Archives for February 2007
Sgt. Hello Kitty
Published on 22 Feb 2007 at 12:33 am.
4 Comments.
Filed under Hello Kitty, Japan, military.
Japan, eager to shed its rampaging samurai-sword-wielding Nanking-raping Tojo image as it cautiously projects its power out into the world, promotes the SDF with cuddly cartoon characters. Meet Prince Pickles:
News So Real it Must Be True
Published on 21 Feb 2007 at 11:32 pm.
21 Comments.
Filed under Iraq, al qaeda, pols.
Cheney’s al-Qaeda swipe stings:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday phoned President Bush to air her complaints over Vice President Dick Cheney’s comments that the Congressional Democrats’ plan for Iraq would “validate the Al Qaeda strategy.”
Read ‘News So Real it Must Be True’
Nerd Fight!
Published on 21 Feb 2007 at 10:17 pm.
25 Comments.
Filed under anthronerdism, geekism, science.
Inbred Jesus Cultists vs. Monkey-Loving Darwinists is so 1925. Astrophysicists vs. Ptolemists is the happening pop edu-clash!
Highly evolved anthroblogger John Hawks takes umbrage at a proposal to “de-emphasize Darwin” in order to lessen the ideological overtones in the debate over evolutionary science. Chron of Higher Ed:
Just Can’t Stay Away
Published on 21 Feb 2007 at 10:11 pm.
7 Comments.
Filed under Iraq, military.
Spree at WakeupAmerica has this email interview with a badly wounded soldier who re-enlisted for six more years:
An OED Moment
Published on 21 Feb 2007 at 10:10 pm.
7 Comments.
Filed under blogs, geekism.
Paul Campos has beclowned himself. Most of you as loyal Tim Blair and Instapundit readers were probably present at the birth or at least the baptism of the verb Blair coined back in 2004, and PJM celebrated as Word of the Year So Far … that “So Far” honorific itself being worthy of pop culture notice. [...]
Chemical Warfare
Published on 21 Feb 2007 at 9:59 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under Iraq.
Chlorine bombs are the latest Iraqi terrorist weapon of choice. Thus far, no more horrific or deadly than massive car bombs, and perhaps less, being poorly executed. Maybe pyschologically scarier, I don’t know. Until they get a lot better at this, its a toss up whether its any worse than what they are already doing. Murdering [...]
Death and Politics
Published on 21 Feb 2007 at 1:05 pm.
9 Comments.
Filed under Iraq, military.
Dadmanly, with a soldier’s take on numbers that indicate the death rate in Iraq is less than the military peacetime death rate from training accidents and other causes.
Pilgrims For Israel
Published on 21 Feb 2007 at 12:59 pm.
No Comments.
Filed under Britain, Europe, USA, middle east.
Michael Totten’s interview with Michael Oren, author of “Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present” ends up at Plymouth, down the road from my house. Michael van der Galien picks up the thread.
Poll Governance
Published on 21 Feb 2007 at 10:17 am.
1 Comment.
Filed under Uncategorized.
Turns out the Dem Cong are governing with pinpoint smart-bomb poll-guided accuracy. This, via Joyner:
Letter From Iran
Published on 21 Feb 2007 at 9:57 am.
4 Comments.
Filed under Iran.
A number of Iranian writers, artists and academics would like you to know they are not a nation of A-holes like A-Jad. Letter to Normblog:
How Al-Sadr Became the Most Powerful Man in Iraq, and other stuff that happened a long time ago, elsewhere
Published on 21 Feb 2007 at 12:48 am.
10 Comments.
Filed under Iraq, Pakistan, media, military.
I have to think this Foreign Policy article by the NYT’s Dexter Filkins on Moqtada al-Sadr’s rise power and how he is now waiting in the wings, with no mention of how far into the wings he has now retreated, suffers greatly from a 20th-century production schedule, not to mention superficiality that renders the headline overhype. But [...]
Jihad a Change of Heart
Published on 21 Feb 2007 at 12:31 am.
7 Comments.
Filed under GWOT, al qaeda.
Pelham NH native Daniel Maldonado had second thoughts about global jihad, death to America, etc., before he was captured, says his public defender. Although he told the FBI after he was captured he thought 9/11 was great and he was ready to kill Americans.
But it turns out al-Qaeda is not a family friendly organization, and that gave Maldonado [...]
Read ‘Jihad a Change of Heart’
“Tell The American People We Need The U.S. Army Here”
Published on 21 Feb 2007 at 12:06 am.
17 Comments.
Filed under Iraq, embeds, military.
Bill Ardolino’s interview with the Jundi:
Read ‘“Tell The American People We Need The U.S. Army Here”’
Anti-War Surge Risks Quagmire
Published on 20 Feb 2007 at 11:51 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under Iraq, pols.
Brendan Miniter at WSJ: The Iraq War is unpopular but embracing defeat may be more so.
Read ‘Anti-War Surge Risks Quagmire’
Brits Split
Published on 20 Feb 2007 at 11:50 pm.
13 Comments.
Filed under Australia, Britain, Iraq, military, pols.
Brits are halving their force in Iraq. Tony Blair, who long fought within his own party to do the right thing in Iraq, is giving in to political forces he is no longer willing to fight. He’s leaving himself soon enough, so he might as well set the terms for the British draw down, to leave [...]
Heads Up
Published on 20 Feb 2007 at 12:18 pm.
7 Comments.
Filed under Iraq, Stratfor, military.
Stratfor’s news summary includes:
U.S./IRAQ: U.S. and Iraqi troops bombarded the office of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr in the al-Shula area west of Baghdad, the Kuwait News Agency reported, citing an unnamed security source. The source added that 14 military vehicles were surrounding the office and soldiers were confiscating documents.
Heroes and Cowards
Published on 20 Feb 2007 at 11:54 am.
51 Comments.
Filed under Iraq, courage, military, pols.
Alicia Colon at the New York Sun cites the death of USMC Cpl. Thomas Saba, another of the seven killed when Capt. Jennifer Harris’ Ch-46 was shot down. Colon launches into a discussion of the choices people make, failures, compounded failures and efforts at redemption, in “Heroes and Cowards:”
In Which Our Hero PO’s the VC
Published on 20 Feb 2007 at 11:28 am.
2 Comments.
Filed under military, vietnam.
Castle Argghhh!!!’s serialized, cliffhanging Vietnam tale continues. Yesterday, our hero was informed the VC had a price on his head … dead only … of 500 bicycles. Today, our hero explains how he managed to irk the VC so grievously. With a bit of a Mexican standoff:
“Black shirt’s reaching for something behind his back!”
Read ‘In Which Our Hero PO’s the VC’
Horton: Hanging Good!
Published on 20 Feb 2007 at 10:30 am.
1 Comment.
Filed under Bush, GWOT, military.
Scott Horton on a high horse at Balkanization and Huffpo, makes the case for drumhead trials and summary executions of unlawful combatants … although that isn’t exactly what he intended to do.
Horton, in a lofty, principled but accuracy challenged* review of “The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib,” gets all George Washington on George Bush. He is immediately smacked down [...]
Flagging Resolve
Published on 20 Feb 2007 at 9:52 am.
4 Comments.
Filed under Clintons, pols.
Hillary, exercising the great Clinton penchant for not minding her own business, tells South Carolina to lose the Confederate flag:
ORANGEBURG, S.C. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that South Carolina should remove the Confederate flag from its Statehouse grounds, in part because the nation should unite under one banner while at [...]
Here, Obedient to Their Laws, We Lie*
Published on 20 Feb 2007 at 2:18 am.
2 Comments.
Filed under anthronerdism, courage, military.
Graves of Athenian war dead from the defeat of the Persians at Marathon, through the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens, until Rome’s wars against Carthage, in a cemetery said to include the grave of Pericles, are being excavated and will be accessible to visitors in the near future.
“We have the remains of Athenian warriors of the Peloponnesian [...]
Read ‘Here, Obedient to Their Laws, We Lie*’
Playmate Curse
Published on 20 Feb 2007 at 1:52 am.
No Comments.
Filed under celeb.
Live fast, die young.
The selection of Anna Nicole Smith as a Playboy Playmate in 1992 made her a member of an exclusive sorority. Her death at 39 put her in a more grisly club — Playmates who haven’t reached their 50th birthday.
Automobile accidents, drug overdoses, homicides, a plane crash — all have claimed the lives of [...]
Murtha Kool-Aid
Published on 20 Feb 2007 at 1:44 am.
3 Comments.
Filed under Iraq, pols.
Novak thinks the Dems will guzzle it, against their own promises and better judgment.
Do You Drink Republican Kool-Aid?
Published on 20 Feb 2007 at 12:32 am.
2 Comments.
Filed under GWOT.
100 percent. I guzzle the Kool-Aid. It was easy. I just checked “I agree” or “True” on everything, no matter how irrelevant or distorted the question.
Warning: Unlike the “Do You Want the Terrorists to Win” laugh riot posted below, this quiz suffers from a certain dry didacticism. Preachy, boring and a bit of a chore to plow through. [...]
Read ‘Do You Drink Republican Kool-Aid?’
Amerikiya Akbar!
Published on 19 Feb 2007 at 11:56 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under Islam, USA, middle east.
Egyptian Weirdness via Egyptian Sandmonkey. I appreciate this guy’s moral support, but I don’t think Egypt is ready for his biting satire:
Dr. Gaber Mohamed al Gazar, the professor of foreign trade in the Univeristy of Helwan … started his lecture last Thursday with writing the day’s date on the Blackboard, and instead of writing the usual “In [...]
Nerdcore
Published on 19 Feb 2007 at 11:36 pm.
No Comments.
Filed under USA, nerds.
Important new rap development.
Six Attack Plans and a Hanging
Published on 19 Feb 2007 at 11:25 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
Allah at HotAir has a roundup of Brit papers, Seymour Hersh and others breathlessly revealing plans to bomb Iran since last summer, up to the latest rather obvious plan revealed by the BBC to bomb the daylights out of not only nuke sites but all kinds of military infrastructure. Pretty much what you’d want them to [...]
Read ‘Six Attack Plans and a Hanging’
Northern Light
Published on 19 Feb 2007 at 10:26 pm.
4 Comments.
Filed under Canada, media, military.
Great tribute to a great Canadian conservative tabloid newspaperman … reviled of course … my uncle Peter Worthington* on his 80th:
… He has paddled up the Ogowe River in Gabon, with two lepers as his guides, to visit Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s hospital in the African rain forest. On the morning in Dallas when the Toronto Star’s [...]
Surge Ahead
Published on 19 Feb 2007 at 3:40 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under Iraq.
Speaking of great writing out of Iraq, Mohammed of Iraq the Model updates the surge at PJM:
Welcome To His World
Published on 19 Feb 2007 at 1:05 pm.
7 Comments.
Filed under Iraq, military.
Acute Politics picks up where A Day in Iraq left off. The best American combat writer in Iraq:
Tet for Tat?
Published on 19 Feb 2007 at 10:21 am.
10 Comments.
Filed under Iraq, military, pols.
Frontal assault on a base in Iraq kills two, wounds 17.
This raises a question I’ve been wondering about. We’ve seen surge results, and we’ve seen the brief peace broken. No surprise here.
500 Bicycles
Published on 19 Feb 2007 at 10:21 am.
5 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
John of Argghhh!!! offers a blast from the past:
“VC ‘Wanted’ poster …”
“A ‘Wanted’ poster? (grin) What’s the reward, a lifetime supply of nuoc-mam?”
The E-6 grinned back and said, “One thousand piastres for your dogtags and that metal unit patch you’re wearin’. Two thousand piastres for your dogtags, patch and nametape. Five hundred Peugeot bicycles or [...]
Sign of End Times
Published on 19 Feb 2007 at 9:43 am.
No Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
Revelation 7:2 … “And after these things I saw a duck with four legs, running around on two, with the other two hanging out back as stabilizers.”
Check it out. It’s in there.
Pig Year = A Stinker
Published on 19 Feb 2007 at 9:37 am.
No Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
That’s the word from feng shui masters:
“The Year of the Pig will not be very peaceful,” said Hong Kong feng shui master Raymond Lo.
Do You Want The Terrorists To Win?
Published on 19 Feb 2007 at 1:33 am.
11 Comments.
Filed under Europe, GWOT, Islam, USA, pols.
Take the quiz here.
This is a test you want to fail. I got 15 percent, and was informed I’m a proud flag waving American who wants to kill terrorists, something like that. I think I effed up on “Did you start calling French Fries ‘Freedom Fries’” by checking “No, That’s Retarded.”
“Who wants the Terrorists to Win the [...]
Read ‘Do You Want The Terrorists To Win?’
Al Qaeda Spring
Published on 18 Feb 2007 at 11:28 pm.
5 Comments.
Filed under GWOT, al qaeda.
NYT, citing intel sources who don’t want to discuss details, says al Qaeda is on the upswing in North Waziristan:
WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 — Senior leaders of Al Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their once battered worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps [...]
You Live To Row This Ship …
Published on 18 Feb 2007 at 10:57 pm.
4 Comments.
Filed under anthronerdism, science.
… Row well, and live!
— Roman Tribune Quintus Arrius, to the galley slave Judah Ben-Hur.
A Brit researcher claims ancient Greek athletes were superior to modern athletes, based on his study of modern rowers’ metabolic output and what the ancient texts say about the feats of Greek trireme oarsmen. via John Hawks.
Read ‘You Live To Row This Ship …’
Blogger Faces Sharia
Published on 18 Feb 2007 at 10:56 pm.
No Comments.
Filed under Europe, Islam, blogs, middle east.
Egyptian Sandmonkey reports that imprisoned blogger Abdel Karim’s father has disowned him and would like to see Sharia law applied to him. That reportedly means death. Background on Karim, arrested last year for criticizing Islam, here.
While mullahs mull whether to execute a free thinker, Europeans are debating whether their culture of multicultural tolerance should tolerate [...]
Surge Reax
Published on 18 Feb 2007 at 10:53 pm.
5 Comments.
Filed under Iraq.
Mohammed at Iraq the Model reported on the quiet in Baghdad, attacks down 80 percent, apparently before two car bombs killed 63.
One day of Iraqis dying in large numbers follows four in which they didn’t. It was a matter of time before that happened, in the midst of what remains a success so far. The AP had [...]
Crusader Virus vs. Viral Jihad
Published on 18 Feb 2007 at 10:48 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under GWOT, Islam, al qaeda, blogs.
Memri reports on an Islamist forum re online Jihad and how not to get shut down or busted.
“We are all aware of the Zionist-Crusader campaign that has been launched against the Islamist websites…
Read ‘Crusader Virus vs. Viral Jihad’
Splat Alert!
Published on 18 Feb 2007 at 12:40 pm.
10 Comments.
Filed under impending doom!, science, warmalism.
Betcha asteroids killed off more species quicker than any passing temp shift or human activity did.
New Scientist link re impending doom:
Iraq: Tourist Mecca
Published on 18 Feb 2007 at 12:12 pm.
6 Comments.
Filed under Iran, Iraq, celeb, media.
UPDATE: “Think Progress” helpfully brings us this cutting insight from Brit Hume, re John Murtha:
“It’s time a few things be said about him,” Hume said. “This guy is long past the day when he had anything but the foggiest awareness of what the heck is going on in the world.” Hume called Murtha an “absolute [...]
Memo to Iran
Published on 18 Feb 2007 at 10:21 am.
6 Comments.
Filed under Iran, Iraq, lebanon.
Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and SyrPres Bashir Assad meet, draw a red line under everything the Bush administration has been saying.
Memo to Khamenei and Assad. You need to talk to Ajad’s PR people. The way to undercut an embattled US president is not to get all Cold War:
Devil’s Sitcom
Published on 17 Feb 2007 at 11:43 pm.
5 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
None of us know how we’ll go. Or how we’ll be found:
Police called to a Long Island man’s house discovered the mummified remains of the resident, dead for more than a year, sitting in front of a blaring television set.
New York Climbs
Published on 17 Feb 2007 at 11:10 pm.
6 Comments.
Filed under Iraq, media, pols.
NYT Editorial Board talks tough again, but adds a remarkably clever twist, having seen the surge news out of Iraq isn’t going its way:
Ad Libby Trial
Published on 17 Feb 2007 at 10:34 pm.
6 Comments.
Filed under Intel, Iraq, law & order, media.
I’d call this brilliant satire, except that every goddamned, bitter word of it is true. Victoria Toensing in a Washington Post oped states the case for indicting Special Persecutor Patrick Fitzgerald; former Deputy Suckretary of State Richard Armitage; the Cover Its Ass; the Justless Department, former U.S. Self-Aggrandizer Joseph Wilson, and large sections of the traitor media among [...]
Bushco Stooge On A Roll
Published on 17 Feb 2007 at 10:18 pm.
4 Comments.
Filed under Iraq, military, pols.
Satire so good I almost cut him from my blogroll. One hell of a 157-word sentence, too. Damn, that guy’s good. Links to another great report from Bushco warmonger Ardolino.
Read ‘Bushco Stooge On A Roll’
Surge Happy
Published on 17 Feb 2007 at 3:21 pm.
28 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
Mohammed of Iraq The Model At PJM is cautiously optimistic, seeing signs of success in the surge as he tours Baghdad.
Clearly, the message sent by Congress yesterday just isn’t getting through. But there’s still time for Democrats to seize defeat!
Uh oh … anti-surge move ebbs in Senate. Resolution party’s over. Surge will just have to go [...]
Bush Bad, Therefore …
Published on 17 Feb 2007 at 2:38 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.
A leftist struggles mightily to get it, and comes close to halfway there, as he looks at how the Left has lost its way. Not that, when we review the history of the 20th Century, there is any indication they had ever found it. Nick Cohen excerpted in the Australian. h/t Andrew Bolt.
While Congress Was Voting …
Published on 17 Feb 2007 at 12:57 pm.
4 Comments.
Filed under Iraq, Uncategorized, pols.
… for defeat and surrender, other people were taking care of business in Iraq. Mudville rounds up the door-kicking, head-breaking, name-taking fun here.
Classical Values puts Murtha in a lineup with pre-WWII appeasers, and has a roundup on his undermine-the-troops plan here. The good news is that even most of the Dem Cong thinks he’s crazy out there. As [...]
