Friday, November 20, 2009

Turkey Flu

Swine’s aloft! Less than a week from now, the biggest travel day of the year. Moms, dads, kids and grandparents, packing into planes, SUVs, minivans and trains to fly and drive in from all over the place and pig out together, then flying and driving home … just as the swine flu hits a historic high. Boston Herald:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:52 am Comments (0)

Home For Christmas!

Come on. That’s so old war. Here’s the Obama age take on the old wartime troop-rallying standby. No rush, guys, no decision before Thanksgiving. Fox.

President Obama will not announce a decision on his war strategy in Afghanistan before Thanksgiving, his aides told Fox News on Thursday.

The latest development on the fate of up to 40,000 U.S. troops came at the tail end of the president’s eight-day Asia trip. 

For several weeks, Obama has been weighing whether to send as many as 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan as his top commander there, Gen. Stanley McChrystal has requested, or to scale back the war effort and focus on pursuing Al Qaeda in Pakistan as his political advisers, including Vice President Biden, have urged.

McChrystal has said that without the additional troops, the U.S. effort in Afghanistan would likely result in failure.

Sooner or later. Chill, general dude. It isn’t like the president doesn’t want to show the boys and girls over there that he cares. O on the front lines in that way old school war, Korea:

“You guys make a pretty good photo op,” the president reportedly joked with the 1,500 troops at Osan Air Base.

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:38 am Comments (1)

Crazy Is As Crazy Blogs

OK, indulge my obsessed-lefty obsession for a minute. A quick wellness check on two of my favorite serious, thoughtful, expert moonbat commentators, Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan. First Sullivan, a professional political observer whose mental health we’ve been closely monitoring (and whose Daily Dish since resuming “as normal” yesterday has racked up no fewer than 23 Palin posts), on why feverish obsession is the only logic resort of a thinking man. “Don’t Feed The Trolls“:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:48 am Comments (4)

CrossFit

Reader Pat likes CrossFit, a dynamic combination of all kinds of things reportedly employed by various military and police units. Sounds like a great concept. I think this is what my cop brother-in-law was talking about, need to check. I enjoyed the torture session where he made me and our sons run up and down Coast Guard Hill six times, knocking out pushups and crunches between each run.

Pat says: ”My schedule isn’t great for getting to the gym but I still get decent results even when I can’t make it consistently.”

OK, so what is it? (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:28 am Comments (1)

Lefties For Palin

It’s a kind of post-feminist shout-out. “Democrat goes rogue, declares Palin’s book ’great’!” Sandra Tsing-Loh at Salon:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:06 am Comments (0)

Thursday, November 19, 2009

So We Don’t Need To Interrogate Him …

But is it OK if we just leave the lights on, crank the AC/DC,* give him a bath or 183, and maybe walk the dogs? Not to extract information or anything illegal like that … but no jihadi’s martyrdom at the hands of the hated Crusaders is complete without it. Wouldn’t want to disappoint. 

I guess not, seeing as they probably would be holding the criminal suspect known as Osama bin Laden at Rikers Island if they did capture him, and the most ill-treatment he’s likely to get is the incessant badgering from the ACLU and American Friends Service Committee, which would be all over it.

“Have you been tortured yet?”

“No, inshallah maybe today.”

I hope he gets along with the other inmates. Sorry, here’s what it’s about … via The Hill, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy: No need to interrogate OBL. It’s just the latest lunacy of that sort that has Khalid Sheikh Mohammed headed to the Big Apple for the jihadi grandstanding opportunity of a lifetime. Speaking of which, here’s Lindsay Graham stumping Eric Holder.

* Crittenden’s own GWOT Hit Parade: Decadent Western Musicians For Jihad

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:14 pm Comments (6)

Normalcy Promised

It’s a tall order. It’s Andrew Sullivan, coming down off his Palin-induced state of brain implosion, or whatever that was: (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:51 am Comments (12)

Rat Happy

It’s one of the dirty little secrets of intense exercise. Do it, and you’ll feel happy. Rat happy, as an inner rat-like calm spreads over you. NYT’s Health section explains: (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:52 am Comments (1)

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Never Mind The Sexism

(IMPORTANT UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan and his entire staff are gobsmacked. He reports he has some delusional fantasies he needs to sort out. I’ll say. He could start with who is the unhinged party and lacks a grasp on reality in his running Palin obsessathon. Also, what constitutes craziness on his part.)

How about the ripoff? Runner’s World said that shot was under a one year embargo. Newsweek used it without permission: (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 2:01 pm Comments (1)

Harvard Law Hero

They keep coming out of the woodwork. Harvard war heroes. This one, when all the other Harvard Law graduates headed off to the white-shoe law firms, the non-profits, community organizing, that kind of thing, he headed off to the United States Marine Corps. Three combat tours later, it was the DEA because, his dad said, unlike CIA and other agencies, he could be assured of frontline action there. He found it in Afghanistan. Boston Herald:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:36 pm Comments (2)

Politically Blonde

Lefties whack Newsweek for sexism. MediaMatters. Hullabaloo. It’s feminist bites lefty rag, a pretty rare and newsworthy occurrence for a crowd that usually slams as they do, not as they say. Palin didn’t like it, either, went after it on Facebook. Good. Point out their raging hypocrisy.

But as a professional tabloid newspaperman, I’m not going to squawk.  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:10 am Comments (4)

Know Your Limitations

It’s the fitness tip for the day. Seattle Police, wannabe ninja whose skills were not sufficient to the task found impaled on the metal fence he attempted to leap:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:44 am Comments (0)

Notorious KGB

Vlad chills with Russky rappers, needs an alias. via Boston Herald:

“I have to say that young people involved in these arts in our country give them their own Russian charm,” Putin said in televised remarks Friday night. “Because rap … is being filled with social content, discusses problems of the youth.”

Word. Old gangsta dude’s old school, lays down lines like Poindexter with no rhyme. Nichevo. 50 Kopeck’s already taken by some hard-rapping Ivans, but there’s still …Poot Dogg … Vladye East … P Vladdy … Vodka Ice. Nyet, scratch that last one. Anyway, Vludacris can rap this. Da Boyz N Ivan’s Hood:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:49 am Comments (2)

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Fit Fight

I may not be up for his full iron-pumping, cooler-carrying regime, but J.D. Johannes is getting under my skin.  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:57 am Comments (3)

Acting Stupidly

Somebody was. Maybe a lot of people. Boston Herald: CPD, “By The Way, We Gave The Solon A Ride.”  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:22 am Comments (0)

Maybe, But Why’s Everyone Talking About Her?

Media can’t get enough of how unpopular Sarah Palin is, with her runaway bestseller. CBS, less than 1-in-4 have a favorable opinion:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:09 am Comments (5)

Belichick’s KSM Moment

How bad was it? So bad that Ed Morrissey at Hot Air ventured out of war and politics to bash Bill Belichick over the last-minute bollixing of the Pats-Colts game. (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:46 am Comments (1)

That Rattling Noise You Hear

Is the sound of this news knocking around inside Obama’s tin ear. Two-thirds of Americans want KSM tried in military court. CNN: (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 6:50 am Comments (1)

Monday, November 16, 2009

Fit For Combat?

Hardly, by J.D. Johannes’ standard. Got my copy the other day, read Part I and skimmed Part II. Six months since re-engaging my body, down 25 pounds, wind up, I might qualify for what he’d call “Fit (Enough) for Combat.” (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:34 am Comments (0)

Rules Force Disengagement

Herschel Smith at Captain’s Journal mulls some of the challenges posed by the one-arm-tied-behind-the-back tactics now in effect in Afghanistan.

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:32 am Comments (1)

L’Etat C’est O

Have your fun with O’s full-body kowtow to the delightful Mr. Akihito, who really does look like a pleasant old gent. When it comes to the important things, his Omperial Majesty won’t bow to pressure. He’s maintained a spine of steel in his refusal to decide what the heck he’s going to do in Afghanistan, and Politico notes the irritation His Oness exhibited when the first question from the White House Press Corps was about the dithering on Afghanistan, from the AP’s Jennifer Loven of all people. Odd, I don’t remember a tone of irked sputtering coming across in the resulting article:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:56 am Comments (1)

NixOnian!

Ha! ABC’s Jack Tapper says that while Obama was laying it on a little thick, Nixon did it first. Only he did it right. Nixon gave Hirohito a polite nod, not the human origami act “in the form of a first year English teacher trying to impress with Karate Kid-level knowledge of Japanese customs” that the current president executed. Tapper adds that Kyodo News … you remember that outfit, they broke the big Godzilla scoop a few years back … has been showing O’s less-embarrassing nod to Mrs. Akihito rather than the full dork-drop to Mr. Akihito.  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:12 am Comments (2)

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Courtroom Jihad!

This KSM trial thing looks to be endlessly fascinating. Everyone has questions about it. Maguire noted the difficulty of seating an impartial jury. How about seating a jury of their peers? My 13-year-old came up with that one. How are you going to find 12 cave-dwelling Islamic extremists good and true in New York? No cab driver jokes please. Those guys work hard for a living. They don’t have time to sit around in caves plotting mass murder. OK, most of them don’t.  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 6:51 pm Comments (6)

The Importance Of Being Difficult

Jennifer Rubin at Commentary, channeling Bill Kristol, on the efficacy of “No.” If conservatives were at sea a few months back in the wake of defeat, trying to figure out who they were and what their agenda was supposed to be, that may be in part because the importance of saying “No” and what should be said “No” to were not yet fully manifest:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 2:34 pm Comments (2)

Thank You!

Still waiting on a final breakdown from Soldiers Angels on the Valour IT push, what it will buy, how it compares to years past, etc. But thanks to many of you who gave as you could, Team Marines under the leadership of the indomitable (and hot) Marine wife Villainous Company absolutely, positively blew it away, hitting 113 percent of its goal, for more than $39,000 toward the $103,246 pledged for laptops and specialized electronic for war-wounded veterans. Final totals expected next week. Soldiers Angels, where they put together gift packages for soldiers in the field and other support projects, has a long list of things you can do for the troops this holiday season.

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:53 pm Comments (0)

Losing Kilcullen

The Australian counterinsurgency whizkid, via DoDbuzz, advises the O admin to conduct its Afghan business or get off the pot:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:48 am Comments (2)

Top Reads

Your picks via the site’s Amazon links this month continue to delight and inform:

Death in the Silent Places Peter Hathaway Capstick. A look at some of history’s Great White Hunters, including the audacious Bwana who took on WWI Krauts in East Africa. Warning, not PC! Gets good reviews. Here’s one from a reader at Amazon: (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:26 am Comments (1)

Who’s Hot, Who’s Not

via Boston Sunday Herald:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:25 am Comments (0)

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Those Who Re-Invent History

Are doomed to bollix it. Politico, with “America’s First Pacific President,” on the current president’s latest self-aggrandizement, diminishment of his predecessor, and creative rewriting of history: (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:57 am Comments (4)

Alternate Academia

Briefly spotted at Harvard University this past week. Crittenden* at the Weekly Standard: (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:00 am Comments (2)

They Were Soldiers

As the president of the United States mulls another escalation of U.S. forces in a foreign war zone, some American combat veterans are marking an anniversary from a different war and a different time, and a very different escalation.

Forty-four years ago today, Nov. 14, 1965, 1/7 Cav of the 1st Cavalry Division choppered into LZ X-ray in the Ia Drang Valley in a reconnaissance in force that encountered three regiments of the People’s Army of Vietnam dug in on and around the Chu Pong massif.

What ensued was the first major engagement between U.S. and North Vietnamese regulars, and some of the bloodiest days in American military history; with up to 70 percent battalion-level casualties and some platoons almost entirely wiped out on the single bloodiest day of the Vietnam War, Nov. 17, 1965, when the troopers of 2/7 Cav thought it was over and the enemy was defeated. It wasn’t.  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:10 am Comments (3)

Friday, November 13, 2009

Palin-Palooza

 

With Going Rogue: An American Life about to hit the stands, the Palin party kicks off with Drudge’s excerpt. Innocent’s a broad:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:10 pm Comments (4)

RCAF Plan

Reader Bill B. weighs in on our running “Live Forever Or Die Trying” program. At 67, he’s knocking out more pullups and pushups than I have since at least 2003, so maybe he knows what he’s talking about. “LFODT” Part 10:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:11 am Comments (1)

Because Every Circus Needs A Ringmaster

USS Cole, 9/11 plotter to be tried in New York. So the anti-war left finally gets the Bush-Cheney trial is has so desperately wanted, Judge Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, A.Q., presiding.

It would be easy to get depressed about the prospect of unlawful combatants, war criminals, being afforded all the rights and privileges of American citizens in a civilian court. But apparently we’ll have to get past that. Might as well sit back and enjoy the show … the Greatest Show on Earth! NYT:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:23 am Comments (4)

Priorities Straight?

The media seems to get it, at some level. The big news out of Japan, Obama addresses the dithering charge. Washington Post:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:40 am Comments (1)

The Surprising Re-Learning Of Vietnam

Maybe that should be “The Surprising Un-Learning of Vietnam.” Newsweek’s new cover article, “The Surprising Lessons of Vietnam,” is the latest high-profile media effort not to let our politicians lose another war politically. Subhead in the hard copy:

 The most surprising lesson is not that wars of this kind are unwinnable, but that “You must fight to win.”

It is what constitutes “fight to win” that becomes the issue, and the article notes that not only are insurgencies well-fought historically shown t be winnable, but that … both in Vietnam and Iraq … the United States military has demonstrated it knows how to do this. Great lede, BTW:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:17 am Comments Off

Thursday, November 12, 2009

I Don’t Care Engage In Speculation At This Time …

But the man considered by some to be a possible suspect in the incident of an as-yet undetermined nature that may have occured at Fort Hood last week when 13 Americans were killed by a guy yelling “Allah Akhbar” was wiring money to Pakistan. Dallas Morning News.

This is odd, because this United States Army officer who was without doubt, despite the scurrilous lack of evidence, discriminated against and kept in the Army against his will while being traumatized by other people’s war experiences, is not only of Palestinian descent but his allegedly over-Islamically enthusiastic fugitive imam is believed to be in Yemen. Money to Pakistan? Now, I don’t want to engage in wild, unsubstantiated speculation, but maybe the Pak cash drop was a down payment on a Muslim bride. Maybe it was for Afghan refugee relief. You know, Save the Children. Earthquake relief? What other business could a fine, young American-born Army officer … cough (fanatical raving jihadi!!!) cough … possibly have wiring money to Pakistan?

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:30 am Comments (2)

Working Out On The Go!

How To Live Forever Or Die Trying, Part 9.

It’s always hard to keep up an exercise regimen with all the demands of a hectic modern lifestyle, especially if you have to travel for business. J.D. Johannes, freelance embed and author of Fit for Combat: When Fitness is a Matter of Life or Death,* explains how he gets it done in this guest post from a forward operating base near Tikrit: (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:54 am Comments (0)

Advance To The Rear!

It’s not quite a strategic retreat, more of a retreat into strategizing as Obama dithers about the dithering, informs his national security team it’s back to Square One. Scratch everything, back to the drawing board. He wants to stop thinking about the war until he can figure out the peace part. OK, that may not be exactly how senior administration officials put it, but at this point, inaction speaks louder than words. via MSNBC:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:38 am Comments (9)

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Great Words, Great Deeds

It was a good speech. He said all the right things and didn’t say any of the wrong ones. White House transcript. It’s being hailed as the “best ever,” but they seem to say that every time he opens his mouth. Unlike his other great rhetorical moments, no one gets thrown under the bus in this one. He could have gone farther than “more incomprehensible” in my view, as there is nothing really incomprehensible about it at all. We’re a long way down this road. We’ve been here before.  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:02 am Comments (4)

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Happy Birthday, Marine Baby

Happy birthday, United States Marine Corps. Born Nov. 10, 1775, in Tun’s Tavern, Philadelphia. And happy birthday, Marine baby Colin Joseph Van De Giesen, born today, Nov. 10, at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, just days after his father, Marine Capt. Kyle Van De Giesen, was laid to rest in the Massachusetts National Cemetery at Bourne. A little joy in a family devastated by wartime loss. Boston Herald: (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:21 pm Comments (1)

Meanwhile, In Other Diversity News

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick takes a hard line, decides he won’t have his own Bill Ayers-type problem. Bucks the lefties at UMass, sides with the cop’s widow, says “No” to an aging hippy explosive diversity activist’s speech. So insensitive! Who would have thought Obama’s doppelganger would be anti-academic freedom? Boston Herald:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:26 am Comments (3)

Harvard Yard

Home of American heroes.

It’s always easy to poke fun at the World’s Greatest University across the Charles, all the more so in recent decades as, like much of academia, it sank in a wretched swamp of America-bashing leftism while continuing to survey the world down its superior nose.

Did you know that Harvard can now boast no fewer than 16 Medals of Honor among its alums? Thanks to the efforts of some veterans who have long treasured their university’s military traditions and dug into military records and Harvard archives, the university can claim the highest known number outside the service academies. 

From Gettysburg to Vietnam … where, while others protested back home in Harvard Yard, 22 Harvard men were killed in action … Boston Herald:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:03 am Comments (11)

Monday, November 9, 2009

VEE Day

It’s Victory in Eastern Europe Day. Though I kind of like the sound of “VUSSR Day.” In Ivan’s face. PO Putin a little … for a change.

Obama of course couldn’t make it to the festivities. It’s an awkward one for him, given the recent retreat in the face of neo-Stalinism, and the fact that he’d have to give credit to one of his predecessors, or maybe sit and listen while others do … it will be interesting, to see if Ronald Reagan does get any official nods.

Twenty years ago today, the Berlin wall came down. It was a fact of the first three decades of my life. I was just one year old when they started slapping down the mortar and laying out the minefields. I even knew about it as a child, this horrible scar across Europe, beyond which basic freedom ended and the nightmare began. It was the very real bogeyman of our time, horrible totalitarianism, 1984 made manifest several decades ahead of schedule, and the threat of nuclear annihilation that was a part of it, such that, in the first grade in Alameda, California, we practicised duck-and-cover as well as earthquake drills. Nothing quaint or or historic about it then.

I never believed, as I became aware of the world around me in my teens and 20s, we would see the end of it in our time. Here’s Reagan speechwriter Anthony R. Dolan at the Wall Street Journal on the power of “Four Little Words” … you remember them: “Tear down that wall” … and the earth-shaking ideas they represented as well as the action that backed them. So simple, so logical, yet no one had thought to speak them before. And so bizarrely controversial.

The popular myth is that the wall kind of toppled over by itself, with a little push from people power. That of course ignores not only the prior 44 years of Cold War … interspersed with several hot ones that cost us tens of thousands of American lives … it also ignores the massive military buildup of the 1980s, the encouragement of liberation movements behind the Iron Curtain, the tough engagement with old-school Soviet leaders and, not least, the cordial engagement with a Soviet leader who realized it was time to throw in the towel. An atmosphere was finally created in which people felt like the could challenge the wretched, murdeorus regime with impunity, and they did.

Here’s Ross Douthat at NYT, who was not yet 10 when that happened, not only thinks the wall was shoved over by German flower children, but that Islamo-facism and other threats to our free society are not that big a deal. Never mind the End of History, he’s fast-forwarded to the post-post-9/11 world.  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:46 am Comments (4)

Don’t Hold Your Breath, Joe

UPDATE: Non-conclusive discrimination victim Nidal Hasan was trying to contact al-Qaeda. See below.

Lieberman, run out of the Democratic Party for making sense a couple of years ago, makes some more. NY Daily News: “Lieberman Calls Fort Hood a ‘Terrorist’ Act.”   (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:31 am Comments (4)

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Courageous!

House votes 220-215 to entirely reorder a vast portion of our economy, plus create massive new entitlements someone will have to pay for. NYT is keen to explain that it would have passed by more, but … 39 Dems come from districts that don’t want it. Also via NYT: Obama calls the House vote “courageous.”  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:26 pm Comments (3)

Laparoscopic War Strategizing

O’s advisors are working up three options Afghanistan troop options. Glad to hear he’s still working on that. I was a little concerned that, like some other federal agents, his eye was off the al-Qaeda ball. Here’s the status of the last three months of war strategizing, via NYT. Sounds like he’s taking pains to be minimally invasive:  (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:44 am Comments (4)

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Backlash

Speaking of audacity, the AP has a handwringing piece about renewed Muslim fears of an anti-Islamic backlash, highest ever since 9/11: (more…)

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:57 am Comments (3)

“Young Man Of Morals”

Mourned. Boston Herald on the funeral of USMC Capt. Kyle VanDeGiesen. His pregnant wife is following the casket.

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:35 am Comments (1)

The Audacity Of D’oh

Mary Katharine Ham at the Weekly Standard on White House flack Gibbs’ exasperation … “Imagine just a few years ago had somebody walked around with images of Hitler” …  helpfully points out that they did. Also observes more redneck bashing and comments, “I guess this is what they meant by ‘audacity.’”

Meanwhile, Jules Crittenden at the Weekly Standard, “Obama’s Leading Indicator.” It’s about using Massachusetts as a testing ground, and despite an initial good showing, how it hasn’t worked for him. D’oh!

Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:32 am Comments (0)