him as a moron. What kind of moron uses a pseudonym and registers the domain under his own name?
"I only use a pseudonym because I'm a high school teacher. If I put my real name on my blog, some of my students and their parents would read it, with various unpleasant consequences:
I would have to keep it G-rated. I prefer to write a PG-13 blog for grownups. I would have to avoid criticizing anyone that might be a friend of my students' parents, and that includes a lot of people who deserve severe criticism. For example, I taught at a very good school in Manhattan last fall: some of my students had parents who were New York Times editorialists and the like. I like to be able to give relatively specific examples on this blog without being sued. As Dr. Weevil, I can tell stories about idiot professors or clueless bureaucrats I have known without my readers being able to identify them by checking out my curriculum vitae. I have found it best not to discuss my politics with my students. Discussing modern politics in any but the most general way tends to divide students into pro-teacher and anti-teacher factions, and that interferes with the learning of Latin. I do make appropriate parallels and contrasts between ancient and modern politics, but I generally refuse to tell them how I vote, or what I think about abortion or the death penalty. On the two or three occasions that I have broken this rule, I have regretted it. Some students turned hostile, others thought they'd found a guru. I don't need either. Otherwise, my students' success rate in guessing how I vote in presidential elections is 50%, which seems about right. I would like to keep it that way I don't want to look like I'm 'pulling rank' on anyone by showing off my credentials. Yes, I do claim considerable expertise in Latin: it's my job Other than that, my arguments have nothing to back them up except (I hope) logic, evidence, and whatever else makes a good argument better than a bad one. Nothing is more tiresome than someone who thinks you should believe him because he went to Harvard, or has won some award, or has been on television, or something. There are plenty of morons with impeccable credentials, and vice versa. Of course, it all comes down to freedom of speech. If I were wealthy, or retired, or tenured, or a union member, or owned my own business, or worked at some other profession, I could use my real name. As it is, it seems inadvisable."
Organization:
Michael E Hendry
Michael Hendry
-9 Holmhurst
Catonsville, MD 21228
US
Phone: 4193-26852
Email: curculio@earthlink.net
First of all, let me say that my pseudonym is for literary fun . . . and my real name has been published on my blog as well as on Craig Jensen's (BookNotes). If you want to be a good sleuth, you can trace my actual identity back on the net to the first blog ever--links.net, which claims that the comedy newspaper I created at Georgetown--the Georgetown Gonzo--is the first comedy rag ever to be put on the internet.
Second, I don't take kindly to those who threaten lawsuit over information which is publicly available--that is, Dr. Weevil's real name--which is Michael Hendry.
My lawyer friends tell me that "intrusion on seclusion" is an actionable tort. I'm going to be kind and suggest that you delete your post of 12:46 this afternoon so that you will not have to find out whether that is so. It is especially important that you do so before some of your more hot-headed friends or readers decide to make obscene or offensive telephone calls to the people (not me) who live at the address and telephone number listed. There will be Hell to pay if that happens, and you will be legally liable whether you make the calls yourself or not. Your own pseudonym, and that of 'George Orwell', would probably not survive legal scrutiny.
A heads up from Mickey Kaus and the Instapundit: The recent assassination of an Italian policy wonk who was hostile towards labor may be only the beginning. Is a deadly synergy emerging, a synergy which leads inexorably to left-wing political violence in the United States?
Connect the dots for yourself: the Climate of Impunity on College Campuses, the Existence of an American Left, the Dynamic Leadership of the Unabomber and SFSU Palestinan Nationalists. The inescapable conclusion to be drawn here is that conservative academics in America have good reason to fear for their safety, to say nothing of the safety of their automobiles.
One detail that Kaus and Instapundit wouldn't necessarily know: A rather large number of American leftists are unlikely to support assassinations, harassment, or mafia-style intimidation tactics on general principle. In many cases, these individuals have adopted "Left" as their political label because they oppose death squads / the School of the Americas, because they're peaceniks, or because they oppose interracial violence, harassment of women, etc. My guess is that if Kaus and Instapundit feel threatened, it's no doubt a function of running a weblog and discovering just how many nutcases are out there! (Lefty blogger Tom Tomorrow has some comments on this phenomenon.) posted by Green9:26 AM
'having no answers, not knowing the correct course to follow, but knowing there's something rotten in the state of denmark. politikblogs are as ineffective as hamlet, worrying his desire for public justice like a dog with his favorite toothsome discard. they rage on impotently, endlessly, simply for the sake of releasing emotions. no utopia at the end of the journey; just neverending protests. today, now, this link is the alpha and omega. when the issue drops from the public eye, the politikblog drops it as well. there are no threads to follow, no connection to a past or a future, no resolution, no responsibility. hillman calls empty protest 'via negativa', the negative way. i see no politikblogger achieving public justice for any major issue; what i keep coming across is simply a string of petty private revenges. at the present time, politikbloggers devour each other over the actions of politicians who don't even know they exist, by reinterpreting carefully selected articles and opinion pieces generated by one of a double-handful of monopolistic media machines, as seen through the rose-colored glasses of their particular political caste. truly, "empty protest" ...' posted by Green5:46 PM
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Bob Weir in an article in the Texas Mercury is explicit: to beat the terrorists we must be more like them Weir is particularly opposed to judicial rights for terrorist suspects, because, as Weir reminds us, should we ever be unhappy enough to be captured by terrorists we are unlikey to be read our Miranda rights.
Weir says that we must give up our standards of justice and become terrorists ourselves. All alleged terrorists suspects, he says, should be
"thrown in solitary confinement and fed bread and water for a few weeks? Or better yet, pork slices and water. This could be in addition to other treatment, which I won’t get into because the squeamish would most certainly be mortified at the mere suggestion of physical punishment."
After all, "[s]ince they consider death to be their greatest reward, why not give them what they want."
No hint of that dreaded "moral ambiguity" there!. posted by total5:21 PM
Warblogging on bioterrorism doesn't have to be racist. The Bloviator's pros and cons on smallpox vaccinations is a good place to start reading up on the topic. Contrast "The Bloviator's" approach to what you see at Gene Expression, and draw your own conclusions regarding whether there is a potential for scientists to create racially targeted diseases ...
"The whole Arab world translates about 330 books annually, one-fifth the number that Greece translates," the report said. In the 1,000 years since the reign of the Caliph Mamoun, it concludes, the Arabs have translated as many books as Spain translates in just one year.
So says the New York Times.
If you spot any warbloggers demanding the immediate translation into Arabic of works of literature or non-fiction, e-mail me, greenflash2@hotmail.com, and I will post this news to Warblogger Watch.
"We have incontrovertible evidence that this dastardly act of terrorism against this symbol of American freedom was carried out by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein," said President Bush in an address to the nation last night. "We will strike swiftly against the Iraqi menace who perpetrated this foul deed and let the world know that we will not tolerate terrorism of any kind."
NABLUS - Israeli soldiers on Monday took Eric Levine, a U.S. human rights worker from New Haven, Conn.; Brian Dominick, a U.S. medical worker; and Peter Blacker, a U.K. medical worker to an army-occupied house near Nablus where they were made to stay under inhuman conditions, with no explanation, for over 45 hours. The detentions took place at 4pm on Monday, July 1.
The three were put in a small, unfinished room, out in the open. They remained in the open day and night without adequate shelter from the heat or nighttime cold. They were given one meal a day consisting of canned food and not allowed to use toilet facilities. The men repeatedly asked why they were being held and requested to make phone calls to their family and consulates, but were denied. Soldiers yelled at them, pushed them, and told them that if they tried to leave they would be shot.
All Hail Israel: the "Sparkling Democracy!" posted by Dr. Menlo12:43 PM
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Judging by near-unanimous (though greatly appreciated) animus shown Warblogger Watch, I doubt our endorsement will be much appreciated. I am here hoping that our approval will not be regarded by the simpletons as casting disrepute on the man and his endeavors, but Max Sawicky's continuing excellence must be acknowledged. Today Sawicky contemplates Andrew Sullivan's about-face on The New York Times. We've marveled over this ourselves.
Sullivan's praise for the paper was regular and immoderate when he still wrote for its magazine. That all began to change on the Times' hiring of Paul Krugman and nomination of Howell Raines as editor, though as recently as July 2001 he characterized the Times as "the best paper in the world," saying he was "proud to contribute to its magazine." When his contributions came to be regarded as unworthy and "Unfit to Print," as his vanity press describes itself with uncharacteristic accuracy, the Times, in Sullivan's fevered brain, went down the shitter with great instantaneity.
Note to MBA candidates completing dissertations on management and organizational learning: use Howell Raines - easily the most efficient leader since Biblical days - as a case study. In less than one year, according to Sullivan, Raines has introduced a systematic bias and indoctrinated the Times' 2,300 employees with his personal beliefs, to the cumulative effect of rendering "the best paper in the world" into a third-rate property which "simply cannot be trusted any more."
Of course, Saul Newton's departure from the Times' august pages contributed in no small measure to the paper's ruin - at least in his own three-horsepower mind. posted by Grady11:28 AM
• • • • •
A. Essay question. Two choices: life as an gay atheist in Oklahoma, or life as a Christian gay in Afghanistan. Write 1,000 words describing how each faces equal hardship. If your essay contains less than 1000 words, you will either be docked ten years in prison or suffer few consquences, depending on which morally-equal culture the teaching assistant wishes to consult.
B. Western Culture is equal or inferior to Arab culture because: (check any you believe apply)
1. Our so-called democracies are fronts for corporate interests. Nader doesn’t win here; Nader doesn’t win in Jordan. What’s the difference (Apart from the fact he wasn't running in one of those contries)?
2. Arabs so-called scientific inquiry unshackled from religious strictures is a sham. Didn’t every study of the stars end in failure because Abul Hasan never invented the Telescope? Isn't the whole world dirty because they never invented soap? Stupid Arabs!
3. We spend more on flavored massage oil than we do on foreign aid, which is so, like, typical. Saudi Arabia spends more on mosques here in the United States than their citizens spend on Hustler, which should tell you something.
4. We may execute the mentally-ill and minors, but they are equally puritanical. At least we let our condemned sit on death row for a while.
5. I saw this documentary on the Crusades, and did you know that Arabs killed white guys? Why the hell did we let any of them live? For god's sake, they're ISLAMIC.
6. No culture is better than any other.
7. Did you know that "hashish" comes from the Arab word for "Assassin?" And that "Editor" is derived from the name of the guy who chose which gladiators lived or died. Seriously. Those crazy kikes.
8. There’s absolutely no chance of me getting a hook-up on this campus if I said Islamic values rule. Nada. Half the men are, like, y'know, the Islamic church is full of priests who have sex with small boys, and if they were so great they wouldn't make their women wear that crazy head-gear. And they're all, like, caught up in their crazy weblogs and telling everyone just how bad shit those Islamic fuckers are and how we should bomb them back into the stoneage, which they are already in, apparently.
1. Describe the likelihood of Islamic Indonesian driving a truck-bomb up to the replacement hospital.
2. If this occurred, write an imaginary description of the celebration in Bali, as they celebrate the great victory.
3. As for the hospital itself, it was a government building: Describe your feelings if a member of the Bush administration had suggested that the rebuilt Hospital be fashioned in the style of a Ka`bah. Extra credit if you conclude by warning of internment camps for Christians.
37% of all college students said they would be "likely to try to evade the draft," while another 21% would be willing to serve "but only if stationed in the United States." Only 35% of college students today would be "willing to serve and fight anywhere in the world."
To those 37%:
1. Ever paid taxes? Just curious.
2. Do you have a romantic notion of joining an platoon which is decimated by rifle fire as the enemy, surrounded by the local population, swarm at you, killing the men you've lived with for the past three months, when suddenly your legs are literally shaved from your body, leaving you to lie, agape in agony, as the blood seeps from your body, the last thought in your mind as a RPG explodes somewhere to your right, that you wish you could see your mother one last time.
"More students (55%) can name the leader of the Palestinian Authority than the US Sec’y of Defense (32%) or National Security Advisor. (19%)"
A. Since the leader of the PA is a heterosexual male, and the National Security Advisor is a single Black female, your inability to know the latter is due to:
1. The obsessive media attention given to the worst of the world in order to secure ratings and hire advertising rates rather than - hold on, what was the question?
2. The People! United! Will Never Be Defeated!
3. The leader of the Palestinian Authority cannot possible have a higher media profile than an American, therefore he does not exist. He is simply an excuse for Israel to wall off the Gaza strip.
"While President Bush receives very high marks for his handling of the presidency (70% approval), a majority of college students (57%) believe the policies of the United States are "at least somewhat responsible" for the September 11th terrorist attacks.
A clear majority of college students (60%) believe "developing a better understanding of the values and history of other cultures and nations that dislike us" is a better approach to preventing terrorism than investing in strong military and defense capabilities at home and abroad" (33%)."
Given that Osama et al wish to reestablish the Caliphate and establish their faith as the planet’s sole religion, would you:
1. Understand the values of those who would ensure the Constitution makes God mandatory
2. Support a national effort to rewrite spellcheckers so they replace "Arab" with "Terrorist"
3. Support sending the religious police to break up homosexuals in their own house, hog tie them to the back of a truck, and drag them through town
4. Understand why the cause requires the death of this child:
This is, or rather was, Rami Jamal al-Durra and his father. They were shot by IDF forces in the Gaza strip. Your task: find the Eastern value that says he deserved to die. Find the Eastern value that says Allah wants this child to be shot in front of his father. Find a big-league Cleric who commended her killer to paradise, and a murderer's mother who exhulted in this child's extermination.
Last question: you remember that famous, horrible photo of the young girl fleeing naked from a napalm attack in Vietnam. You may know that she was treated in Saigon by American-staffed hospital. She survived, was held up as a heroine by the Communists, sent to Cuba to be educated - and she defected to the West for freedom the first chance she had.
Describe, in as many words as necessary, the likelihood of a Israel giving intensive medical care to Rami , granting him citizenship, appointing him to an international human rights board, and writing stories - for domestic newspapers - drenched in shame for the trauma he suffered.
PENIS WARS CONTINUE: Though this morning it's not the cadaver conducting field exercises, it's Saul Newton. When he writes, "Don't all go at once or you'll crash it again," he really means "Well, you know, Mean Gene, I'm gonna crowd the Palace at Auburn Hills/The Clark Street Playhouse/SurveyMonkey with thousands of screaming Sullivaniacs! Oh yeah! Sullivania's running wild, brother! It's gonna bring the house down!" posted by Grady8:28 AM
• • • • •
Tuesday, July 02, 2002
Pejman Yousefzadeh goes to the trouble of writing a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long post on the evils of left-wing, antiwar bloggers. (I'll summarize it for you: "You doo doo heads do nothing but call us names! And here are some other accusations, too, but I'm not going to back them up, because that would require linking to you doo doo heads! So there!")
Frankly, I am starting to feel left out. I'm a capitalist. I hate the welfare state. As far as I'm concerned, even the minimal state isn't minimal enough. What do I get? Nothing. It's left-wingers this and left-wingers that. Blah, blah, blah. You get nowhere with me by simply invoking the evils of DemocRATS. In fact, some of my favorite bloggers are warbloggers; it's amazing how sensible some of them can be when they're not writing about war. Whenever that may be. posted by Franklin7:58 PM
Little Green Footballs uses the term to describe the Left (and, in turn, Noam Chomsky).
Papascott uses the term to describe the South Koreans at the World Cup.
Edward Yachimiak Jr. uses the term in an e-mail to Bartcop for lampooning the US government.
Maruthecrankpot uses the term to describe Robert Novak, a CNN political analyst (I think - the grammar was a little hard to decode).
Hoystory uses the term to describe Martina Navratilova after she stated "The most absurd part of my escape [from Czechoslovakia] is that I have exchanged one system that suppressed free opinion for another."
It's great fun, you can do it, become anti-american, there's nothing to it! posted by wrongwaygoback7:34 PM
Now, Dennis, since you're presently about as edgy as a bran muffin wearing mittens, let me tell you who the real sheep are:::THE REAL SHEEP FOLLOW THIS MAN:
"Mr. Bush is tainted by his association with Jim-Crow-style selective disenfranchisement and executive strong-arm tactics in a southeastern province controlled by his brother," said Mr. Arafat, who was elected with 87% of the vote in 1996 elections in the West Bank and Gaza, declared to be free and fair by international observers, including former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. "Our count shows that he would have lost the election if his associates hadn't deprived so many thousands of African-Americans, an oppressed minority, of the right to vote. He is not the man to bring peace to the Middle East." [more]
If you look at the larger picture in both the Bush and the Clinton administrations, including, of course, past U.S. history as well, you see a systematic pattern of privileging corporate interest and corporate profits more than any questions of real security. When U.S. officials talk about national security, it is usually a code word for protecting corporate profits and U.S. military dominance abroad.
Once again, with Afghanistan, it is very clear that a lot of balls were dropped in the investigation of Al-Qaida, in part because they were more focused on getting the Taliban to agree to establish stability in the country so Unocal could have its pipeline (which they are now again moving forward with) and getting a foothold on the immense potential oil and natural gas reserves of all Central Asia, not just Afghanistan.
There is a consistent story here. U.S. officials are much more interested in their dealings with corporations and shilling for them than they are in the safety of the average American. [more]
So why do the Warbloggers so aggressively tow the line?--Do they get a cut, or are they just stupid? posted by Dr. Menlo7:13 PM
• • • • •
Ha! Man, this is some seriously funny stuff here, guys. Such high-grade material must really wow them come amateur night at the klavern. This, I suppose, is what we today call politically incorrect humor. In simpler times when our collective faculty for euphemism was less developed, it was called race baiting. posted by Grady8:52 AM
• • • • •
Sunday, June 30, 2002
I'm doing my best Doc Menlo Impersonation. For more of these go here.
Too often we neglect the more prolific and entertaining antecedent of the warbloggers, FreeRepublic. It often provides illuminating sidelights on the debate of the moment -- as when several of their members defended the First Amendment rights of Slim Shady because he had expressed contempt for homosexuals.
"The Pledge says the Nation is 'Indivisible' -- exactly what Lincoln believed. In contrast, the Lincoln haters who are so many on Freerepublic think secession was legitimate - - in other words, you believe the Nation is 'Divisible'..."
And they're off! Some of the more amusing Freeper responses:
"We know the war is over and we know who won. We just miss what was lost, freedom."
"Over and over again, Lincoln has been shown to be a scoundrel of the highest order."
"I don't believe this union should be 100% indivisible, I believe that the states should hold a right of secession as a last resort. I'm a proud Southron... But, that doesn't mean that I'm not a ferociously patriotic American. I love this country, I love that flag, and I love that Pledge of Allegiance."
"God fearing Patriots and Conservatives do NOT Pledge Allegiance to a piece of CLOTH or a tangle of poorly defined concepts. This is called IDOLATRY. Thinking Conservatives pledge allegiance to God..."
And my semantic favorite:
"Just because the union is indivisible does not mean that it is indissolvable."
Never forget, whenever you witness yet another indefensible crackpot synthesis by one of the warblogbrethren, that the Freepers are always there firstest with the mostest, albeit in less elevated language.
OK, help me out with this one: What is Glenn Reynolds trying to prove with this blog entry? That if you're critical of American foreign policy, then you must also hate America? And if you hate America, you'll become a double murderer? This is a bit of a reach even for the Instapundit. posted by Franklin7:06 PM
• • • • •
The warbloggers are learning - slowly - that not only are there other people out there with other interpretations, but that those other interpretations are occasionally valid and even binding. This realization is causing them no small measure of discomfort.
The proprietor of the waste of storage capacity and bandwith known as Right Wing News worries what the results will be when the International Criminal Court crashes head-on with national sovereignty. Us too. We look forward to watching the ICC in action, locating possible war criminals and the organizations that fund them - a task the warbloggers have shown nothing but the wildest of enthusiasms for. We are certain their enthusiasm will continue undiminished. posted by Grady1:42 PM
Public confidence that the United States and its allies are winning has slipped to 33%, the lowest level since Sept. 11. In January, amid news reports that the U.S. military had al-Qaeda terrorists on the run, 66% said the United States was winning the war. (06/26/02)
The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported last month (5/31/02) that at the behest of a Likud party minister, the Israel Broadcasting Authority has banned its editorial departments from using the terms "settlers" or "settlements" on radio and TV.
Somewhere, there sits the men and women who think up the language of what the government of the United States of Hypocrisy and Israel are really doing. Then they basically hand it to the corporate media who repeat it with high-priced sets, mugs and hair. Statisticians, linguists, and evil-writer-types all confer and come up with things like "Tell the public they are attacking us because they are resentful of our freedom. Repeat 'we are a freedom-loving people' every chance you get." If they are the Heritage Foundation, they deliver daily notes to the House and Senate, member by member (and also call up NPR when they are ready to spin; npr, in turn, slobbers all over them like a dog feeding on bacon). They consult Hollywood: Fiction Dept., to solicit advice and also to inject with the party line: CONTROL (and the messages thereof).
The rebel alliance counterspins, and continues to grow. They have the (media) markets; we have the truth. They cannot win, if we keep our brains. What happens next, depends on everything: you.
In addition to banging drums and blowing bugles on behalf of the unelected president and his nifty war effort, Andrew Sullivan, a/k/a Saul Newton, has enlisted in the color guard and assigned himself the task of waving the empire's flags. He recently registered an entry on the St. George's Cross, the preferred standard for loutish football fans across Sullivan's native England. We knew he'd eventually be diminished to his current station. He's been tending in that direction for years.
Sullivan's problem, endlessly deliberated and whined over in several media properties, is that he's a Brit in America. Never mind that hundreds of thousands relocate similarly each year, most doing so without the benefit of native comprehension of the language (here we are charitable to Sullivan) and a large bank account. Sullivan may well be the sole wastrel among them who has squandered a ponderable hectarage of newsprint in his incredibly novel project of documenting the experience. When work on the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine is at last completed, Sullivan will likely still be banging away about how he feels, like, so oddly American after visiting the orthodontist.
Sullivan's career in self-absorption is one of vacillations. One year he tells his devoted Sullivanians that he made a studied effort "to lose [his] accent within months of arriving" in America. The next year he plays Quentin Crisp (though substituting a gym towel for the trademark scarf), bloviating endlessly on foxhunting and other pursuits of Britain's overclass. The year following he embraces America and its innumerable wonders, and endorses military action against anybody anywhere who upsets our sleep.
The endless waffling in self-conception demands an attendant modification in opinion with each change. Sullivan, however, seems to have grown disoriented in the to and fro. Confused as to how and where he should be coming down, he diverts attention from his own insecurity with omnidirectional belligerence. A pair of drunken yobs turning over a Pak curry house makes for an unpleasant sight, but that's just the lads doing what they've done since times immemorial, when the ancient Britons devised a recipe for special brew and acquired their taste for casual violence. So as to prevent himself from getting caught with his pants down - again - Sullivan regards the exercise of American imperial might with the same easiness, though he is unable to locate any ugliness in our real actions against Afghanistan and he sees no ugliness in possible actions against Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. Recall Sullivan's helpful addition of the former two countries to the Axis of Evil in May. posted by Grady2:07 PM
• • • • •
Harold Owens tells us he "Wrote to [sic] quickly," and reader Dan Safford tells Owens's customers that Charley Reese "worte [sic] for years for the Miami Herald [sic, again]." One wonders how close Safford's reading could have been, as Reese "worte" in the Orlando Sentinel.
Reese leaves me ill at ease, though he often serves up heresies very worth hearing. Giving the wreck-in-progress of The War Against Terror (TWAT), I hope Reese revisits and updates the following, excerpted from his February 11, 2001 Sentinel column:
Let us look at ourselves realistically.
Our military power is mainly nuclear, and nuclear weapons are suicidal. We have not won a real war since 1945. We had a stalemate in Korea and defeat in Vietnam. The Gulf War amounted to a mugging of the expeditionary force of a Third World country. It is no great military feat for 1,200 advanced warplanes, 600,000 troops and a fleet of modern ships to drive 200,000 draftees out of Kuwait, where inhabitants had neither air support nor cover.
We've become a nation that deludes itself with hype. We called that a great victory, and we conveniently forget that a truck bomber drove us out of Lebanon. The barefoot soldiers of a Somali warlord drove us out of Somalia. We have since taken to using $1 million missiles to blow up an aspirin factory in Sudan and some tents and outhouses in Afghanistan.
The war against Yugoslavia was a failure. We bombed a little country of 10 million souls. Their army, however, emerged unscathed. And we drove out the people we intended to protect. In the end, Russian diplomacy saved our face. Now our own inept diplomacy has American troops sitting in armed compounds for an indefinite period of time and with no hope of solving the political problems.
If we continue to pursue American hegemony, we will create our own opposition. What we have to do is recognize that the rest of world is not going to accept American hegemony.
The guy responsible for this blog entry at Global News Watch is such a blithering idiot that he thinks that Charley Reese is a leftist. If you can't tell your left from your right, you probably shouldn't have a blog.
Anyway, our blogger, Howard Owens, makes the usual, baseless charges of anti-Semitism and trots out a poll to "prove" that Americans care about the Middle East. (No, dear. Americans care about terrorists from the Middle East coming to America.)
Then we get this howler: "Israel is the front line in this war. It must be protected at all costs. If Israel cannot be saved, none of us, including Mr. Reese, can be saved."
Oh, please. If Israel magically disappeared tomorrow (and, no, I am not calling for the destruction of Israel), the main reason the Islamic world dislikes us would vanish, too. Don't give me the usual crap about how they hate our way of life. Polls taken in the Middle East show that most Muslims love our way of life. It's our foreign policy they can't stand. posted by Franklin8:50 AM
• • • • •
Instapundit writes, and sponsors a forum, on the proposition that decreased enrollment by males in colleges (which is to say, increased enrollment by folks of that other gender) is due to nefarious biases against boys. Today's straw man (or woman, or wimmin): Andrea Dworkin.
One waits breathlessly for IP's analysis of the fall-off in white guys on NBA teams. Might this be something else to blame on Cornell West? posted by roy edroso8:14 AM
• • • • •
Wednesday, June 26, 2002
On May 3, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in response to the Enron scandal, "Capitalism expands wealth primarily through creative destruction -- the process by which the cash flow from obsolescent, low-return capital is invested in high-return, cutting-edge technologies. But for that process to function, markets need reliable data to gauge the return on assets."
These words are haunting as we crash into another bogus-accounting scandal, this time courtesy of WorldCom. "If trust in Corporate America was already broken," reports CNN, "now it's in shambles."
Not good news. But the reaction at National Review Online today has been a fit a nervous giggling. Rod Dreher turns his schadenfreude, not on Arthur Anderson, but on MCI's lousy customer service: "I remember telling my wife that any company that incompetent in dealing with simple billing matters and customer-service requests has serious problems. This morning, quod erat demonstrandum." (Q.E. Duh, more like.) Robert George hopes that the Pledge of Allegiance case will divert the public from this scandal (unaware, perhaps, that invoking God as a diversion while people's pockets are being picked can have disastrous repercussions).
But the howler is supplied by Larry Kudlow ("CEO of Kudlow & Co."), who, in a spectacular show of bad timing, says that consumer confidence in Wall Street should be restored by an attack on Iraq:
"Could it be that a lack of decisive follow-through in the global war on terrorism is the single biggest problem facing the stock market and the nation today? I believe it is.... The shock therapy of decisive war will elevate the stock market by a couple-thousand points."
The Jingo prescription is novel but unconvincing. Maybe we should instead try to get the Lords of Wall Street (and, while we're at it, of Washington) to stop lying to us.
Andrew Sullivan runs a survey, finds his readership is "skewed right." Correct on both counts, I'm sure.
He also finds the Sullivanians are "overwhelmingly male (85 percent) and heterosexual (87 percent)," which fact he believes "will drive Richard Goldstein and others nuts." I doubt Goldstein, or anyone other sentient being, will be in the least surprised.
But the money shot is this observation:
"I was also struck by the fact that California is our biggest state; and that we're very blue-state heavy. I guess the site attracts blue-state dissidents or simple skeptics, or it reflects the often ignored fact that large numbers of people in the blue states are not knee-jerk liberals."
"Often ignored" by whom? Sullivan, preeminently. First there was his oft-quoted fear that the Blue States would "mount a fifth column" against the War on Whatchamacallit. Later, when John Walker rolled in with the Afghan tide, he was moved to compare Walker with war casualty John Spann, and the Blueness of the former's home state with the Redness of the latter's, opining:
"The thing that stood out most starkly is the blue-red split... Both [men] are almost absurd stereotypes of each part of America... One is from Alabama; the other is from Marin County, California. One is a national hero, the first American casualty at the hands of the enemy. The other is the enemy. Does it get any starker than that?"
Now Sullivan discovers (via SurveyMonkey) a divergence of opinion among residents of the Republic of Blue. Will someone please tell him that such divergences have been found even in Red States? And that it's rather unseemly to decry ignorance of which he himself has been a leading promulgator? posted by roy edroso11:39 PM
• • • • •
At the height of the last Australian Federal Election, and unsurprisingly the one before that, there were two massively overused terms, one was "racist", the other "un-Australian".
To put this in context - during the first of these two Federal Elections there was a political wildcard and idiot, Pauline Hanson, whose views (now oddly adhered to by John Howard) were labelled "racist", and anyone who so-much as expressed the opinion that some things she said might be right was called a racist as well. If you thought there should be less immigrants coming into Australia, you were racist. If you you thought there should be an inquiry into how the Aboriginal community was spending the $1 billion in funding they were receiving to no effect, you were racist. If you thought multiculturalism might not be the best way forward for the community, you were racist. If you agreed investigation into the rise in youth crime of various ethnic communities was warranted, you were racist.
Last election is was un-Australian. If you agreed with mandatory detention, you were un-Australian. If you thought we should review the immigration policies, you were un-Australian. If you felt that the Government shouldn't rush into a military effort in Afghanistan, you were un-Australian. An so on and so forth.
Now, unsurprisingly, there is a reoccurance of this pattern in America, though the new term is "anti-American" & "anti-Israel". Believe that the "War on Terror" is a shambles lead by an inconsistant and ill-defined strategy - why, that's anti-American. Believe the last American elections were a complete mess and the wrong guy won - hey, that's anti-American! Believe that the American calls for unilateralism on the war effort while screwing it's supporters on the World Trade Market is hypocritical - damn you, you anti-American bastard! The same goes for "anti-Israel". Think that the Palestinians have a ligitimate cause in wanting their own state, bingo! you're anti-Israel. Believe that Israel & American intervention is as much to blame for the current situation in the middle-east as anyone else? Why then you're both anti-American and anti-Israel. Think that the current Israeli effort to build a "fence" around the West Bank is a little to remenicent of the rounding up and systematic killing of Jews in Poland - then shut the fuck up, you anti-Israeli Nazi facist pig.
Over the next few weeks I'll be tracking the usage of the terms "anti-American" and "anti-Israel" across the warbloggers to illustrate this point. For instance, warblogger watch is anti-American because of this post by Grady Oliver.
Media Minded uses the word to describe the Left because, well, they're the Left. They must be anti-American.
Broken Images uses it to describe The Guardian becuase, well, it too leans to the Left.
If you should happen to spot any rampant overuse of either terms, feel free to contact the warbloggerwatch and tell us. But be careful to conceal who you are - you wouldn't want to be labelled anti-American. posted by wrongwaygoback7:43 PM
• • • • •
Oh dear---Li'l Scotty "Trustfund" Ganz has finally snapped. Apparently he has lost what little mind he had left, been driven into a frenzy of blood lust, and threatened our own Grady Olivier with unconscionable violence. Scotty imagines himself going to Grady's house and "kick[ing] his fucking teeth down his lie-clogged throat." The Warblogging worldview appears to have affected the inner depths of Scott's psyche and caused him to become a violence crazed madman---OK, he already was violence crazed, but now his violent thoughts are not directed only at the Muslim world, but at a peaceful, hard-working Maori-American. Snotty Scotty goes on to attack the parents of the various Warblogger Watchers in the same sort of high-pitched, screeching, hysterical tone that characterizes all of his writings, whether on political matters, his new Hello Kitty lunch box, or his oh-so-difficult job driving a mid-level/sub-talent movie director around Hollywood.
What's worse, Ganz has received several comments applauding his efforts, some which refer to Mr. Olivier as a bully---Snott threatens to assault Grady, and it's Grady who is the bully? Shame on you folks. You should know better---doesn't coming out on the side of violence for violence's sake support what we at Warblogger Watch have been saying about all of you Warbloggers all along?
So shaken is Grady that he has retained experienced legal counsel to see if Scott Ganz's comments are actionable; in addition, Mr. Olivier has hired personal protection, so you better not try anything, Ganz!
As to Snott's claim that all the Warblogger Watch contributors (wise Menlo, brave Edroso, sage Olivier, et al) are the same person, I can only say the idea is absurd; come to think of it, however, I have never seen Papa Lowell and Unkie Babaloo in the same place... posted by Brad3:14 PM
Of course, some never stop rattling. Quoth the Central Scutinizer, commenting on a different article in a different context (but expressing a POV all too familiar to his readership):
"Is it just me, or is keeping the United States from feeling good about, well, anything, but especially itself the main consistent theme of The Nation crowd? And why is that, exactly?"
A possible answer may be found in the abovementioned Pluchinsky item. Many recent attempts to feed (or, rather, force-feed) our nation's self-esteem (or, rather, its esteem for the current Administration) have been just plain ridiculous, and therefore counterproductive. It's not just "keeping the United States from feeling good" to say so. In fact, given the current shut-up-and-wave-your-flag environment, I'd say it's really a public service.
Brendan O'Neill doesn't support human rights, because "Human rights has become a byword for Western governments getting rid of regimes they don't like and installing pro-Western, pro-human rights regimes in their place." Brendan declares that human rights are less important than political and democratic rights.
"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
Brendan O'Neill does not support this.
"Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty"
Brendan O'Neill does not support this.
"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."
Brendan O'Neill does not support this.
"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."
Brendan O'Neill does not support this.
"Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law."
Brendan O'Neill does not support this.
"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."
Brendan O'Neill does not support this.
"Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him."
Brendan O'Neill does not support this.
"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."
Brendan O'Neill does not support this.
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
Brendan O'Neill does not support this either - even though his govenment, country and fellow citizens do, which is why he has the ability to espouse his point of view on the Internet. posted by wrongwaygoback6:15 PM
• • • • •
Saturday, June 22, 2002
Glenn Reynolds is coming around to the idea that we need neo-colonialism to prevent the Saudis and Egypt from getting nukes. As I see it, colonialism is the one thing that will insure they get them. No one in Washington seems to care about nukes possessed by our client states, after all. posted by Franklin6:56 PM
• • • • •
Quoted approvingly by somewarbloggers is this jeremiad from State Department terrorism expert Dennis Pluchinsky, claiming that published discussions of any subject germane to national security abets terrorism. "Al Qaeda terrorists now know to pay a speeding ticket promptly," he writes. "They now know not to pay for things with large amounts of cash." The power of Big Media is apparently greater than previously suspected; never in their wildest imaginings have conservatives before imputed to BM the power to impart common sense.
"The president and Congress," suggests Pluchinsky, "should pass laws temporarily restricting the media from publishing any security information that can be used by our enemies."
As this Administration is famously inattentive to matters of Constitutional law, why should they wait? There are companies that every day provide information of use to our enemies, and swift action could easily be taken against them.
Take Berlitz, for example. As of now, any terrorist can walk in off the street and learn sufficient English to read our treasonous newspapers, or find nuclear recipes on the Internet.
Or Web MD. At this website, one can learn how to deal with anthrax poisoning. Given that the terrorists are notoriously clumsy with their biocontaminants, might not this advice be used to improve their methods?
There are also many sites where national security matters are discussed in detail on a near-daily basis. These very loose cannons provide a treasure-trove of strategic insights, albeit of a highly fanciful kind, and could give some Berlitz-educated Al Qaedan dangerous ideas. The Feds should be on these outlets like white on couscous. They might begin here.
Despite yesterday's promise to limit my warblogger-watching, I am moved to offer the following, much like someone downing a large quantity of ipecacuanha is moved to vomit all over the fucking place.
I have caught this blissful idiot dispensing some ill-informed opinion. Employing that most shopworn of rhetorical devices, he asks himself several questions. Allow me to answer here them in sequence:
1) How will a Palestinian state come about?
Answer: Likely through international fiat, much like Israel did. Amazing that Israel, which owes its existence to the affirmation of international opinion, operates in complete indifference to the same.
2) Will the Palestinians get everything they want in their state?
Answer: Of course not. A demilitarization of the PA is not just likely, it is already largely achieved, what with Sharon's longstanding efforts to undermine and destabilize the Palestinians by targeting their security forces. You are again correct re: the right of return. The Palestinians will of course be told, "no, you can't go back to the house in Jaffa which you fled over 50 years ago." Such rights are reserved for wealthy former inhabitants of the Baltic republics of the Soviet Union and their even wealthier offspring. Your point about the larger settlements standing is again largely correct.
Incorrect, however, are your conclusions from the recent Palestinian Jerusalem Media and Communication Center poll that, as has been parroted everywhere by everybody, purports to show that the "Majority [of] Palestinians See Israel's Elimination as Goal." A quibble that handily shows that the poll, if it is to demonstrate a majority falling this way or the other, is wildly inconclusive is evident in the very text so often linked to by the warbloggers: "Fifty-one percent of people surveyed said the end result of the uprising should be 'liberating all of historic Palestine,' referring to British-mandate Palestine, part of which was recognized as Israel in 1948." The piece also noted "The poll had a three percent margin of error." A quibble, true, but the poll cannot be said to demonstrate a majority.
Interestingly enough, the previous poll gauging the same attitudes (conducted March 2002) asked the question with greater precision and in a manner that did not corral respondents into endorsing the "pushing of the Jews into the sea" as the worn saw puts it. In that poll, a full 41.6 per cent favored a "Two state solution: an Israeli and a Palestinian." A further 31.6 per cent reported wanting a "Bi-national state on all of historic Palestine." The possible response that demanded the Jews be pushed into the sea, a "Palestinian state on all of historic Palestine and return of refugees," was selected by a meager 12.5 per cent of those polled. I have no doubts that the Palestinians have been further radicalized by the intervening three-odd months, though the methodological poverty of the most recent JMCC poll undermines the results to the such an extent that they cannot be regarded seriously.
3) How will the Palestinians rationalize the fact that their state does not match their expectations (fantasies)?
How touching that you parenthetically and snidely deride them as "fantasies." Your question can be answered in tandem with the one that follows:
4) What will be the result of that rationalization?
Answer: Probably a general acceptance of their lot, much like they have generally accepted their current wretched lot. B'Tselem shows that 354 Israeli civilians and security personnel were killed by Palestinians in the 15 years ending January 2002. The intensification of the violence since then is, of course, noted, though the historically minded will of course recognize it as an aberration. This works out to an annualized 24 Israelis killed by Palestinians. Nearly 4,300 people were murdered in New York City in 1990-1991.
5) What will be the near-term result of creating a Palestinian state under anything resembling current conditions?
Answer: Again, I do not know, but I see no basis whatsoever for your assertion that "The creation of a Palestinian state under current conditions will lead to increased terrorism - certainly against Israel and quite probably against America." This seems only an odd expectation (fantasy) on your part that justifies the continued immiseration of the Palestinians.
PENIS WARS CONTINUED: Steve, I'm not obsesessed with Reynolds traffic - twoposts hardly an obsession makes. Hell, I wouldn't give it a passing thought if Reynolds didn't insist on going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about it. posted by wrongwaygoback8:32 PM
• • • • •
Warblogger watching is harder on the ocular faculties than I had imagined, though the stomach upset it often occasions is far less surprising. I can now understand why the wonderful Mr. Eric Blair posts so seldom to this forum - he's no longer up to the task. Repeated confrontation with the obnoxious bilge discharged by the warbloggers frays the nerves and withers the spirits. Warblogger watching is, at bottom, an auto-administration of the Ludovico Technique, though it has none of the associated ameliorative upshots on character.
Actually, it works the other way. Having realized the deleterious effects on my psyche and my person, I am forced to limit my output on these pages. Having to suffer through another of Lowell Ganz's Rosemary Kennedy-like embarrassment of a son's shameful fulminations would surely reduce me to David Brock levels.
Before I take my leave for the next few days, allow me to offer a few notes for that most objectionable of warblogging sissies. "The Franchise" puts forward the following this afternoon: "ISLAMIKAZES: How's that for a new name for suicide bombers? A reader suggested it." Quite an indication as to who is reading your running display of prejudices, Sully! Warbloggers have been tossing that one around since April, at least. The more scrupulous employing the term cited this Jerusalem Post article crediting the term to professor Rafi Israeli, himself as much a remorseless thief of verbiage as your "reader."
The piece in which Prof. Israeli is credited bears a December 20 dateline (he used the term again in a March 21, 2002 piece, the likely location of the warbloggers' initial encounter with the "neologism"). Sadly for the learned professor, the term appeared first in a New Statesman piece. Worse, the issue of the Statesman from which the term was lifted was current when the Post wrongly credited him. The coincidence in dates strongly suggests Israeli merely repeated something he had read first in the Statesman. That he appears to have not issued a letter correcting the misattribution, which, given his later use of the term - in scare quotes and again without assigning the term to James - seems to suggest deliberate theft. A perusal of the professor's "scholarship," furnished no reason to believe he regards prevailing standards in academic discourse with anything above contempt.
I mention all this merely to register a miniscule correction in the historical record. I know how big you warbloggers are on accurate attribution ("Yes, I invented the term Paleostinians." Good for you, sugar!). As some guy/girl wrote, "this is the something or other, and we can do something your whatsitcalled." Or something. posted by Grady2:25 PM
• • • • •
Joshua Treviño has responded (June 17) to me responding to him, to which I will (briefly) respond. (Is the Blogosphere the Forum Romanum, or a hall of mirrors? We disport, you decide.)
In the previous edition, Joshua cited three American Muslim belligerents, and has now added more (along with a few British ringers), to say something about Islamic Westerners -- I'm still not sure what, as his argument is larded with demurrers ("I've no doubt that one can be Muslim and American"), but it still sounds bad. For example, from his follow-up:
"It's unfortunate but true that alone among immigrant and minority communities, it is the Muslims of the West who tolerate and often abet prominent strains of hostility toward their host cultures."
Here's an account of a party held in Chicago three years back, when Clinton pardoned some Puerto Rican terrorists who had helped blow up some Americans (their fellow Americans, one might say) in the 1970s:
"Last night, several hundred members of Chicago's Puerto Rican community celebrated the release of the prisoners with music and speeches before ex-prisoner Ricardo Jimenez took the stage to wild cheers. Speaking in Spanish, Jimenez called for a 'Puerto Rico libre' and said he would not stop the fight until Oscar Lopez Rivera and the other prisoners are free."
A lot of people, regrettably, feel some measure of cultural sympathy for terrorist movements within their own countries. But I don't recall anyone suggesting that selected Puerto Rican nationalists be detained without charges lest we get a repeat of the Truman shootout. Charging, trying, and jailing the perpetrators seemed to work fine.
It's no defense of hostile Islamic fundamentalism to say that their stateside sympathizers have the right to believe what they will, and say what they will, and that the government should only lock them up for actual crimes. That's long been America's secret weapon against totalitarian ideas -- kill 'em with Constitutionalism. I still think it could work.
PENIS WARS CONTINUE: Richard Hailey has taken on my mathematic analysis. Let's take a look at it.
Firstly, remember hits are a different issue to Unique Viewers. Hits are the number of times a page is visited. Unique Viewers are the number of people who visit the site. The number of Unique Viewers is ALWAYS lower than the number of hits (for obvious reasons).
Secondly, all the figures came from the Extreme Tracking figures:
The main reason Richard's numbers differ so greatly from mine is that he is taking the current month's project figures, whereas I'm using the average figures. This month seems to be an exception (due to some major referrers (who will be one-hit-wonders), and will eventually affect the average. As he noted, my estimates were very rough and didn't exactly match the averages.
However, my very good friend Jeff pointed something else out to me.
"The flaws in Extreme Tracking have a lot to do with the etremely inflated unique monthly visitors count. As you note, unique visitors and unique IP addresses are 2 very different things. But look at his daily & weekly #s for this week (12:20 pm):
5,389 + 17,130 = 22,519. Not accounting for dynamic IP addresses, the only way those could be 22,519 different individuals is if none of the 17,130 from Monday returned on Tuesday. Not likely. Extreme shows 427,260 uniques over the past 29 days. That works out to about 14,733 per day over the course of a month. Given that his daily average is shown as 14,733, it seems quite obvious that Extreme Tracking doesn't count monthly uniques - it takes the daily uniques across the entire month and adds them together to arrive at the monthly unique total. The only way that 427,260 number could be accurate was if each day 14,733 new visitors came to his site once and never came back again. Jeff"
In other words, the weekly and monthly figures are COMPLETELY FLAWED.
This makes it nigh-on impossible to find how many repeaters there really are.
But...
Using Richard's maths, Insnayapundit gets on average 225691 hits on average per month. So 225691/30 should equal 7523 hits a day. Why doesn't that match the average uniques? Why is it less? Isn't that a sheer impossibility?
But nevermind... We'll keep going.
7523 multiplied by 8% gives 602 for AOL users. Applying the AOL factor of 3, we can assume that 1805 (Richard multiplied wrong on his page, multiplying by 2). 7523-1805 = 5718. At the upper AOL level of 14% that leaves 4363.
So those figures show 4363 - 5718, well within my 3000-8000 range.
PENIS WARS CONTINUE: Glenn Reynolds continues to discuss the length of his cock, despite his constant remarks that he doesn't care about it. Glenn has this latest gem:
Extreme Tracker, which counts only the main page, reports 226,916 unique visitors so far this month, for whatever that's worth.
So, what is it worth?
According to the quoted figures, Instapundit gets about 15,000 unique visitors each weak. Of these we need to work out how many are one-hit-wonders there are [floaters] and how many regular visitors there are [repeaters]. The big problem is that floaters will use several IPs over the course of a day, with the impact growing over the period of a month. For instance, an AOL user who logs on the internet and surfs to Instapundit twice a day will show up as two unique visitors on one day, 14 across a week, and 60 unique visitors across a month because of the roaming AOL IP addresses. In other words, the Instapundit unique figures get worse and worse as time goes on.
So let's mess with the maths as an example.
Assuming the figures are correct, if Reynolds is getting ~211,000 uniques a month, then about 6,800 of his 15,000 average visitors/week are floaters, with the remaining 8,200 his actual loyal audience ((6,800[floaters] x 30[days]) + 8,200[repeaters] = 212,200). This, of course, is only accurate if the repeaters only count once. The problem is, they don't.
So looking at the weekly figure, the breakout is more like 11,500 of the 15,000 are floaters, with the remaining 3,500 repeaters ((11,500[floaters] x 7[days]) + 3,500[repeaters] = 84,000). This, again, is only accurate if the repeaters only count once.
This is radically different - the monthly figures showing 8,200 repeaters, the weekly figures showing only 3,500. The fact of the matter is that the repeaters have a massive impact on the unique figures due to changing IP addresses.
Which figures are more accurate? It's hard to say. At best we can say that the loyal Instapundit audience is somewhere between 3,500 and 8,200 loyal readers, with the remaining views borne of people floating in on referral, web searches or simple spidering and never come back to Instapundit.
With 8,200 loyal readers at best, the New York Times need not fear Reynolds just yet. posted by wrongwaygoback12:04 AM
• • • • •
Monday, June 17, 2002
Though no formal alliance has been concluded, we learned last week that the mighty Max Sawicky, one of our go-to guys for stats and studies over at Like Father Like Sun, was referring readers of his Weblog to this very site. Noted and appreciated. The man today tosses his hat into the Warblogger-watching ring along with this entry, the first of five promised necropsies of a corpse interred down Tennessee way. Our enterprise acquires further dignity. How about yours? posted by Grady3:54 PM
• • • • •
I hate to harsh on Joshua Treviño, since he has been a respectful opponent (May 29), but there's something in his current edition (June 10) that begs to be addressed:
"A John Walker Lindh makes for a freak case. A Richard Reid makes for a disturbing coincidence. A Jose Padilla makes for a trend. What will it take to shut them down? At what point does an ideology, a belief, or a faith become incompatible with the very idea of our America?" [italics mine]
While the headcount on Muslims in America is notoriously fungible (so much so that the State Department would rather talk about the number of mosques in America than the number of Muslims stateside), it's safe to say there are at least a million Mecca-facers hereabouts.
Is three out of a million a trend? If you think so, consider that there are about 45,000 Catholic priests in the United States, and at least 70 Holy Fathers have been caught molesting children over the past ten years in the Boston archidocese alone.
If three per million is, by JT's logic, a trend, what's (numbering conservatively) 1,556 per million? A tipping point? And should we not then carpet-bomb the Vatican?
Does WorldNetDaily fall within WBW's bailiwick? Well, we do monitor National Review Online and OpinionJournal and other lunacy disseminators that are not technically warblogs. If you need a McGuffin, RightWingNews (prominent on the linkbar of the Central Scrutinizerhimself) has spoken favorably of the WorldNetDaily item in question. In any case, this one is too good to miss.
Referring to a Zogby poll that claims most Mexicans believe their country is entitled to take back parts of the U.S., WorldNetDaily columnist Joseph Farah sees stateside Mexicans as "America's Palestinians." "The leaders of this movement are meeting continuously with extremists from the Islamic world," says Farah, and bolsters his claim with quotes from the website of the Aztlan movement.
"This is a story about a movement to create a new state within the borders of the continental United States," warns Farah. "It is a column designed to alert you and your elected officials to vital national security issues."
I've seen the Aztlan site, whose members indeed believe that they have been gypped out of their birthright. And I've seen FreeRepublic, many of whose members... well, let's hear them tell it:
Regarding the "South Carolina Sovereignty Flag" (sic till further notice): "I don't see why all South Carolinians do not embrace this flag - it a sovereign flag of freedom."
Freepers on other recent topics:
"I wouldnt call the souths attempts to secede 'treasonous rebellion'. Nor would i call it a 'civil war'. It truly was a war for 'Southern Independance.'"
Add to these Freepers' many loving references to Jeb Davis, Confederate anthems, Confederate flags, and such like, and you'll notice that Aztlan isn't the only, or even the most troublesome, bellwether of secessionism in our country today.
When will Joseph Farah "alert you and your elected officials to vital national security issues" regarding these folks? When will he report that they are "meeting continuously" with like-minded Southrons while Homeland Security sleeps?
If John Ashcroft can arrest somebody for planning something--and by planning meaning allegedly not having gotten past the looking-it-up-on-the-internet-stage (no physical materials attained, etc.)--and file them away into military jail whilst simultaneously stripping away their constitutional rights as American Citizens (at first it was just the 'them'--the non-American citizens, and civil liberties groups warned . . . ), and stage and orchestrate the release of this information just so to really get the American public going--that is, AFRAID . . . who's to say it can't happen to you? I mean: in a totally trumped-up way--is what we think.
. . . further FEAR.
Remember, this is the Frog Boil here, as propagated by Bush & Co., and if we look at the direction of things, who's to say that the remaining dissenting voices in America (larger than advertised?) won't get clipped? Filed away?
To further my potentially future legal (political) case, I plan to append my email with this:
ATTN: ECHELON, CARNIVORE, AND OTHER CURIOUS SOURCES: I, DR. MENLO, DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR TO CURRENTLY BELIEVE--AND DO ESPOUSE BY LIVING--IN THE VALUE OF PEACE. MEANING PHYSICAL . . . PEACE/NO WAR. NO VIOLENCE. NO BLOWING THINGS UP. NO LETTING PEOPLE GO HUNGRY. NO LETTING THE TOP ONE PERCENT OF THE POPULATION OWN NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF EVERYTHING, AND I PLAN TO PROPAGATE THESE MEMES: THRU ART, THRU VERSE, THRU BEAUTY, AND YOUR PROGIT-LESSNESS. NO VIOLENCE. NO WAR. PRO-HUMAN. PRO-BRAIN. PRO-BODY. PRO-TRUTH. ANTI-HELPLESSNESS. GET YOURS NOW-->DRMENLO.COM
While retailing some of his experiences during the much ballyhooed "Operation Anaconda," [Army Private Matt] Guckenheimer artlessly spilled what was surely meant to be a secret order from his superiors.
"We were told there were no friendly forces," Guckenheimer said. "If there was anybody there, they were the enemy. We were told specifically that if there were women and children to kill them."
Let that sink in for a moment: American soldiers were told to kill women and children. "Specifically." To kill a child. To put a bullet in the brain of, let's say, a two-year old girl. To hold the barrel of a rifle to her tiny temple and pull the trigger. To watch as the tender plate of her skull, the delicate bones of her face, her large bright inquisitive eyes were all obliterated in a burst of red mist. "We were told specifically to kill them." "Women and children." "To kill them."
So that's the kind of warfare being waged by those notorious two cowards, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. When their own generation was on the firing line, in Vietnam, both men ardently supported the war--but disdained to fight in it. For his part, Cheney was too busy with his long bootlicking rise to power: "I had other priorities," he has loftily proclaimed.
Meanwhile, Bush's daddy got his drink-addled little boy a cushy stateside berth in the Texas National Guard--but even then, Junior couldn't stick it. He bugged out for an entire year of his duty--desertion in wartime, a capital offense, if you're not rich and well-connected. Fortunately, his service records for that period were "scrubbed" by General Daniel James, former head of the Texas National Guard, who is now head of the entire nation's Air National Guard -- courtesy of his appointment by a grateful George W. Bush.
Now these two armchair warriors, Bush and Cheney, ensconced safely behind the greatest phalanx of personal protection ever seen in history, are sending out a new generation of young people to kill and die. Like their predecessors in the Vietnam War, they are twisting the faith and idealism of patriotic young soldiers and turning them into instruments of murder.
And the Warbloggers cheer them on! "Go Georgie! Go Dickie! You can do it! Kill Babies! Go Georgie! Go Dickie . . . " posted by Dr. Menlo7:41 PM
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Friday, June 14, 2002
Warblogger-watching grows tiresome. The lummoxes at OpinionJournal are hauling off on the Lebanese, insufficiently outraged journalists, and a poor Ukrainian fellow for not raising an appropriate furor over the Lebanese Daily Star's failure to include the IHT as an insert, as is customary. The reason? The IHT "had an ad from the American Jewish Committee deploring anti-Semitic incidents around the world." As Taranto explains (partly) "Under Lebanese law, a foreign publication distributing in the country cannot publish items deemed propaganda for Israel." He cribbed that explanation from the AP, but neglected to include the sentence that followed: "Lebanon and Israel are technically at war."
Despite an earlier court case occasioned by the Daily Star's inclusion of an IHT insert which carried an ADL insert, Taranto's characterization of the Star's decision not to sell the IHT as "censorship in the Arab world" is questionable. The IHT's agreement with the Star provides the IHT be included without modification. It is curious indeed that an advocate of businessmen's rights of the more rebarbative sorts calls a publisher's decision not to accept an advertisement (with the unfortunate extension being his contractual obligation to refuse the remainder of the paper) "censorship."
Jonah Goldberg is at it again. He admits that "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla's rights are being violated, but he just doesn't care.
He writes:
[T]he issue isn't "can" Padilla's rights be violated, but should they be violated. I ask two questions to come to my conclusion. What does Padilla deserve? And, what should Americans expect their government to do?
As for what Padilla deserves, the short answer is nothing. Al-Qaida rejects the Geneva Convention and the rules of war because its aim is mass murder for mass-murder's sake. Its operatives are all essentially plain-clothes spies and saboteurs (who can be executed according to the Geneva convention, by the way). Those who say Padilla should get a civilian trial are essentially saying that if you reject the rules of civilized nations, like those inscribed in the Geneva Convention, you therefore deserve to be treated better, not worse, than those rules require.
Goldberg has tried this argument before, when he admitted that he is "not a well-versed student of the Geneva Convention." He doesn't know, I guess, that even accused spies and saboteurs get trials. So, need we remind Jonah that the accused dirty bomber isn't getting a trial at all, military or civilian? Ah, but he probably doesn't care about that, either. Nor, it appears, does he care about the notion of the United States being better than the terrorists. posted by Franklin9:29 AM
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Thursday, June 13, 2002
I offer two hastily typed notes forthwith and hope that you will pardon the lack of connection between them:
1. I feel bad for poor Andrew Sullivan in that history has already laid claim to the title "Sullivanians," robbing him of one of the more euphonious terms with which he could describe his devotees. A loss for Andy, but a gain for Warblogger Watch. The similarities between the original Sullivanians and the new crop are remarkable: a shared belief in the fundamental evil of maternal love (manifested in the warblogging Sullivanians as a determination to prevent the Palestinians from realizing a Motherland, or, in a corrupt form, as indifference to dead Iraqi children); a common organizational form with a collection of pathetic followers arrayed around a megalomaniacal leader who fancies himself infallible; the theater figures in both movements, though information supplied Warblogger Watch has it that Andy's turn as Benedick was even less enjoyable than the dismal stagings of the Fourth Wall Reperatory Company. "I'll be back Monday with guns blazing. See you then." We can't wait, little Andy.
2. Lileks delights over his own graceless bangings on the keyboard today. He introduces his daily Bleat, an apt word for so enthusiastic an adherent of prevailing orthodoxies, by saying "Having reread today's bleat, that's all I can say: hooooboy. I bring this up just because I think it's . . . unusual, and reveals a different aspect to a place I pass daily and patronize once a week. It's an interesting story you might have heard, but I've not seen it discussed anywhere in blogland." You can almost hear the blood rushing to and engorging his penis.
He has found that a director of an Islamic investment concern whose U.S. arm holds Lileks's local coffee chain in its portfolio is a wild fundamentalist. He makes much of a now deleted webpage (though, supersleuth he is, he tracked down its Google cache) that lists the members and mission of the Shari'ah compliance board on which the director in question serves. It states the company is "committed to providing financial products that conform to Shari'ah, as well as ensuring that all of the Bank's operations conform to Shari'ah." Lileks apparently misunderstood this as stating the company's U.S. holdings must accept the Koran or something (the financial product would be the fund, not the portfolio company), as he then dredges up some of the writings of the director in question that expand on some of the Koran's nuttier and more misogynistic passages. It seems he's saying First Islamic Investment Bank would like to force Shari'ah on us stateside.
Lileks grants Muslims their "right in America" to proselytize, and he indulges his similar right to ridicule them. I hope Lileks would permit us an exercise of our not-yet-taken-away American right to follow his lead. I could have guessed by his narrow-mindedness that Lileks is a Christian, though he allows in his current column that he is a Lutheran. Of course Lutheranism, whose founder wrote that "the Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows seven times higher than ordinary thieves," and that "we ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them," is a wholly sensible body of doctrine. Lileks, a man who seconds Ariel Sharon's realistic fear that the Palestinians are threatening to push the Israelis into the sea, is merely following Church precedent in abiding the campaign against the Palestinians, just like Luther abided the German Peasant War with such brio: "They [the peasants] should be knocked to pieces, strangled and stabbed, secretly and openly, by everybody who can do it, just as one must kill a mad dog...Therefore, dear gentlemen, hearken here, save there, stab, knock, strangle them at will, and if thou diest, thou art blessed; no better death canst thou ever attain." Man, is that ever some nutty shit my American ass is completely incapable of relating to.
InsideEuropeIberianNotes (June 9) writes "We had a look at Warblogger Watch. It's actually rather well-written (better than at least 75% of blogs) and pretty funny, though we think the contributors are a bunch of jerks..." There's the pull-quote! Call our agents!
The remainder of the entry slams WBW (a collective entity in IEIN's reckoning -- crikey, does that make us anarcho-syndicalists?) for being "anti-Jingoes," then goes on to defend the jingo nomenclature with thoroughly expected quotes from George Orwell.
One could argue the etymological point, but why bother? Between WWI and WWs II through whatever, IEIN draws a distinction that is, in this case, truly without a difference. The word in question has retained, through various conflicts, an unambiguous meaning. While conservatives have become pretty good at trifling with neologisms, older usages are harder to manipulate.
In my own postings (pushing aside here the groupthink attributed to my colleagues and myself by IEIN), I have concerned myself with online lunacies inspired by the present conflict. As I am not an exalted thinker, I have been content to call certain malefactors on breaches of common sense and logic, not ideological deviation. Thanks to the high volume of gibberish polluting the Internet these days, I haven't wanted for targets.
We can always debate the sanity of certain actions and ideas, and IEIN, which is better-written than at least 76% of blogs, has a place at that table. But let's not waste everyone's time with patriotic word-games. (P.S.: "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" predates the Pogues' version.) posted by roy edroso11:31 PM
the new york times article on blogs. 'inherently political'. hmmmph. a rift? if the warbloggers believe they were the first to look 'outward', then yes, there's a rift ... or maybe a reaganesque 'common sense gap.' surely they must realize that political discussion has been a constant thread even in tech and diary weblogs. the journalists who write these articles have no history with weblogging, and neither the journalists nor the newer 'pundit-style' [to use their terminology] bloggers seem to read archives or old discussion group postings ... and that, my friends, is a crying shame. even webloggers must take in their own history. at american samizdat, it's instructive to go back in the archives of each site of the the alliance of world-weary webloggers to read about september 11, and the approaching war. the alliance page was set up ten days after the attack, pointing to weblogs who had shelved their 'normal' postings to cover this crisis ... and our power as aggregators of varied news sources in association with first-person accounts, and off-the-cuff emotion is staggering. it would also be instructive to go back and read postings from these same folks in the pre-2000 election season, because everyone needs to understand that punditry has been no stranger to weblogging. the clinton impeachment was before my time [early 1999], but search scripting news for 'impeachment,' and that will probably lead you to other weblogs discussing the issue. you might even try some 'o.j. simpson' searches on the older blogs. these are only a few examples. i really don't understand, i guess, what 'warblogs' are supposed to be doing that's 'new' or 'different,' other than having their narrow classification being portrayed by the media as a divisive element in the weblogging world. "we're new! we're great!" how many times have we 'older' webloggers heard that one? we smile, remember our time in the sun, and let the youngsters have their fun. more will come, replacing these in the limelight. divisive, my foot. we all learn some things, and life goes on. -permalink-
A few inaccuracies on your part to address, shouldn't take long. First, when I stated that the majority of the big names remained unaccounted for, I was referring to our inability to put a dent of significant size in the list of 22 Most Wanted Terrorists, a high priority of any War Against Terror worthy of the name. You write "as of 15 January, one third of Pentagon's 36-odd Taliban most wanted, and 8 of its 20 Taliban most wanted, had been reported dead or captured, according to Carl Conetta." Ignoring the doubling-up of "Taliban most wanted" (you meant to type al Qaeda in the second instance), 8 of 20 works out to less than 50%, at least according to my abacus. You also stated that Abu Zubaydah's capture, which "was only possible once the war had rendered him a fugitive." This ignores both American suspicions against him for his part in the thwarted Millennium Attacks as well as his March 27, 2000 indictment by the Jordanians.
You also took issue with my statement that an undetermined number of Afghan civilians had died. True, the Los Angeles Times piece did reckon the number ("conclusively" in your telling) at 1,200, though theirs was just one of a number of estimates. Even ignoring the work of Marc Herold, the warblogger's go-to guy for dubious stats just a few days back gave a range of "between 600 and 1,500," which suggests that the statistics are anything but conclusive.
You further state that the Shlomo Ben Ami quote is off topic. Please re-read the piece, this time noting that Ben Ami's words are reproduced immediately after a sentence stating Arafat "never turned down '97 percent of the West Bank' at Taba." "The pressure of Israeli public opinion against the [Taba] talks could not be resisted" can be readily translated as "No such offer was made." Sadly for you and others unable to comprehend the import of so matter-of-fact a statement by an Israeli official, the times did not include any helpful onomatopoeia at the conculsion of Ben Ami's quote.
If you tabulate my score as "0 for 3 on his factual challenges" your innumeracy rivals your illiteracy in its severity.
"...failed and failing states which have served as terrorist sanctuaries will be conquered and occupied by a friendly country (us if necessary) with the means and ruthlessness to root out terrorist infrastructure. This is a fundamental change in the post World War II order. Borders will change and whole countries cease to exist."
We all know what this means: watch out, terror havenCanada! You hoseheads have already come under fire from the American Association of Concerned Taxpayers. ("The days of Americans rolling their eyes at the angry angst of our maple leaf neighbors are over. Listen up Canada: Either you are with them, or us. You decide.") Now Mark Steyn has inserted the thin edge of the wedge, proposing the annexation of Alberta ("The Albertans would be up for it, and, to be honest, they’re the only assimilable Canadian province, at least from a Republican standpoint"). Soon we will come for the whole shebang.
One wonders if the old dream of a U.S.-Canada-Mexico common market will someday be obviated by a North American superstate. Tom Ridge is worried about Mexico. Why not just annex it? The concept is already has its earlyadopters.
Think of the benefits. Goodbye border patrol! Southerly security issues could be treated by whatever measures Homeland Security has in store for the rest of the U.S. And annexation will make it easier for Vicente Fox to prosecute his own local troublemakers without having to split hairs over whether they're really terrorists or not.
Cross-referencing our terrorist list with Mexico's might prove a little dicey -- theirs includes Taiwan, for one thing -- but that's nothing a crack team of negotiators couldn't work out.
In time we could start working our way further down the map. We could make Venezuela the new Texas, and without resort to the politically unpopular means heretofore used to pacify our fractious hemispheric homies.
We can't let this get out of hand, of course. Some nations must remain independent, so that U.S. corporations might retain their convenient tax havens.
But the idea has promise. Since we're not too good at making friends, let's eliminate the middleman and make other countries parts of us. Then we can go back to our pre-9/11 pastime -- squabbling among ourselves -- but on a much grander scale.
"Attention Warbloggers! You are condemned. Did you know that? The instant the terrorists you support took over our government, you sentenced yourselves to death. Warblogger Watch is here to seek justice for our dead. Highly trained soldiers are coming to shut down once and for all Glenn Reynolds's ring of terrorism, and the Taliban that supports them and their actions.
"Our forces are armed with state of the art military equipment. What are you using, obsolete and ineffective weaponry? Our Brad Olson will rain fire down upon your camps before you detect him on your radar. Roy Edroso's bombs are so accurate he can drop them right through your windows. Our infantry is trained for any climate and terrain on earth. Warblogger Watch soldiers fire with superior marksmanship and are armed with superior weapons.
"You have only one choice ... Surrender now and we will give you a second chance. We will let you live. If you surrender no harm will come to you. When you decide to surrender, approach Warblogger Watch forces with your hands in the air. Sling your weapon across your back muzzle towards the ground. Remove your magazine and expel any rounds. Doing this is your only chance of survival."
The War Street Journal, as usual, thinks that Washington isn't hawkish enough. Assistant to the Publisher Richard J. Tofel wants the Democrats to out-hawk the Republicans: "The Pearl Harbor of our time -- the moment that truly changes everything -- was not last Sept. 11, I fear. It lies ahead. And that looming threat requires us to choose between becoming the America Firsters of the 21st Century and returning to being the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy."
It isn't enough that the GOP has abandoned its anti-war (i.e., "America First") history and become, on foreign policy, the party of Roosevelt, Truman and JFK that Tofel wants. There must be no opposition party whatsoever. And if Democrats like Joe Lieberman get their way, the Democrats will try to out-hawk the Republicans. posted by Franklin11:13 AM
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The Watchers
WBW: Keeping track of the war exhortations of the warbloggers.
