You'd think we'd learn, part II


Even during the big news day, CBS carried some of its regular entertainment features, but many of them were shaped specifically by the news. One such feature was "Kate Smith Speaks", a short noontime segment. As far as I can tell, this program hasn't been preserved in a regular way by the old-time-radio folks, so this 3-minute segment is the only one we have.

Here's Kate at her best.

I was prompted to include this after hearing some discussion about today's best-known large female entertainer, the one who hangs upside-down like a vampire bat. Compare Kate's passionate prayer for the success of our Crusaders with the filthy pro-enemy propaganda of the vampire bat, if you can stand the desecration.
  ¶ 4:12 PM

  You'd think we'd learn.......


In between working on a rather dull spreadsheet assignment, I've been listening to a full broadcast day of CBS from D-Day, 6/6/44.

Not many surprises in the raw news; I've read enough about Operation Overlord to know the basics.

In terms of presentation, all the Big Names like Murrow, Collingwood and Hottelet were taking part in the broadcast, and I found them unimpressive. Lost without their scripts, and poor at basic diction.

The real star of the day was a lesser light, Bob Trout. Caught off guard on a late shift, he took masterful control and invented a whole new way of doing news. He wandered around the building with a remote microphone, talking as he walked, reading the news from whichever teletype machine seemed to have the latest flash, explaining the news-gathering process to the listener, pulling the events together, and finding editors and writers to give on-the-spot analysis. He remained serious and competent but informal; never sounded stilted or harsh. Trout laid the stylistic groundwork for today's cable news, though I suspect he'd be ashamed to hear today's results. Any of those old newshawks would be totally puzzled by a "news broadcast" that covers custody disputes mis-described as abductions, sex with teachers, sex with children, sex with celebrities, and a tiny handful of non-sex stories which are obviously and plainly false. They would recognize this as a fantastically low-quality tabloid newspaper or 'scandal sheet'; maybe even a crude high-school parody of a tabloid.

What surprised me in this CBS day was the high quality of commentary and analysis. They had three main analysts and two 'embedded generals' on the air; all were vastly superior to anyone on TV today, and Quentin Reynolds was the best.

At one point Reynolds compared FDR's approach in WW2 with Wilson's approach in WW1. Crucial difference: Wilson paid more attention to politics and diplomacy than to fighting, and failed to replace generals who couldn't handle a real war. Roosevelt focused strictly on winning the war, and "took care to explain every aspect of the war to the people." This was, of course, before WW2 was won; as of D-Day it was unclear how soon we'd take down Germany, and we hadn't even started to push into Japan. Even so, the distinction was already clear to Reynolds. If you want to win a war, you have to get the citizens on your side and you have to get rid of incompetent managers. The distinction is even more clear now that we know how WW2 came out, and how quickly it was done. Despite all that, George W. Vichy has intentionally taken a 100% Wilsonian path. He focuses on politics and diplomacy, refuses to replace bad generals and Secretaries of Defense, and refuses to explain the war to the people in any way that makes sense. At this point, after nearly 6 years of Wilsonian failure, we really have to ask: is this simple incompetence or is it something worse?

I've posted this 3-minute segment of Quentin Reynolds because it's crisply relevant to today's fight. We know that today's Arabs, fighting under the banner of Allah, are direct descendants of WW2's Germans under the banner of National Socialism. Hitler's chief representative to Arabs was Saddam Hussein's uncle and Yasser Arafat's main mentor. A sort of devilish apostolic succession. But I was still surprised by the historical 'connectivity' of several items in this piece. Listen for yourself and see if you can spot them.

= = = = =

Edit for accuracy: From the Wiki biography of Bob Trout, he did invent the 'peripatetic newscast', but he first used it at the Anschluss in 1938. By D-Day it was already his trademark but not brand new.
  ¶ 3:18 PM

  ERA redux
Apparently the lesbian leninists are bringing back the good old Equal Rights Amendment.

If American men had any sense at all, they would be enthusiastically supporting the ERA this time around.

Since 1970, Comrade MacKinnon and Comrade Friedan have succeeded in shaping our courts and regulations to favor females in every single circumstance where the distinction is possible. Sexual harassment "laws", "date-rape" "laws", child-support enforcement, affirmative action in colleges, and the overall workings of public schools, all give females superior treatment under the "law".

Having the ERA in the Constitution would give males a substantial ground for lawsuits in each of these areas. It wouldn't make any real difference, because all the black-robed saboteurs are hyper-orthodox Leninists who never pay attention to any part of the Constitution anyway ..... but it would at least make an interesting public display of reality.
  ¶ 9:06 AM

  Canadian cancer cure update
The University of Alberta has revised its website to make it easier to keep up with the latest developments, and easier to contribute.

Dr. Michelakis needs about 1.5 million dollars to complete a series of clinical tests.

So far donations have reached about $100,000.

What's wrong with this picture? Other than everything?

In other news, some Hollywood dickhead has just crashed his 1.5 million dollar sports car.

Hmm. If I had $1.5 mil, I could buy a Ferrari and crash it, or I could cure cancer.

Let's see ... crash car or cure cancer ... crash car or cure cancer ... crash car or cure cancer ... Okay, we'll do the car.

That wasn't hard, was it?
  ¶ 11:47 PM

  Brownb[r]ack's big idea
Right now Sen. Brownback is speaking in the Senate, discussing his idea of a BRAC-style commission for civilian spending. It's an excellent idea. The Base Realignment and Closure Commission has worked well as a procedure by taking the responsibility for cuts out of the hands and out of the voting records of Congressmen.

Before BRAC, it was impossible to close any bases because each representative stoutly defended everything in his district and traded favors with others to keep everything running. With BRAC, the decisions are made by others and each rep is distanced from the responsibility of closing a local job-source. Communities still put tremendous effort into lobbying for their bases, and this lobbying is more like true representation than anything ever done by Congress. The commission tries to measure genuine community support when making its decisions. When Congress makes a decision, community support is drowned out by irrelevant concerns like personal seniority and power. An old power-broker like Byrd or Kennedy was able to keep every base in his state running, even when the locals didn't want or need them.

I emphasize as a procedure because, as I've said many times in many ways, closing military bases is simply an atrocious, stupid, and self-destructive practice no matter how you organize it legislatively.

Two main reasons:

1. The concept of Efficiency simply cannot be applied to defense. The best defense is an infinitely inefficient one. If you spend huge amounts of money on fortifications, walls, tanks, bombs, and soldiers, and you constantly show that all those objects are ready to rumble at a moment's notice, prospective enemies will look elsewhere. The spending will thus be totally useless and totally inefficient by a commercial-style accounting, because no attack will ever occur, and the equipment and soldiers will never be used. This is the ideal arrangement.

When we follow Rumsfeld's bean-counting industrial model, maintaining just enough equipment and soldiers for current needs, we will be unprepared and enemies will accurately view us as unprepared. The few soldiers will then have to fight like hell with inadequate equipment. (Sound familiar?)

2. Because America is now thoroughly settled and urbanized, and mainly because of EPA rules and NIMBY effects, losing a military base is totally irreversible. There is simply no way we can rebuild any of these huge and specialized facilities under current restrictions. Even if the purpose of some facility seems obsolete at the moment, it's still worth keeping as a storehouse of NIMBY-proof square miles and buildings.

= = = = =

However! Even though the BRAC method is bad for military facilities, it would be grand when applied to civilian facilities and programs. In the civilian parts of government, Efficiency is definitely meaningful, because each program or agency is meant to accomplish a positive goal; and none of the civilian facilities are unique or irreplaceable. Any old office building will do.

So Brownback's proposal is excellent, but I'd be inclined to advocate it from a different angle. I wouldn't say that BRAC is a success and should be extended to civilian programs; I'd say that the BRAC method needs to be moved over to civilian programs!
  ¶ 6:17 PM

  Settled.




Polistra has been wanting to support Sam Brownback for a while.

The deal is sealed now.

[Unless and until Newt gets serious, that is. Newt is unquestionably the best of the available politicians, but he's still not clear about his intention to run.]

Brownback's recent defense of Gen. Peter Pace for speaking his mind is the threshold point, the snap that turned on the light.

Geography certainly plays a part in this. Polistra, like most Kaw Valley natives, has a Vermontish streak of rock-ribbed reticence, left over from those early Abolitionists who settled the area.

"Say what needs to be said, and then hush."

Brownback seems to have the same quality. When something needs to be said, he doesn't worry about the taboos of the time, and doesn't care if he sounds grumpy about a subject that deserves grumpiness.

He also carries the spirit of those Abolitionists quite directly and effectively into the modern era, in places like North Korea and Africa where plain old-fashioned slavery is still thriving.

He comes off well in comparison to Romney, whose response to Pace's clarity is a typical modern wet blanket: "In a governmental setting, the right way to go is to show more of an outpouring of tolerance."

No, Mitt, no. In wartime we can't afford an outpouring of tolerance. We can't afford mushiness and softness of mind and soul. We didn't win WW2 by outpouring tolerance. We won WW2 by outpouring rock-hard certainty along with the bombs and bullets.

We need a house built of stone.
  ¶ 3:06 PM

  Yet again...
Listening to Saboteur Plame lying to Congress. Same old thing.... The D side is certain of its treasonous values, and the R "side" is weakly and barely defensive. An R congressman is questioning Saboteur Plame, and the best he can do is to try and show that her "career path" was not hurt too badly by Novak's column.

If we had a competent wartime government ... no. If we had a government, Mr. and Mrs. Glamorous Saboteur would already have been tried and imprisoned, preferably hanged, for their vicious sabotage and treason.

We wouldn't have to be asking how badly her "career path" was damaged, for fuck's sake.
  ¶ 7:57 AM

  Non-binding





Professor Polistra has run the experiments and checked the theories.

Her conclusion:

A non-binding resolution is the perfect response to a non-binding war.

If we were fighting a binding war, a war aimed at defeating our enemies forever and killing their blood fetish forever, we'd already be done.

The internal discontent that allows the D politicians to play these games wouldn't exist. The anti-American protesters would be marginalized because most Americans would feel the infinite relief of total victory. The major anti-American leaders and politicians would be in jail for sedition or hanged for treason.

That's how Roosevelt and Churchill fought. Destroy the enemy, silence the traitors. A binding war, with no loopholes or escape clauses. Their enemy has remained dead for 60 years, though its mindset has pollinated today's Arab fascists.
  ¶ 9:23 PM

  Partisan???????????????????
Folks constantly complain about the "partisan bickering" and "lack of bipartisanship" in Congress.

Okay, let's look at the two "sides" on Iraq. The R "side" wants to Support Our President and keep the current pointless slaughter going until the fall of 2008.

The D "side" wants to Speak Truth To Power and begin a drawdown which will keep the current pointless slaughter going until the fall of 2008.

So. We don't have "partisan bickering" at all. We have total harmony, utter concordance, and 100% agreement to put off all decisions until after the next election.

Yes indeed. All options are on the table ... except for any action that could potentially lead to victory. Victory is unthinkable and unspeakable.
  ¶ 9:26 AM

  Credit where credit is due
While the alleged, so-called, and let me italicize, underline and bold-face the word so-called, """"""""government"""""""" in DC continues to grind along with the tiresome repetitive screeching and clashing of stale stupidity, craven cowardice, and grade-A prime treason, state governments are functioning quite well.

The Washington state senate has just passed a wonderfully simple solution to a rather nasty problem.

The Problem: Scrap metal is so valuable that thieves are ripping wires out of houses, guard rails and conveyor systems out of running factories, and street signs out of the ground.

The Solution: A thief must ultimately take the copper or aluminum to a recycling center, which is a legitimate operation. So the state will now require those recycling centers to pay for scrap metal by check, sent through the mail to a physical address.

This will make it possible to trace the thieves, and it will also strongly discourage the thieves. Fake address? Nope, that won't work. The check would either go undelivered, or reach the wrong party.

Smart and simple.

Bravo, Wash legislature!
  ¶ 3:04 PM

  When will they ever learn?
Rush is hitting hard this morning on the Republican habit of being always on defense. Good points.

These things haven't changed a bit in 30 years.

Here is a 4-minute news segment from the spring of 1974. It's worth hearing for the sound bites from politicians. As always, the Dems are certain of their goals and values, attacking hard from solid ground; as always, the Repubs are shaky and defensive, never pointing out hypocrisy or falsehoods, just whining about unfairness.

I've been listening to a series of these newscasts from '74, and the entire picture is remarkably similar. Later in the week, Israel was attacking Lebanon, and the Israeli government was about to collapse because hard-liners accused the prime minister of fumbling the last war. Teddy Kennedy was in Moscow holding a town meeting with Russian "students". And on and on, same now as then.

There is one notable difference, though: the lead story every day in the '74 week was about a strike in some sector of American industry. Unions were riding tall at that time; now they are a minor player, and lawyers have taken over the role of counterbalancing capitalism. Unions and lawyers are both obnoxious, but looking back now, I think we were somewhat better off with unions. Corrupt and incorrigible, at least they occasionally represented the real interests of the workers. Lawyers represent only their own unvarnished greed.

= = = = =

For non-listeners, here are the high points of the sound segment:

Republican politicians supporting campaign finance reform.

Nixon is negotiating with the Russians.

Dems are pushing to impeach Nixon, R politicians are responding defensively and weakly: Minority leader John Rhodes says "No other president has been so charged. This is unfair." Waaaaahh!

Dems are calling for overhaul of the Veterans Administration, charging that the VA is a "dumping ground for Nixon campaigners." Dem Teague of Texas says "I have never seen morale at a lower point. This is a direct result of political manipulations by Nixon."

Wilbur Mills was asked by reporters when Nixon would quit. Mills said essentially, "as soon as possible." (Supposedly Mills was the one who actually talked Nixon into quitting later on.)

Lowell Weicker (RINO of Connecticut) charges that Nixon used IRS data to protect friends like John Wayne and Billy Graham from audits.

Woodward and Bernstein reveal one of their sources, but keep Deep Throat a secret.

= = = = =

Some of the same men are still in the picture; all of the charges, responses, and phrases are being repeated today, and even the subjects are the same.

= = = = =

The problem with R politicians is that they are not paranoid enough.

By all accounts Nixon had a melancholy and paranoid temperament, but when it came to judging his enemies he was just as naive and optimistic as Bush.

A full-fledged melancholy paranoid operates on the "Nothing to Lose" principle. He understands that his enemies will attack him at 100% intensity no matter what he does, so he goes ahead and does everything necessary, and does it fast, hard, and loud. No clever bank shots, no cutesy coverups. Result: the surviving enemies, IF ANY (preferably none), will back off and stop attacking for a while.

Optimists, like Bush and Nixon, mistakenly and suicidally believe that Communists and their allies, whether in Russia or Iran or the Senate, are nice civilized gentlemen who can be mollified by compromise and negotiation.
  ¶ 10:09 AM

  The LDS Jerusalem
Haven't been in a blogging mood for a few days ... terrible weather, and some dull but paid work.

Today NRO is discussing the LDS views on New Jerusalem in the context of Mitt Romney's sudden fall from stellar status. Reminds me of a rare and probably obsolete bit of information.

Back in 1962 I was considering radio as a career; I did a sort of student internship at K-State's low-power student practice station, and visited some other stations.

At that time my favorite uncle worked at KMBZ in Kansas City, which was quietly owned by the Mormons but not operated as a religious station. My uncle showed me some of the internal details at KMBZ. He showed me the Conelrad stuff, which I was already familiar with from my K-State practice: the big red button and the scary tapes pre-recorded by Kennedy to give the impression that our flag was still there after Washington had been turned into a glowing crater by Soviet bombs.

My uncle showed me something unexpected as well. Alone among American radio stations, KMBZ had a second emergency setup. This was not designed for nuclear apocalypse; it was for the return of Jesus, which was going to occur in Independence, just east of KC. The whole reason for owning KMBZ, in other words, was to have a station ready to cover the New Jerusalem!

= = = = =

Overall, I'm sad to see Romney losing track of his chief advantage. His absolutely unique quality among modern politicians is a talent for speaking clearly and selling convincingly. He seems to have fallen into the hands of some experienced Bush handlers, who are teaching him how to act like a Bush. I don't blame him for hiring handlers, but if his leadership is so weak that he can't resist their awful advice, he isn't qualified.

= = = = =

Afterthought:

When I write that KMBZ was "not operated as a religious station", I'm guilty of Nowism, applying modern mindsets to an earlier era.

In 1962 there was no such thing as Christian Radio, so "operating as a religious station" wasn't a meaningful choice. The need and the opportunity hadn't yet developed, except possibly in the largest cities like New York. Radio was still operating under the law and culture of public service, in which each station was a quasi-governmental franchise. FCC insisted that stations should serve the needs of their local communities, which included encouraging religion. Stations offered daily sermonettes and choral programs, and networks provided wonderful series like Family Theater.

But 1962, though not obvious at the time, was a point of inflection in this curve. Television had sapped the audience, so networks simply stopped providing radio entertainment in '62. Local stations, unable to replace the quality, started to decline.

Also in '62, the Soviet saboteurs who occupied the Supreme Court began their long war on Christianity with the first decisions banning school prayer. Soon the notion of public service was reversed: it was illegal to mention religion in public.

By the late '70s the FCC had ceased paying much attention to the stagnant backwater of AM radio. As FM and TV, infiltrated from NPR, moved farther and farther to the left, the need for a pro-Christian (or at least not lethally anti-Christian) media became more drastic. Entrepreneurs like Pat Robertson and the Bakkers, and church-based organizations like EWTN and Moody, took advantage of the cheap licenses of abandoned stations and filled the perceived need.

Today nearly every town has at least one explicitly Christian station, and many are commercially successful.
  ¶ 8:07 PM

  Beck: "Money trumps peace."
Glenn Beck did a neat little riff yesterday on "Money trumps peace." It's an important point, and one rarely voiced by conservatives because it sounds too much like a leftist argument. It is, however, a point that Reagan understood deeply.

Here's a deep and long parable on the same subject, produced back in 1954 by Family Theater, famously the source of "The family that prays together stays together."

Family Theater ran on radio from '47 to '56, essentially sponsored by God through the earthly agency of a semi-official group of Catholics. Because God doesn't need to worry about ratings, the show could present a wide variety of stories, from classics to medieval legends to obscure American short stories to fresh and topical pieces, always with a moral point. Nothing in radio or TV since then has matched Family Theater for variety, literary quality and depth.

Monsieur Payen falls into the topical-piece category. It's a story of France's abandonment of Vietnam to the Communists, which was still unraveling at the time when the show was aired. Payen is a French businessman in Haiphong who decides to let money trump everything. He thinks, "Eh bien, Communists are no different from anyone else. They need fabric, and the workers need work. So I'll keep my factory running and make whatever adjustments are needed."

Along the way, Payen sees the consequences of fighting a half-hearted and compromising war against an unyielding ideology.

The author foresees that the same defeat will happen again and again until we realize several important things.

First: if you're in such a war, FIGHT. Seems like an obvious lesson, but not learned by the Americans in Korea in 1954 (who may have been the immediate target of the parable); not learned by Americans in the very same Vietnam twenty years later; still not learned by Americans in Iraq today.

Second: to prevent such a war from happening, be sure you're not giving the enemy an easy handle on the people. Payen is forced to realize that he had treated his workers badly, making the Marxist propaganda about capitalist slavedrivers just a bit too resonant. In modern terms: pick your alliances carefully, not letting money trump everything. If we are seen as aiding the slavedrivers (such as the Saudi government or the Mexican maquilladoras) we are handing the revolutionary enemy a propaganda gift. If we are seen as supporting the slaves, even if only on a moral basis, we subtract one advantage from the enemy.

Third, perhaps the most original point: If there's a risk of being defeated, don't leave the enemy a physical legacy. Payen ends up by burning his fabric mill and escaping with his life. In modern terms: don't build schools, sewage treatment plants and oil pipelines that the enemy can take over. You may do those things after you've completely defeated, eliminated, destroyed, abolished and killed every vestige of the enemy's tribe or ideology. If you do them while the barbarian is still alive, you're only leaving gifts that he will use for his own advantage.

We need to remember one basic difference: Civilized people build things, while barbarians only use and destroy. If we sell or give pipelines, nuclear plants, or even fuel oil, we are simply confusing the picture. The barbarian can then offer the fruits of civilization as if they were his own idea, without gaining any of the qualities of a builder. If we leave the barbarian to his own devices, the people will see the difference clearly, and will be more likely to support a civilized force when it emerges.

Fourth: if you're on the side of civilization, God will be there also. Ask him. [I suspect this wasn't in the original story; probably added by Family Theater. But it turns out to have been uncannily prophetic, since Reagan finally defeated the Commies with the physical, social, and spiritual aid of the Roman Church.]

= = = = =

Later edit: I had the audio of the 'Monsieur Payen' program here, but it appears that the Family Theater outfit (still very active) has done a thorough combing of the web. The clip was deleted from my website, and the entire series is no longer available through the store where I bought it on CD. No point in putting it back up; it will just get deleted again later. Apologies to searchers who were looking for it.

= = = = =
  ¶ 8:00 AM

  Souder's excellent speech
Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana gave a wonderfully well-written speech yesterday during the "debate" over the anti-surge resolutions. Souder speaks accurately for all who want our side to work toward victory, not Stay The Course.

I voted to support this war because I believe Iraq presented a direct threat to the United States. Iraq had, was developing, and was attempting to develop weapons of mass destruction. Iraq was, at a minimum, cooperating with the funding and harboring of terrorists committed to our destruction. Saddam Hussein was repeatedly defying UN resolutions, contesting no-fly zones, and blocking WMD inspectors. Our intelligence estimates, never 100 percent accurate in any case, apparently overstated the immediate risk, but the basic facts remain the same. Knowing what we know now, perhaps we could have waited another six to 12 months, which would have given us valuable time to solidify our position in Afghanistan. But the decision to go to war was still the right decision, just possibly premature. I would not have supported this war had the initial selling point been a goal of establishing democracy in Iraq.

....

Certain basic arguments being made by the administration are simply not accurate.

To insist that the war in Iraq is not a civil war – when the entire world and Americans all understand that it is – continues to undermine the credibility of those who make it.

....

We had hoped that the early, smaller-scale civil war could be countered by a strong central government. It is now a large scale civil war eroding the already-limited power of the Iraqi government. It is now absurd to deny it is a civil war.

Making exaggerated statements of progress in Iraq also does not pass a basic credibility test.

While we have made sporadic progress – a school or project here and there – it is apparent to any Member of Congress who visited Iraq a number of years ago and again recently that security had deteriorated.

Baby-boomer Americans especially tend to see everything as Vietnam. A government that denies basic realities has little hope of persuading even its friends. We want our government to tell the truth, pleasant or not.

....

I have repeatedly heard from returning soldiers that, when the gunfire starts, the Iraqis by and large disappear. They only seem dedicated when Shia get to kill Sunnis and vice versa.

By being bogged down as the main security force in Iraq in increasingly hostile cities, we are undermining our long-term potential to fight the War on Terror.

For years we have been utilizing our National Guard and our Reserves as if they were regular military. Many are about to enter their second 12-month-plus tour of duty in combat, something historically many regular military veterans did not do.

Because of this heavy usage, we are starting to short training funds and repair funds for those units. We are finding that employers are getting increasingly nervous about disruptions to their firms. Family objections are becoming more intense. Recruiters are running into increasing resistance.

....

It has been said many times by defenders of this surge that Iraq is the place the enemy has chosen to fight and thus it is the place that we must fight.

That is partly true.

Hezbollah has chosen to fight us on many fronts. Iran is a threat itself, not just by funding terrorism in Iraq. Terrorists attacked in Madrid, London, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and many other places throughout the world. And they continue to try to attack us in the United States.

Iraq is not the only place terrorists have chosen to fight.

....

If we burn up the support of the American people, our military’s ability to recruit, the usage of our Guard and Reserves in Iraq, how do we defend ourselves elsewhere?

....

But we cannot sustain this intense an effort indefinitely. Complete victory over terrorism is unlikely ever to occur. Sometimes you have to reposition and prepare for the broader battle, not exhaust yourself on just one front and then risk defeat in the overall conflict.

I beseech our President, Secretary Gates, Secretary Rice and others never to give up the War on Terror but to understand that, without significant tactical drawdowns in Iraq, our entire counterterrorism and military efforts are threatened. Our nation can ill-afford another decade of defeatism and retreat that seized the United States after Vietnam.

Read the whole thing here.
  ¶ 8:05 AM

  Vichy at AEI
Listening to G. W. Vichy's "major speech" at AEI this morning. He's still using the same logic, even after it's been shown invalid.

Specifically:

"If we fail over there, the turrists will follow us home."

Think about this for a minute. How will they do this? Several thousand Sunni and Shiite warriors will not be able to infiltrate easily into American life. These guys are not the elite Westernized types that performed 9/11. If they do attack en masse by some method, it means we are not doing the basic job of controlling our ports and borders.

"All people desire to live in peace."

Observe what they do, not what they say. It's perfectly obvious from their behavior that Arabs do not desire to live in peace. Arabs love fighting. They are a warrior culture with no achievements other than death.

"9/11 happened because Afghanistan was a failed state."

Afghanistan was part of the story, but most of the training and planning for 9/11 happened in Germany and in Florida. There are always failed states around the world; Somalia and Sudan are both failed states that serve al-Qaeda well, and we haven't done anything to eliminate them. Eliminating failed states is neither necessary nor sufficient to protect OUR people from Mohammedans and Arabs.

And what does he propose for solutions? More wasted money, more use of our military in places where it won't make any difference. If we can protect the borders of Iraq, we could protect the borders of the United States.


GGGGGRRRRRRRR!!!!!!

Now he's talking about our success in building 4000 miles of roads in the "Young Democracy" of Afghanistan, and the failed attempt to eliminate poppy production there. This is the same administration that REFUSES to build a fence around the "Old Democracy" of the United States, and the same administration that PUNISHES the Old Democracy's border guards when they dare to arrest and shoot Mexican drug dealers.

AAAAAAAAAGGGGHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRH!!!!!!!!!!

I thought it couldn't get any worse, but it does. Now he's talking about helping Afghanistan to get rid of bad judges. I can hardly even write about this.

What would happen to an American who tried to assist the "Old Democracy" to get rid of bad judges and develop a fair judicial system? The FBI would bomb his house and kill his family, that's what would happen.






  ¶ 7:21 AM

  Random note
Fox's relatively new reporter Douglas Kennedy has the most annoying intonation pattern I've ever heard. He seems to have a ferret in his pants, which bites his balls several times in the middle of each sentence.
  ¶ 7:25 PM

  Mall gas ... just a thought
When Spokane's huge Northtown Mall was emptied by a semi-toxic (but not seriously harmful) gas on Sunday, I naturally wondered if it was a 'test' or 'ping'. After hearing about the Salt Lake mall shooting yesterday, and hearing that the shooter was a Mohammedan from Bosnia, I'm wondering even more. What makes my Spidey Sense tingle: many of the tough teens in the Northtown area are Bosnian immigrants. The police seem to have some clues, but they haven't done any identifications yet. We shall see.........
  ¶ 12:38 PM

  What's wrong with Romney?
I've already given up on Romney after his squishy waffling on the war a month ago. Since then, it seems that he's trying to be as stupid as possible.

He made his official announcement in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn.... thus hitting the Trifecta of political stupidity. First and most obvious, Ford is instantly recognizable as anti-Jewish and pacifistic.

Second, Dearborn is a center of Arabs and thus a center of pro-enemy activity, for reasons that have no direct connection to Ford's fascist tendencies.

Third and dumbest, why honor the museum of your father's antiwar and anti-semitic competitor when your father himself is commemorated in a nice museum? The Chrysler Museum in downtown Detroit has a large section on American Motors, since Chrysler swallowed up AMC in 1987.

Dumb, dumber, dumbest.
  ¶ 9:12 AM

  Odd gas in Spokane
Just noting this for the record.... Around 3:30 PM today, Spokane's Northtown Mall was evacuated because of some kind of gas leak or released gas. Not natural gas; reported to smell "like pepper spray". Several people have been hospitalized, at least for checking. At this point (4:30) the authorities are clearing out a larger area around the mall, and are being "very tight-lipped."

4:50: appears to be all-clear, but still no sense of what it actually was.

5:13: not so all-clear. Some people seem to be "getting worse"; some folks went home, then started having skin irritation and respiratory symptoms, and took themselves to the hospital. May not be pepper spray; one witness claimed to be familiar with pepper spray and said it was something else, tasted "medicinal".

6:29: The chemical doesn't seem to have been anything serious, though about 20 people are still being checked. What is serious is that Northtown was shown to have no effective evacuation procedure. There was apparently no announcement; even after firemen closed off the parking lot and started checking the air, customers and store employees were still allowed to mill around and ask each other what was happening. So if this was a test, a 'ping', the enemy has now detected a huge vulnerability.

= = = = =

A media note. Spokane has three major TV stations: KREM (CBS), KXLY (ABC) and KHQ (NBC). In this event as in the last few weather emergencies, only KREM has done the job that television was meant to do! KREM starts covering an emergency as soon as it's evident, and stays on with wall-to-wall news until it's over. The other two stations basically stick to their consultant-ordered formats, ignoring the emergency and covering the officially denominated "local news" topics, namely breast cancer, breast cancer, breast cancer, breast cancer, and cute puppies.

KREM's newest reporter Othello Richards deserves a special tip o' th' hat for possessing old-fashioned reportorial guts. In this event as in the windstorms, he's been first on the spot and first with the facts.

Needless to say, KREM won't receive any awards for an outstanding job of reporting important news. Broadcasters receive awards only for serving Lenin and destroying America.
  ¶ 4:36 PM

  The Clinton luck ... again.
The Anna Nicole thing is a classic sad story. Country girl wants fame and fortune, goes to Hollywood, shows her assets, gets fame and fortune. Ends up in the hands of vampires and vultures who keep the fame going regardless of consequences to the actual girl, because the vampires and vultures are making a wonderful living off her troubles.

I'm tempted to say that the old-world method worked better. Leave fame and fortune to the aristocrats, who know how to handle it. They aren't necessarily better people, but their 'family retainers' are more focused on maintaining the family name than grabbing the maximum bucks from momentary fame.

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However, one Big Story will tend to occupy the drawkcaB sweN entirely, crowding out what would otherwise have been the big story. In this case, Anna Nicole's death has stomped all over Abu Hussein Obama's official announcement of candidacy! The drawkcaB sweN were undoubtedly planning a whole month of Obamafest, but now they have no choice but to cover a politically irrelevant story.

Hillary lucks out again. If I were an Abu Hussein Obama supporter, I'd feel paranoid right now, just as all the other Clinton opponents have felt paranoid when their cherished and well-timed stories were mysteriously drowned by other irrelevant events. It's not worth the paranoia, though; it's just the Clinton luck as always.

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Irrelevant sidenote: The name of Anna Nicole's chief vulture, Howard K. Stern, provides an interesting shibboleth. Anyone over 50 unavoidably says or thinks 'Smith' after 'Howard K.' I find myself doing it, and Fox's John Gibson is having real trouble with it. Gibson has to stop for a full second each time; you can hear him internally swallowing the 'Smith' and forcing 'Stern' out of his mouth, and still he sometimes misses. Indeed a testament to the power and authority of those old newsmen. Looking up Smith, I find that he retired from daily broadcasting 30 years ago and died in 2002. But his name is still an automatic instinct for those of us who grew up along with television.

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Polistra disagrees with my cold detached sociological approach. Instead, she simply wants to offer up a prayer for Anna Nicole's soul, aimed at Saint Germaine Cousin, the patron saint of country girls who endure a hard life and die young. Germaine never achieved fame and fortune in life, but her posthumous power among the country folk of France was so intense that the Communists of 1789 found it necessary to desecrate her grave.





  ¶ 7:47 PM