Far too many on the left will not be able to comprehend this.
Mary Cheney writes that when she told her parents she was gay, the first words out of her father’s mouth “were exactly the ones that I wanted to hear: ‘You’re my daughter, and I love you, and I just want you to be happy."
For many on the left, any deviation from the official party line makes the person who doesn't toe that line an apostate. They are wrong and must be punished. And so the left wing tries with all it's might to unseat Joe Lieberman, because he will not embrace and bow to the sacred cow of anti-war. He must be purged, the party must be pure.
And the left will, make no mistake, deride and abuse Cheney because he loves his daughter. They will slam him for being a hypocrite because he doesn't damn her for not being true to his politics. They will not be able to see the difference. They will not be able to see and will slam the man for loving his daughter. Because politics do not matter in love of one's children.
They already are slamming, BTW.
Hillary Clinton:
"I wanted desperately to be an Olympic athlete," Clinton said Monday at a Purchase College symposium on Title IX, the 1972 law outlawing sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding. "I tried everything. I ran every race, and if I was really lucky I finished second to last…I couldn't jump, I couldn't run, I couldn't swim."
After determining she'd never be an athlete, she set her sights on becoming an astronaut.
"So I wrote to NASA and said, 'How do I sign up to be an astronaut?"' she said. "And they wrote back very politely and said, 'We don't take girls."'
Next went the dream of a career in medicine.
"I volunteered at the hospital but kept getting lightheaded and woozy when I saw anyone in any kind of distress," she said.
She also abandoned hopes of becoming a scientist or mathematician because she didn't have the best grades in those subjects.
That, she said, left her current career choice - one that was shaped at the family dinner table.
So, she has no discernible talent whatsoever. Time for politics!!!
(BTW, if this is the kind of cutting edge journalism we can expect all through the next three years until the next election, every, single voter in America will have diabetes from the sugar overdose.)
I have a commenter or two about the place who, quite earnestly, defend Juan Cole as being a superbly accurate source of information. I frankly have checked a few things he's written and found each and every one of them to be wrong, but no matter. Suffice it to say that if you get your nuclear physics from Juan, you won't be passing any real world exams anytime soon. You might be all set for Star Fleet Academy, but you'd need to consult a Trekkie.
Nonetheless, Yale considers him quite a catch it would seem and is wooing him (they may have made a job offer by now, I'm frankly not interested in the man enough to follow his every move.) Perhaps the people who decide such things for Yale should read this little gem by Christopher Hitchens prior to making any decision. If they haven't made the decision already, of course.
I think I would rather not be on the receiving end of one of Mr. Hitchens' little essays. He's absolutely brutal. His closing words are classic.
One might have thought that, if the map-wiping charge were to have been inaccurate or unfair, Ahmadinejad would have denied it. But he presumably knew what he had said and had meant to say. In any case, he has an apologist to do what he does not choose to do for himself. But this apologist, who affects such expertise in Persian, cannot decipher the plain meaning of a celebrated statement and is, furthermore, in need of a remedial course in English.
You really need to read the whole thing.
Speaking of leaving a mark, Tigerhawk is brutal.
UPDATE: Michael Young is even harder on Cole. This one is devastating. Cole stepped in it this time.
UPDATE: Cole's defense didn't impress Andrew Sullivan, either. Cole's unhinged ad hominem attack is shown for what it is.
A thief dressed in the same uniform worn by security guards robbed the Pitti Palace in Florence of the days admission money. About 200,000 Euros worth. He strolled in, collected three bags of money, signed a receipt and walked calmly out the door. Imagine the real guard's surprise when he walked in about a half an hour later.
I know the Pitti Palace is a very popular tourist spot, but 200,000 Euros? That's a lot of money for one day, isn't it? I wonder how much the local art museum makes in a day. Not that I'm thinking of getting a guard's uniform or anything. Nope.
These pictures are too shocking for any major media outlet in America to ever show.
Oh the horror.
H/T (Ten Gallon Variety) to Jason at Texas Rainmaker for this gem. He also has a modest immigration proposal, so click on his link.
Strategy Page is reporting that US forces have been destroying Zarqawi's organization at a very rapid pace.
Currently, TF 145 is divided into four sub units. Task Force West has several dozen commandoes from the U.S. Navy SEAL DevGroup, and a company of U.S. Army Rangers. Task Force Central has several dozen men from U.S. Army Delta Force and a company of Rangers. Task Force North has a about a dozen men from Delta Force, and a company of Rangers. Task Force Black has a few dozen SAS commandoes, with a company of British "Rangers" (the new Special Forces Support Group). TF 145 has a small headquarters element, plus a large intelligence operation, most of which is back in the United States, and connected in real time via satellite. There are also SOCOM helicopters and aircraft present.
The SOCOM intel effort has its hooks into everyone else's intelligence operations, and gets any info related to al Qaeda, and especially al Qaeda leadership. The basic drill is for one of the four smaller Task Forces to grab a likely bit of info and quickly plan and execute a raid. The rangers provide muscle (perimeter security, read guard) , as needed, and keep any other unfriendlies away, while the SEAL, Delta or SAS commandoes go in after the main target. The objective is to capture people alive, if possible, because interrogations and examination of documents starts immediately. The idea is to get fresh information that will lead to other al Qaeda people. Often this is the case, in which the commandoes and rangers are immediately off to another raid. Most of this takes place at night, and several raids may be carried out between dusk and dawn.
The Task Force has been so successful that very few foreign fighters are even left in Iraq.
The Task Force has been so successful that, except for Zarqawi, there are no more foreigners (Saudis, Jordanians, etc) in the Iraqi al Qaeda leadership. It's all Iraqis, and these guys are proving just as vulnerable to informers as the foreigners (who stood out because of their accent and body language) were. Most Sunni Arabs are tired of all the violence, and are backing the government by passing on (and getting paid for) tips on where Zarqawi and his crew are hiding out.
Sounds like some very good news. It seems to me there have been fewer reports of violence in Iraq just lately. I did an in-depth search on Yahoo news, and that does seem to be the case.
Sounds like some very good news. It seems to me there have been fewer reports of violence in Iraq just lately. I did an in-depth search on Yahoo news, and that does seem to be the case.
I ran across this article in the Yahoo news travel section. It's kind of amusing. It details a trip to Naxos, a Greek island, to look for the "Cave of Evil". The cave the travelers found wasn't much to look at and didn't appear to be particularly evil. But they had such a nice day trying to find it, that it was worth the trip.
But then, never one to leave things alone, I had to take it a step further and search for the "Cave of Evil" on Google.
And I found it.
"Red" Ken Livingstone wants everyone to listen to his thoughtful advice on hygiene. Don't flush your toilet. The Mayor of London says he personally stopped flushing the toilet 15 months ago and swears it doesn't attract flies.
"A third of all the water you use you flush down the loo, and actually there is no earthly reason that you need to flush the loo if you have merely urinated. That's a huge saving of water.
"The experiment in my home, which is now into its second year, has been a success. We continues with it right through the summer and never once did a great bluebottle come into the bathroom.
Red Ken also advocates collecting urine in a bucket and throwing it on your plants. Presumably this is not to make the flowers smell better, only different.
While we here at Blue Crab Boulevard don't actually recommend following Red Ken's hygiene advice. We enjoy having friends visit without them gagging. We do want to know one thing, though: does he wash his hands?
Another artist under siege, this time in India. M. F, Hussain is an Indian artist and filmmaker who painted several pictures of nude Indian Gods and Goddesses as well as representing "Mother India" as a nude. Apparently, an activist was offended enough to go to several police stations to file charges against him. Which didn't exactly get the police fired up as they didn't think the complaint actionable. So he stopped trying to get the cops involved and appealed to the Bombay High Court instead. Mr. Hussain has to file an answer with the court.
This is one of the paintings. Notice the comments.
(I have no idea why the article refers to the "Bombay High Court", unless the name change of the city hasn't caught up with the court system yet. The former Bombay is now generally referred to as Mumbai.)
UPDATE: Fixed broken link, thanks for pointing that out, Black Jack.
It seems that Great Britain is "cracking down" on illicit treasure hunters. But the crackdown really is aimed more at treasure hunting for profit type people. It actually makes legitimate treasure hunters (if that's the right term) almost a partner in Britain's archeology efforts.
"Most detectorists are highly responsible, getting permission from the landowner to search and reporting the fact and exact location of their finds," he said.
"But just a few aren't, and they are the ones doing the damage," he added, stressing that ignorance of correct procedure was as much to blame as the deliberate flouting of it.
Under the code, detectorists must get permission to search, join a recognised detectorists' club, log the precise location of any find and report it to the landowner — who has a share in any valuation — and to the portable antiquities scheme.
Steve Critchley, head of the National Council for Metal Detecting, estimated there could be between 20,000 and 30,000 detectorists in the country.
"While the archaeologists go for the big cherries, we detectorists tend to operate in the periphery and what we find adds significantly to the sum of knowledge — which is why it is so important to log it precisely," Critchley said.
Which sounds exactly like what we argued for here in the US.
Blue Crab Boulevard - leading the way!
Well, this is just going to make everyone in the US happy as can be. The leftist candidate in the Mexican presidential election want to push the US on immigration reform. He wants us to just accept the illegals that are already here then allow even more in!
"Migration flows can not be stopped. Even if they build walls, even if there are raids, even if there are more severe laws, it can't be resolved like that," Lopez Obrador said on his morning television show.
"We have to convince the U.S. government that there has to be cooperation for development and that we have to guarantee economic growth and employment in our country."
So all we have to do is spend a lot of money in Mexico. Gee, where have we heard that one before.
Showing Bush at an all time low. It's more interesting to look at the questions than the numbers, because it really doesn't look all that good for the Democrats, either. While the headlines are trumpeting that "Democrats Win" in a hypothetical race, the deeper questions show very little danger for incumbents. More importantly, it shows a distinct unhappiness with Democratic behavior in congress. That is not to say the Republicans are doing a good job, either.
I think this poll should really be scaring hell out of both parties. This poll indicates to me that a third party might really gain traction. Because it says both parties are doing a bad job right now.
Pakistan confirms the capture of Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, a top al Qaeda leader. The terrorist has been flown out of the country to an undisclosed location. Which the New York Times is undoubtedly trying to find so they can publish it, but we digress.
Nasar was captured in a November sting in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta that left one person dead, the American official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The official spoke to the AP late last week.
Nasar is a suspect in both the bombings in Spain and those in London. He was also one of al Qaeda's top propagandists and had close ties to many terrorists around the world.
John Hawkins, who has been all over this story from the outset, has some hopeful news. Let's hope the meeting he speaks of goes well.
UPDATE: Andrea Clark is no longer facing the "medically futile" law. A new doctor has been assigned and is working to save her life. As John says, "Score one for the good guys".
Writing in the Opinion Journal, Shelby Steele argues that America is hobbled by white guilt.
It began, I believe, in a late-20th-century event that transformed the world more profoundly than the collapse of communism: the world-wide collapse of white supremacy as a source of moral authority, political legitimacy and even sovereignty. This idea had organized the entire world, divided up its resources, imposed the nation-state system across the globe, and delivered the majority of the world's population into servitude and oppression. After World War II, revolutions across the globe, from India to Algeria and from Indonesia to the American civil rights revolution, defeated the authority inherent in white supremacy, if not the idea itself. And this defeat exacted a price: the West was left stigmatized by its sins. Today, the white West–like Germany after the Nazi defeat–lives in a kind of secular penitence in which the slightest echo of past sins brings down withering condemnation. There is now a cloud over white skin where there once was unquestioned authority.
His theory seeks to explain why America recoils from using the full power of it's military. He also sees this stigma of white guilt in America's inability to grapple with many contentious internal issues.
Whether the problem is race relations, education, immigration or war, white guilt imposes so much minimalism and restraint that our worst problems tend to linger and deepen. Our leaders work within a double bind. If they do what is truly necessary to solve a problem–win a war, fix immigration–they lose legitimacy.
To maintain their legitimacy, they practice the minimalism that makes problems linger. What but minimalism is left when you are running from stigmatization as a "unilateralist cowboy"? And where is the will to truly regulate the southern border when those who ask for this are slimed as bigots? This is how white guilt defines what is possible in America. You go at a problem until you meet stigmatization, then you retreat into minimalism.
So, in order to avoid being smeared with racist accusations, politicians hold back from pushing that which really needs to be done. Steele's theory has likely hit upon at least part of what is crippling America these days. I see it here in my comments section. The meme about "little brown people" shows up routinely. My stand against illegal immigration brings calls from some that I am a racist.
I think there's something even more insidious about this idea of white guilt. That there is an inherent racism in those who claim that white Europeans are morally inferior because of past errors. I, personally, never think about my race, I only think of myself as an American. I think we would all be better off if we did.
Left Wing, Media, Politics | Gaius Tuesday, 2 May , 2006 | 
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