Blue Crab Boulevard

Sometimes I post about things before others, sometimes after. This is a an "after" post. Several people have blogged about a somewhat weird article in the Washington Post that discussed the picture frame surrounding the photograph of Zarqawi. I really wish I was making this one up.

The frame surrounding an image of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's head, revealed to the world as proof the terrorist is dead, is bizarre. When the picture was displayed at a U.S. military news briefing, Zarqawi's face was seen inside what appeared to be a professional photographic mat job, with a large frame, as if it were something one might preserve and hang on the wall next to other family portraits. One function of frames is to bound an image, and close down its open edges; frames delimit, both physically and by extension, metaphorically. But that was the last thing this frame was doing.

Mr. Kennicott, the reporter presumably took this as his "angle" on the story. Angles are very important for journalists. It gets one noticed. And it worked for Mr. Kennicott. He got noticed.

By Mark in Mexico, Hugh Hewitt and The Sundries Shack among a lot of others. Mark has some different frames for Mr. Kennicott's approval, by the way.

But what Mr. Kennicott seems to miss here is that American forces treat the dead terrorist, who beheaded a number of people and killed countless others through his barbarity with sufficient respect to frame his death shot in a nice, matted, almost artistic format.

Instead of putting his head on a pole.

Well, not really the sticks, just places in the heartland. It seems the Chicks' tour is not at all selling well in a lot of places with some arena venues reporting 5,000 to 6,000 seats sold. Which is very poor indeed.

"I think before it's said and done the entire tour will be, at the very least, reorganized," Ray Waddell, senior editor of touring for Billboard magazine, said Friday.

Shows in cities including St. Louis, Houston, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City and Memphis, Tenn., are up in the air, according to Waddell.

The group said on its Web site that reports of cancellations are false.

I have a theory about why the record sales are fairly high, but still lower than their last effort by about 30% or so. I suspect that a lot of non-fans bought the record because they wanted to support the darlings of the left. (This is pure speculation on my part, by the way, but there is some anecdotal evidence that this may be the case). But that theory would explain the poor ticket sales. People might be willing to shell out the cost of a CD to show their support, but a concert ticket is a big investment. Not many non-fans would be willing to spend that much. Ticket sales are not just slow, they are disastrous compared to the last tour.

Not all markets are soft. Sales were reportedly brisk in Chicago, Philadelphia and Minneapolis. In Toronto, a first and second show sold out.

But the overall picture is far different from the Chicks' last tour in 2003, in which almost 900,000 tickets moved in the first weekend and second shows were added in several markets. The group ended up with the top-grossing country tour that year at $62 million.

While ticket sales have been off, album sales remain strong. The Chicks' new album "Taking the Long Way" sold 526,000 units its first week and 271,000 the second — enough to keep it at No. 1 on the country and overall album charts for two straight weeks.

Notice also the sharp drop in record sales. The music business is a funny one. Losing core fans is usually a really bad thing for any act. It remains to be seen if the Dixie Chicks can pick up enough of a following to replace the fans they appear to have lost.

Continuing my mission to visit one member of the fighting 101st each day, today I went over to see Don Surber. Don covers a wide range of things, but shines when commenting on the media - his profession. Today is no exception. He takes apart several editorials.

Oh sure, we've all heard this discussion. You know, does size really matter? Well, it certainly does in Des Moines, the capitol of Iowa. They have an area called a "detention basin" ostensibly to hold up rainwater to avoid stressing the drainage pipe system during heavy rains. Oh, sure.

Brewer swears that consultants who work for the city did not design the $5.7 million detention basin to resemble anything, but recent e-mails to City Hall from area residents seem to have found "art" in the not-so-subtle phallic design.

"It's pretty functional," Brewer said. "There's no artistic statement in our detention basin."

You have GOT to see the aerial photograph.

Not content with just smearing Marines, John Murtha has begun handing letters to fellow Democratic Congressmen informing them that should the Democrats win back the House, he intends to run for the number two spot.

As readers will probably know, Murtha is a close ally of Nancy Pelosi who favors a fast withdrawal from Iraq. Hoyer is more inclined to tough it out in Iraq, and has a long history of friction with Pelosi.

Update: Steny Hoyer's office has given me its own statement in response:

Mr. Hoyer has worked extraordinarily hard to unify the caucus and take back the House for Democrats and that is his first focus. As a result of that unity he is confident that we will be successful in November and intends to run for Majority Leader. He believes his work as whip, caucus chair, and with the DCCC has earned the support of the overwhelming majority of House Democrats.

Adds a senior Democratic aide: "A lot of members are very angry that Jack Murtha has decided to blow up the caucus and declare a leadership race when we are the most unified we've been in years. We're really focused on taking back the house and should not be distracted with a leadership race. It's going to be a huge diversion."

Well, we here at Blue Crab Boulevard heartily endorse that John Murtha is, and always will be in our book, a really big number two. Which is why we suggest our readers support Diana Irey so she can send Murtha into retirement. But we also note that in light of Murtha's announcement, this picture was eerily prophetic. Sometimes we frighten ourselves.

UPDATE: Carry On America is also very impressed with Murtha. Squiggler gags. Eugene David is extremely overwhelmed.

Clarice Feldman has an article up at The American Thinker asking if Haditha was a hoax. I do not think this is a good line to take here while the investigation is still underway. Are there huge contradictions in the media coverage? Sure. But I think at best we can conclude is that drawing conclusions and passing judgment based on media reports is a really bad idea. I linked to Dan Riehl's disassembly of the media reports for just that reason. 

Now, I've criticized John Murtha relentlessly for his continued - heck, nearly continuous - statements proving that he has already passed judgment on the events and the Marines.

I don't think it's a good idea to start going to the opposite extreme.

There is an investigation underway right now. It must be completed. Speculating about what really happened one way or the other is like standing on the edge of a precipice. One wrong step and you're over the edge of credibility.

Let's all step back from that particular edge. I won't be seen as the mirror image of Murtha.

UPDATE: Allah also urges caution here.

UPDATE: Others: SpiritBuilders, Ace of Spades and The Real Ugly American.  

UPDATE: Here's the latest from Sweetness and Light attacking the coverage from Time. That is a completely legitimate target. If the media coverage is being falsified, twisted or sensationalized, journalists should be and must be held accountable. What I do not want to do is cross the line into drawing conclusions based on bad media coverage or the exposure of that bad coverage.

Ladies and gentlemen, the magnificent Iowahawk.

UPDATE: And the Protein Wisdom interview. Jeff is absolutely right about John Cafferty, too.

This should be amusing.

Warning to all the Koz Kiddies at the big luau in Vegas: There is a spy among you. Someone, maybe the person next to you is a Republican!

They'll spend the rest of the confab wondering who it is! That would be so fun to watch!

UPDATE: An update at Hot Air. The poor guy took a bullet for the cause. Chew an arm off and escape. It's not too late!

UPDATE: Donkey Cons on losers, Streisand politics in Goldwater country, Erin in Flagstaff, Brooklyn and 'waaaay too much else! A guest appearance of Joe Wilson as Elvis. Too much too list, in other words!

Iran has confirmed it has begun further uranium enrichment activities.

An Iranian official has confirmed that the country has stepped up its nuclear activities, following a report from the UN atomic agency that said Iran has accelerated uranium enrichment.

"Iran has started another stage of injecting hexafluoride gas into centrifuge machines," the student news agency ISNA quoted an unnamed official as saying on Friday.

"Iran is also pursuing a plan to have a 3,000-centrifuge cascade by the end of the current year (March 2007)," he noted, adding that all the material used in uranium enrichment facilities has been produced domestically.

A report from the International Atomic Energy Agency obtained by AFP on Thursday said that Iran had accelerated uranium enrichment on June 6, the same day world powers asked it to halt the work and open talks to guarantee it will not make nuclear weapons.

The double-dealing continues.

The double-dealing continues.

We here in the Crabitat are not sure whether to be proud or angry. Doctors have come up with a new technique to grow replacement human bone lost through accident or surgery. The process uses seaweed and  a biopolymer extracted from (gasp) crustacean shells along with a few other things.

Now Xu and his colleagues have developed a better way to bridge bone breaches. In this system bone cells grow from inside the scaffold, producing a structure that is more consistently solid and that eventually morphs into natural bone.

This system combines a cement that is made of calcium phosphate, a mineral found in bone, along with a commercial mesh that gradually dissolves in the body. Surgeons can either form the cement or inject it straight into the gap. The biodegradable mesh reinforces the cement so that it is strong enough to survive until natural-bone reinforcements arrive.

Adding chitosan, a biopolymer that is extracted from crustacean shells, makes the structure even stronger.

So that bone cells aren't excluded from the scaffold's inner reaches, cells are mixed right into the cement. And so the body doesn't reject these cells, the patient's own bone cells are added. These cells are cultured in a laboratory from samples drawn from the patient. Culturing enough cells takes a week or two.

They coat the cultured bone cells with a seaweed extract to protect them while the cement sets. The technique is still under development but shows great promise to overcome shortcomings in current methods.

Oh, okay, we're proud. Just keep your hands off Preston.