Questioning the Patriotism of Others ...

... is disgusting, indefensible and completely wrong ... except for today. If you can't feel good about what happened in Iraq over the weekend, then you are not only unpatriotic, you're barely human. One word: Leave. You do not love democracy and you never will.

Even the N.Y. Times had this to say:

This page has not hesitated to criticize the Bush administration over its policies in Iraq, and we continue to have grave doubts about the overall direction of American strategy there. Yet today, along with other Americans, whether supporters or critics of the war, we rejoice in a heartening advance by the Iraqi people. For now at least, the multiple political failures that marked the run-up to the voting stand eclipsed by a remarkably successful election day.

Hat-tip RCP.

MSM exports worst elements of US democracy to Iraq

The main-stream media has brought the two worst aspects from our elections to Iraq ... the 2 p.m. exit poll and the right direction/wrong direction poll. When I awoke early Sunday morning, to learn that 52% of Iraqis think that Iraq is headed in the right direction, versus 38% that think it's in the wrong direction. What!?!?! They've had democracy for like 15 minutes and they already have this stupid thing?!?!?!

You'll remember this poll from the fall because Juan Williams tried to get hitched to it. It was rammed down our throats over and over again because, for the longest time, it was the only poll that reflected well on Kerry (or at least sufficiently poor on Bush). What a ridiculous question indicative of absolutely nothing, and sure enough Bush won despite the fact that a majority of people felt the country was heading in the wrong direction. My word!!

Now comes further proof that this question is beyond absurd. A country is moving towards a liberal democracy from a murderous totalitarian dictatorship and we are supposed to believe that the slimest of majorities think that it's heading in the right direction. Moreover we're left to conclude that 38% think it's a downgrade from Saddam. Enough! It's a stupid question. Ask them their favorite f**king color!!

It's stupid for a number of reasons, but I'll stick to the arbitrary measuring stick it utilizes. Right direction/wrong direction ... from when? Yesterday, last month, 2 years ago, 1948?? Moreover, even if measured from a consistent point, the "wrong direction" answer doesn't mean the respondent would pursue the opposite course of action, vote for the other guy, etc, etc. And the "right direction" doesn't preclude a still better course of action. [Head slamming against wall in frustration]

Next, I learn that 72% of Iraqis voted. Amazing!! Today, I learn it's more like 60-some percent and dropping fast. What was the source of the 72% figure? I shit you not, a 2 p.m. local time exit poll!!!!! Listen up Iraq, don't let you media grow up to be CNN, MSNBC and network television.

And Washington State and the Ukraine, I think you all should try out the purple-finger, paper-ballet, id-checking version of democracy .

Iraq Scoreboard

Well-manicured bits of Connecticut	1
Big city-busting nuclear warheads	0

When VodkaPunbit was laying out his Game Plan re: the Bush Doctine, he railied against the "Rumsfield f'd up because he didn't have an exit strategy" crowd with following:

What will the peace look like? I don't have a damn clue. And neither do you. And if you meet anyone who claims to know, feel free to laugh at them really hard. So hard, you get a little spit on their face. Sometimes, justice can be small and spiteful – ask a meter maid. Anyway.

When peace comes, it could look like whatever Mecca, Tehran, Damascus, Riyadh, Pyongyang, Khartoum, Kabul, Cairo, etc., look like after being hit by big city-busting nuclear warheads. Or it could end with the entire Arab and Muslim world looking like the really well-manicured bits of Connecticut. My best guess is, somewhere in-between. But that's only a guess.

NOTE: It's a sad state of affairs (their affairs, not ours) that the first scenario, no matter how repugnant and unlikely, still seems more likely than the second scenario, no matter how virtuous.

Ephraim Kishon, RIP

The Jerusalem Post reports that Ephraim Kishon died yesterday. Unconfirmed reports indicate that he found a long queue outside the Pearly Gates, but the redhead with the key was nowhere to be found. He was last seen trying to round up some demonstrators to chant 'we don't want Heaven; we demand to go to Hell'. The family is eagerly awaiting the National Gift Box of Chocolates, which last visited their home on the occasion of the grandson's bar mitzvah.

As a kid I loved reading his columns, first in English translation, and later in the Hebrew original. Three years ago, on a visit to Israel, not only couldn't I find any of his books, but the younger shop assistants had never heard of him. A year later he had won the Israel Prize, and a few of of his collections were reprinted. I think I'll put Salah Shabati in the VCR tonight, have a drink, and say a blessing for his soul.

Read The Whole Thing

Looking for one post that summarises the bottom line on Iraq, something you can just point people at and say "Read This"? Mike Hendrix at Cold Fury spells it out.
(Hat tip: Instapundit)

Puzzled

I'm a big fan of Stephan Pastis's Pearls Before Swine. But I just don't get today's strip. Could someone please explain this one to me?

UPDATE: Stephan was kind enough to explain it. Apparently there is such a thing as a Denver omelette. It's also known as a Western omelette. I had never heard of either one.

Framed!

Instapundit cites a story from the Chicago Tribune about a man who was framed by FBI agents for kidnapping and murder. He served 14 years for the kidnapping, and was sentenced to death for the murder. Glenn notes that the FBI stands by its men, and fears that this represents a systemic problem at the Bureau.

(1) it's appalling that someone would introduce such dubious evidence; and (2) this sort of thing needs to be punished so that it doesn't happen again. No doubt the agents would claim that the defendant is really guilty, and that the evidence is "fake but accurate," but that doesn't wash.

Indeed it doesn't. What Is To Be Done about it? Deuteronomy 19:19 provides one answer.

Happy Australia Day

Abuse of Civilians

The Washington Post's Jackie Spinner gives this report of the terrible abuse to which occupation troops are subjecting Iraqi civilians. Iowahawk gives further examples, and Tim Blair also comments. I'm struck by something else:

On the night of Jan. 5, Imaad and his mother, Um Imaad—both of whom declined to give their full names for fear of retribution—were watching a movie in the living room.

Um Imaad just means "Imaad's mum". It's not a name, it's a title. It's perfectly common in Arabic culture for a woman to be referred to primarily as "X's mother" (um X), especially if she's a widow with only one son. It's also common for a man to be called "X's father" (abu X), if he has a son he's particularly proud of, or who's well known.

So the quote above really says "Imaad and his mother, Imaad's Mother", like a excuse note that a kid forged for himself. Throughout the rest of the piece, when Spinner keeps referring to the mother as Um Imaad, all she's really saying is "Imaad's mother" – so why not just say so? Why use Arabic for this particular word instead of English? She doesn't use the Arabic for "television" or "mosque", or "feelthy peectures", so why the Arabic for "mother"?

Unless, of course, Spinner has no idea; but if she knows so little about the culture she's writing about, why is she writing about it?

Be Prepared

Meanwhile, Tom's brother Murray is worried about earthquakes. But, like a Scout, he's prepared for all eventualities:

Note to US/Oz disaster relief teams: My favorite icecream is strawberry.

Note to UN disaster relief teams: I'm armed.

Oh, the fingers!

Tom Paine, over at Silent Running, is in full lyrical flight:

There are a few hysterical right-wing neo-conservative zionist extremist Islamophobes who would have us believe that there is some sort of sinister Muslim political agenda to extend their own influence at the expense of others, and especially Jews. Such people no doubt furtively read blogs like Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch, and pass dog-eared copies of "1985" by Anthony Burgess to one another when they meet in the street. What nonsense. What tosh. What ridiculous paranoia.
.
.
.

I day dreamed even that on the Day of Judgement that Allah may look kindly upon me and if I were sent to hell for my many crimes, at least he may spare my fingers the heat of hell, for this days work in His Jihad.

Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: He forgot "likudnik".

Iraq The Model

Sarah Boxer's hit job on Iraq The Model in the NYT got a lot of coverage.
As usual, Chris Muir gets it exactly right.

Meanwhile, Mohammed has his say, and now Ali says he's learned his lesson:

she (or the paper) seems to have a certain agenda and managed to change the whole issue into a very silly gossip (going as far as quoting trolls!) that is way beneath any respectable paper and certainly beneath me so I won't give it more attention but lesson learned and I won't make the mistake of talking to anyone from the NY times again.

Remember those long lines in Cleveland?

Voting machines distributed evenly

the elections board allotted each Cleveland precinct one machine for every 117 registered voters within its boundaries - the same ratio of machines that suburban precincts received. In other words, the more registered voters a particular precinct had, the more machines it received, regardless of where that precinct was. And in the end, the busiest precincts - when measured by the number of ballots cast per machine - were actually in the suburbs, not Cleveland.

(Hat tip: Jaws)

Osama the Cthulhu Cultist?

Interesting read here. There are no gods but the Great Old Ones, and bin Laden is their prophet?

Remember:

Cthulhu loves the little children,
all the children of the world;
red and yellow, black and white,
all are tasty in His sight.
Cthulhu loves the little children of the world.

(Hat tip: Daniel Abraham)

Accounting for WMD

In email to the Instapundit, Merv Benson points out that the WMD issue in Iraq wasn't so much that we believed Saddam had huge stockpiles of WMD lying around (though it seems that the CIA did indeed believe it), but that he had failed to account for the huge stockpiles we knew he used to have. He claimed that they had been destroyed, and for all we knew then or know now that may have been true, but he wouldn't or couldn't prove it, and we weren't about to take his word for it, so we invaded (among other reasons) to find out what had happened to them. The fact that we didn't find them, Benson writes, puts us

in the same position as an auditor brought in to find missing money in a bank account. If it is still missing it does not mean that it was a mistake to audit the account.

We still don't know what happened to the missing WMD. Perhaps most of them were indeed destroyed, and the rest were sent to Syria, or hidden somewhere, or were looted after the war, or whatever, but even if Saddam was telling the truth, for once, we had no reason to believe him, and that alone (leaving aside all the other valid reasons) justified the invasion.

This seems to me part of a pattern I've long noticed in the leftist mindset, its willingness to trust people (so long as they are not straight white men), and its aversion to asking for proof, whether it's Saddam, or a person claiming to be eligible to vote, or anyone claiming to have been the victim of a 'hate crime', or to have been date-raped or sexually harrassed. And, of course, if someone who was convicted and served time for a felony, and has not yet 'paid his debt' and had his voting rights restored, and has now admitted to having committed another felony by voting, claims to have voted Republican, he must be believed, because a person like that wouldn't lie, would he?

The Lost Interview with Colonel Hack (worth)

The following is an excerpt from the Independent Panel Report on CBS News:

Colonel David H. Hackworth was interviewed by Rather as an expert to evaluate the documents that Mapes obtained from Lieutenant Colonel Burkett. Colonel Hackworth is a retired Army officer who has been a columnist, commentator and reporter for various news organizations. Mapes said that she asked Colonel Hackworth to “look at the back and forth” in the Killian documents because he had worked in the Pentagon and knew about Pentagon politics. Even though Colonel Hackworth was never in the TexANG, did not know Lieutenant Colonel Killian or any of the other relevant individuals, had no personal knowledge of President Bush’s service in the TexANG and had no personal knowledge regarding the Killian documents, he reached some highly critical conclusions in his interview regarding President Bush’s TexANG service based solely on the purported authenticity of the Killian documents and his general knowledge of the military.

First, Colonel Hackworth concluded that the documents were “genuine.” He reached this conclusion by relating his own experience at the Pentagon during the Vietnam War when he was running the “Army input system for . . . basic training.” Colonel Hackworth said that, while in that post, he received and refused requests by members of Congress and generals to assign certain men to particular units and wrote “cover my own butt” memoranda in many cases to document his refusals. Colonel Hackworth then concluded that Lieutenant Colonel Killian was “in the same kind of pickle that I found myself in” and proceeded to discuss what Lieutenant Colonel Killian was thinking at the time he wrote the memoranda. Rather asked Colonel Hackworth whether there was any doubt in his mind that the documents were real, and Colonel Hackworth replied, “Having been down that road before I would say that these are genuine documents.”

Second, Colonel Hackworth concluded that, by not taking his physical, then-Lieutenant Bush was “insubordinate” and would have been treated more harshly had he been “an unconnected Lieutenant.” Third, Colonel Hackworth stated repeatedly throughout his interview that then-Lieutenant Bush was “AWOL” and that a person would have to reach that conclusion when reviewing the documents “unless you’re the village idiot.” Colonel Hackworth appeared to be referring to the fact that he had seen no evidence that President Bush was “present for duty” once he left for Alabama in 1972, although he did not articulate clearly how he reached his conclusion. Finally, Colonel Hackworth concluded that “the bottom line here is – is the abuse of power.” He said that “[I]t’s how people up at the top can . . . lean on the little people.”

Rather thought Colonel Hackworth was a “strong and valuable expert witness.” Mapes also believed that Colonel Hackworth was important for the Segment and included excerpts of his interview in early drafts of the September 8 Segment script. These excerpts were ultimately cut from the final script by Heyward and West.

Maybe that's how Heyward saved his job?

World Relief Day

The Captain has declared today World Relief Day. He and his friends are hoping to raise $50K for World Vision's tsunami relief fund by the end of today (they originally hoped for $5K, but when, before the day had even begun, they were already over $25K, they upped their goal to $50K). So if you'd like to chip in towards this goal, go here.

And while I'm at it, Chabad of Thailand needs some money too. Its activities, and therefore its goals, are rather more limited than World Vision's; the entire Chabad contingent in Thailand is six families and a dozen student volunteers, but that small group has been working flat out, and has run up large (for its scale) and unexpected expenses. Chabad of Thailand is headed by the Chief Rabbi of Thailand, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Kantor. I've known him for over 30 years, and he's a close friend of two of my brothers, so I can say with some confidence that donations to this cause will not be wasted on administrative overhead or lavish expense accounts. If they happen to raise more than they need for this particular emergency, I'm sure the surplus will be put to good use, but last I heard they were nowhere near having that problem... So drop them a few dollars. Whatever you give will be much appreciated.

We could have made millions!!

I'm pretty sure this is real and not a hoax:

If it's not, we should run (not walk) to the patent office. My only regret: I didn't think of it first.

UPDATE: Wait a minute! You're telling me that there is already a competitive product with a dominant market share called a ... let me check the spelling on this ... remote control???

UPDATE: But that product still has an element of human error, where as the FoxBlocker is full-proof. And the children, someone please think of the children! Just imagine parents catching their kids secretly watching (gasp) FoxNews. It's just so awful ... huh, what's that, oh they already make a V-Chip for the TVs and Parental Controls for the set-top boxes. Still, is there such a thing as too safe?

Big time hat-tip: Tim Blair!!

Mark Steyn's columns are physically addictive

Mark Steyn's website is still down for 'personal reasons' and I'm starting to get tremors. Good news fellow addicts, he's still writing columns!! You just have to look harder to find them (hat tip Drudge & RCP).

Here are links to some recent ones. Ahhhh!!!!

Jack Bauer Could Ensure Safe Elections In Iraq!

With the war on terror coming to Los Angeles on FOX each week, it's inevitable that two things will happen:

• Civil rights groups will get all in a tizzy because the Islamic terrorists are unfairly portrayed as ... Islamic!
• Liberals will accuse FOX (chief media outlet of the VRWC - Vast Right-Wing conspiracy) of diverting the public's attention from the Vietnam-esque failure in Iraq while continuing the warmongers' propaganda campaign.

Based on the first three seasons, 24 is already the greatest drama/action series in the history of TV (Season 4 is unpardonable and unforgivable Soprano's fans), but the secretary of Defense (played by William Devane) from this season may ascend the show to even more unheard of heights - if he lasts 'til noon. When the SecDef is arguing with his whinny, anti-war, anti-US foreign policy, pro-environment son who wants to go embarrass his father at a protest rally, Pops nukes him with 'spare me your 6th grade Michael Moore logic'.

UPDATE: The Village Voice has already made that prediction look good. Here's a snippet of their review:

Perhaps it's because terrorism has become an utterly routine part of our daily news cycle, or maybe it's just that you can only spin out anxiety so long before it stops being entertaining, but the fantasy element of 24 has worn thin. A wild American loner, with no regard for rules or conventions (like that Geneva thingie), defeating those big bad Muslims - all sounds uncomfortably like a White House wet dream.

Even Moore reason to watch as far as I'm concerned. I can't wait to see the ratings for the premier and the V.V. & co's reaction!!

Colin Powell Take Note:

Australian taxpayers should feel relieved at this news:

AUSTRALIA'S $1 billion aid package to Indonesia would not be wasted through aid agency incompetence, John Howard last night vowed.[...]
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan toured the devastated province of Aceh as the world body took charge of the global relief operation for the disaster that left over 165,000 dead. But Mr Howard said he was determined there would be no UN involvement in Australia's massive package to Indonesia.

Colin Powell and George Bush, please take note.
(Hat tip: Tim Blair)

Public Service Diligence

The Shark just found some dedicated public servants, busily keeping their agency's web site, er, up to date on a Sunday. Google's cache can be so useful, sometimes.

Home Truths

Some things just need to be said (via Instapundit)

The League of Nations II, er, the UN gets fat and rich on the misery of others... again

We all know that the United Nations is the principal enforcement body of international law. And it's certainly aided in this cause by the fact that 2/3 of it's voting members are outlaw nations that wouldn't recognize the rule of law if it fell from the sky with flashing lights and an explanatory note. Most Republicans, er, cold-hearted warmongers - would cite this as the principal reason for the U.N.'s history of highly questionable policies that hamstring the U.S. and allow the likes of Saddam to run wild and free.

But when they aren't aiding and abetting terrorists, the United Nations should at least be good at the humanitarian stuff, right? Oh, I forgot these useless bureaucrats are so inept that they could screw up a wet dream. This just in from an enraged Diplomat in the tsunami zone. Effectively, the crew from the U.N. are more concerned with procuring first class accommodations than saving any lives. Good thing those same U.N.-hating, heartless, warmongering Americans (with a hat-tip to some of our bribed and coerced allies) are actually on the ground doing the humanitarian work!

Why progressives still think of the U.N. as a solution to, well, anything - is a mystery that may never be solved. So my question for the day: Is it better we continue to fund the disaster the U.N. and at least have the power that is derived from paying the bills or should we finally cut it off and have an overt (as opposed to the current covert) adversarial relationship?

Destroying the Village in order to Save it

Russell Shaw makes "an argument for FCC VoIP oversight even a Libertarian might agree with".

If you make your calls over VoIP, especially a flat-rate plan, then the nagging minutiae of PSTN call rate tracking becomes a secondary concern at most. That’s because with VoIP, these complicating issues such as termination fees and local regulation will be less at the forefront. Or maybe not at all. Which is exactly why the FCC want to reserve the right to regulate this stuff, and not grant the individual states the authority to do so.

Oh, I see, we have to destroy the village in order to save it.

Yes, I know, I can point to several significant instances where this has actually worked. Australian Aborigines are much better off for having been colonised by England instead of France. And yes, federal regulation does give an industry an umbrella against state and local regulation, and there have been occasions when this industry or that has been happy for this. Then again, the person who was held up at his shop, and therefore not at home when it collapsed and killed everyone inside will be grateful to the robber, but that doesn't translate into an argument for armed robbery as government policy (oh, wait...).