Are You Kidding Me?

What in the hell is wrong with the left today? What makes them think this is acceptable? ANOTHER incident of putting someone in blackface.

Crying Uncle

BLITZER: I have been covering the Cheneys for many years, including on a day-to-day basis when he was the defense secretary during the first Gulf War and I was CNN’s Pentagon correspondent . . . I was surprised when she came out swinging on Friday, surprised . . . at her sniping at my patriotism.

Wolf Blitzer
CNN Late Edition
October 29, 2006

Translation: Oh Lawdy! Massa's wife so mad she even beatin' on us house slaves now. What dis ol' world comin' to?

This is sick.

UPDATE: Would-be commeters really should read the comment policy on the "About" page.

UPDATE: No, honestly, you really should read the comment policy. I will continue to delete comments that violate the rules. So you are really wasting your time if you keep trying to post comments that break the rules. Period.

UPDATE: Many thanks to all the people linking to this post. Please do take a look around if you're visiting for the first time.

Stunningly Bad Move

This one floors me. Harold Ford, Jr. probably cost himself the shot at the US Senate seat from Tennessee With this one. Saying that Republicans fear the Lord but Democrats Fear and love the Lord is possibly the stupidest campaign statement I have heard in a long, long time. God is on our side? Oh, please.

HAROLD FORD, JR.: My friend Lincoln Davis who chairs our campaign says there are, there’s one big difference between us and misfortunate Republicans when it comes to our faith: he said that Republicans fear the Lord; he said Democrats fear AND love the Lord

Wow! What a statement! I don’t doubt that many Democrats fear And love the lord, but what would make this man come to the conclusion that Republicans only fear the lord? That is what he said. He noted there was a difference between Republican and Democrat faith in God and that the difference was the lack of love from the Republicans. What an absolute insult! Why is this guy bringing religion into his political campaign like this anyway? Is this how the left are trying to win over the religious folk? How righteous of the man! I’m not prophet, but I’ll go out on a limb here and guess that there will be some backlash on this. At least there should be. The left will probably stay silent though.

This is really a stunningly bad move on Ford's part. Is the campaign just too much for him? Is he making these mistakes because he's tired? Or is he just not a good candidate? At this point, I'm beginning to wonder about him.

Mexican Forces Assault Oaxaca

It appears as if the Mexican government has regained control of Oaxaca after unleashing a full scale assault on the city. The Reuters report is a bit vague, but it sounds as if the federal forces have driven the protesters completely out of almost all areas.

OAXACA, Mexico (Reuters) - Thousands of riot police backed by helicopters and armored trucks broke up burning barricades to seize Mexico's popular tourist city of Oaxaca on Sunday, firing water cannons to disperse leftist protesters.

In the city's main square, hundreds of activists carrying metal poles and sticks braced for a showdown with the police, who gathered at the four corners of the plaza holding riot shields and wearing gas masks.

Hundreds more demonstrators surrounded six busloads of unarmed police in another part of the city, forcing them to flee and setting fire to the buses.

Mexico sent federal forces to seize the picturesque colonial city, which striking teachers and activists have occupied since May to demand the state governor's resignation, after gunmen thought to be local police shot dead a U.S. journalist and two other people on Friday.

Protesters fled as armored trucks, with V-shaped plows and flanked by riot police, moved on the city center, destroying barricades of burning tires, rocks and old furniture.

They fired water cannon at anyone in their way and SWAT teams with assault rifles followed behind them.

A group of protesters threw rocks at the trucks as helicopters buzzed overhead, and another burning bus blocked a downtown intersection.

Several blocks from the city center, dozens of demonstrators, many using goggles to protect their eyes from tear gas, waited behind a barricade of burning tires, which sent plumes of thick smoke into the evening sky.

"It makes me annoyed that I can't do anything," said Maylet Pacheco, a 26-year-old teacher. "We asked for a solution and this is what they offer us," she said, pointing down the street at advancing riot police.

Here's a hint: the solution is not to take to the streets and ruin your own city. This is the stupidity of the leftists. Or rather the tools who follow the directions of their leftist leaders. The leaders want power, they don't care who gets hurt so long as they get it.

Not [Blank] Enough

While it makes sense that, for example, an atheist would not be an acceptable candidate for the presidency of a Catholic seminary, where exactly does the line get drawn? And who draws it? If there are certain beliefs/traits/physiological characteristics that define one's fitness for a certain position, who decides if the candidate is [blank] enough to fill the job?

This is an interesting case. Gallaudet University is the number one college in the US, probably the entire world, that serves the deaf. This is what it was founded for, this is what it has done all these years. Yet, for the second time in fairly recent years, the students of Gallaudet have blocked the appointment of a president. The rejected candidate says that this is because she did not learn American Sign Language until she was in her 20s.

WASHINGTON - The board of trustees of the nation's premier school for the deaf voted Sunday to terminate the appointment of the incoming president, who had been the subject of protests, the board announced.

The vote at Gallaudet University came after a daylong closed-door meeting that followed a month of protests by students and faculty members. Jane Fernandes, the school's former provost, had been selected in May to take office in January.

"Although undoubtedly there will be some members of the community who have differing views on the meaning of this decision, we believe that it is a necessity at this point," the board said in a written statement.

Fernandes did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

Protesters had said Fernandes, 50, was a divisive and ineffective leader as provost. They said the board ignored surveys by students and faculty during the presidential search that called her "unacceptable." The faculty voted this month, 82 percent to 18 percent, for Fernandes to resign or be removed.

Fernandes had refused to resign, saying it would hurt the university to allow protests to determine the school's leadership. She said she had become a lightning rod for those frustrated about changes in deaf culture because she hadn't learned to use American Sign Language until she was in her 20s.

Celebrations broke out on campus when the decision was announced. Professor Diane Morton, who joined protesters for a rally at the university gymnasium, said students were "elated" when protest leaders received the e-mailed announcement.

"The leaders made it very clear that her resignation is not the end," Morton said. "We still need to make sure that the presidential search process is fair, equitable, transparent and diverse."

I post about this not because I have any ill feelings toward deaf persons. I know several quite well (and plan to ask them about this, in fact). But I wonder where the line gets drawn. For example, substitute white or black into the 'enough' question. Substitute religious or non-religious. Substitute anything for anything. Then ask if the question sounds right. Then take a look at what happened at Gallaudet. Is it democracy or mob rule? Who decides that someone is not [blank] enough and why?

Bad Meat Progresses To Rotten Meat

You know, this guy just keeps getting worse. The Australian is now reporting another of Taj Din al-Hilali's little talks. This one is, if anything, much worse than his sermon comparing women, unfavorably, to meat. Because this time he praise the jihadis who murder people, including American and Australian troops. But mostly, the jihadis kill fellow Muslims.

But, hey, the sheik is all for it. They're freedom fighters, don't you know.

TAJ Din al-Hilali has praised militant jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan, calling them men of the highest order for fighting against coalition forces - which include Australian soldiers - to "liberate" their homelands. In an interview on Arabic radio two weeks ago, the imam based at Sydney's Lakemba mosque said he was opposed to terror attacks in Madrid, London and New York but strongly endorsed fighters in the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the interview, Sheik Hilali pays tribute to Sayyid Qutb, the ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood and intellectual mentor of Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida.

"Jihad of the liberator of Palestine, that's the greatest and cleanest and highest … jihad which lifts our heads in pride in south Lebanon," Sheik Hilali says in the October 17 interview.

He tells broadcaster Abrahim Zoabi that he endorses jihad for liberation. "We are talking about … jihad of liberating our land, jihad of Muslim Afghanis in their land - that's jihad.

"Jihad of Iraqi Muslims is jihad, but not when Sunnis and Shias are killing each other - that's not jihad."

The revelation comes as a neighbouring cleric from Sydney's Bankstown accused Sheik Hilali of supporting military Islamic jihad against the West and called on imams from around the country to band together to force the mufti to step down.

Sheik Ibrahim El-Shafie said yesterday Sheik Hilali was a follower of the Egyptian Islamic scholar Qutb, one of the founding fathers of modern jihad, whose teachings are used by al-Qa'ida and Jemaah Islamiah.

In the radio interview, Sheik Hilali says Qutb interpreted the Koran in the "finest manner". "Sayyid Qutb is an intellectual man … who gave up his soul in 66 for Islam."

Sheik Shafie told The Australian that since arriving in Australia in 1982, Sheik Hilali had defended Qutb's radical ideology and praised him as a "martyr for Islam" and a "role model".

"Hilali has since he got here been defending the ideology of Sayyid Qutb," he said.

Sheik Shafie said Sheik Hilali's support of Qutb was effectively "encouraging" his followers to espouse and act on the executed scholar's ideologies.

I realize Australia has said that this man is now a naturalized citizen. But isn't there a process to revoke that? Because this is one piece of rotten meat that is polluting the entire continent. He doesn't honor his adopted country. Instead he regularly encourages barbarism. Australia would do well to strip him of his citizenship and send him back to the place he came from. Otherwise, Australia is in for a long, hard battle.

Changes

And If You Don’t Believe It’s Coming

Maybe this will convince you. I linked an article from the Daily Mail earlier that described the new, brutal "eco-taxes" that will wreak havoc on Britain's economy. It described the incredibly regressive taxation Britain is looking to adopt that will punish hell out of those least able to afford it. But there is more. So-called climate negotiators are salivating for a political change in Washington so they can impose even more harsh measures on the US. And they don't care who knows it.

NEW YORK - Delegates flying to Kenya next week for a global conference on climate are watching the turn of U.S. election seasons as much as the rise in temperatures in their effort to cool planetary warming.

Talks to extend the Kyoto Protocol's caps on greenhouse-gas emissions beyond 2012 have been marking time while governments try to draw the Bush administration, which rejects Kyoto, into the process. The Nov. 7 U.S. congressional elections may help their cause, but the diplomat presiding over the talks says 2008 will be the watershed.

"I would imagine it" — U.S. involvement — "would take place after the next presidential election," said Michael Zammit Cutajar of Malta.

A European climate campaigner also views it as a matter of time. "A new administration will have a different policy on the matter," said Matthias Duwe of the Belgium-based Climate Action Network Europe.

Prospective presidential candidates, including Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., say federal action is needed to rein in emissions of carbon dioxide and other industrial, automotive and agricultural gases blamed by scientists for global warming.

McCain co-sponsors one Senate proposal to cap U.S. emissions, and a half-dozen similar bills have been introduced in the Senate. Individual states are taking action, meanwhile, led by California, where a month-old law mandates greenhouse-gas reductions expected to cut that state's emissions by 25 percent by 2020.

"There's a huge amount of change going on in Congress at this time, and in the states," said Manik Roy, who monitors Congress for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a Washington research group.

"The thinking is that John McCain has the inside track at this point to get the Republican nomination, and many people view climate change as McCain's signature issue."

A key player in climate diplomacy, the European Union's environment commissioner Stavros Dimas, sees "a very important development" in changing attitudes among some U.S. businesses. Heavyweight companies — from Shell Oil to Wal-Mart — have endorsed mandatory emissions reductions.

But Dimas agreed U.S. mandates may have to await a new U.S. chief executive.

"I cannot understand why President Bush will not do what his successor will most probably do, that is, introduce a U.S. cap for carbon," he said in a telephone interview from Brussels. "The earlier the United States moves to exercise leadership, together with us, the earlier we shall have beneficial results for the world and the U.S."

All those taxes are coming at you, brought by the internationalists. They expect cooperation from the Democrats and the John McCains. One more reason I have absolutely no intention of voting for John McCain. In fact, I plan to actively oppose him.

Big Lies

This surprises me not at all. Bill Clinton telling lies about how Brazil achieved energy independence. Bill says it was by developing ethanol. In fact, it was by drilling offshore and getting oil. Investors Business Daily explains:

Clinton is hawking the idea that taxing offshore oil drilling companies, from 1% to 6% — a 600% hike for some — and then turning the spoils into a new government bureaucracy for ethanol development is the way to end California's dependence on imported oil.

"Imagine if we stop being dependent on foreign oil. Brazil did it. They made a simple switch to their cars. Switched to ethanol, grown from their own crops. And it's 33% cheaper than gas," Clinton said, neglecting one key detail: cars must use three times as much ethanol as gas.

"With Proposition 87, we can switch to cleaner fuels, wind and solar power," he says in a political ad, "and free ourselves from foreign oil. If Brazil can do it, so can California."

But as a matter of fact, that's not what Brazil did.

It launched a crash program of offshore oil drilling in the late 1990s, working with a Manhattan Project-like determination to develop its own natural resources.

In 1997, Brazil opened its oil sector to foreign competition, encouraging companies like Royal Dutch Shell to explore and drill for oil in its offshore waters for the first time. It offered incentives — like tax cuts. It also turned its inefficient state oil company, Petrobras, into a for-profit company run like a real business instead of a government cash cow, forcing it to compete on an international-standard level. In short, it got out of the way.

Net result, lots more oil for Brazil — enough to enable the once-oil-dependent country to actually export some, all from fewer energy reserves than the U.S.

Brazil's new P-50 rig has boosted output to an average 1.9 million barrels of oil a day, a bit more than the 1.85 million Brazil consumes.

By contrast, ethanol output in Brazil, the world's biggest producer, is only a small share of its energy consumption.

Last year, the country squeezed out just 282,000 barrels a day mostly using sugar, a more efficient and clean-burning energy source than the corn-based stuff produced in the U.S. But sugar-based ethanol still isn't as efficient as gasoline.

There is, of course another long term problem here. By taking food crops and turning them into motor fuel, somewhere down the road, people are going to starve as a result. A big push to go to ethanol will actually hasten that day. There is not magic bullet here, folks. It will take more than one incremental thing to cure the need for oil. There may be a bunch of those incremental things we can do, but not of them is a cure-all. And we really need to consider the long term implications of some of these proposals.

What The Future Holds

You know all that talk from the left on global warming? You know all the talk about the "common good". Here's where it is heading folks.

Secret plans for a multi-billion-pound package of stealth taxes on fuel, cars, air travel and consumer goods have been drawn up by the government to combat global warming.

• Read the full secret document here

The proposals, leaked to The Mail on Sunday, show that the Government is considering introducing a raft of hard-hitting 'eco-taxes' that will have a devastating effect on the cost of living.

Families with big cars could end up paying more than £1,000 a year extra in tax. And nearly every household in Britain will be hit in the pocket.

Most controversial of all, the documents reveal the Government is planning to grab billions of pounds of extra revenue from motorists - without telling them. It is considering introducing a special mechanism so that whenever oil prices go down, the Government would get the cash in extra fuel tax - not the motorist.

A leaked letter from Environment Secretary David Miliband to Chancellor Gordon Brown says the advantage of this is that the Government would gain billions of pounds 'without individual announcements on fuel-duty rises needing to be made'.

The Government was immediately accused by the Conservatives of trying to introduce more 'stealth taxes' and failing to be honest with voters about the consequences of dealing with climate change.

The average Brit is going to take a beating here. Taxes like this fall disproportionately on those who can least afford them. But it is a glimpse at what the future holds here in the US. Better start taking pictures and remembering what today looks like.

In a few years, these will be the good old days. And the economy will be a shambles.

What If You Threw A Birthday Party….

….and nobody came? Bill Clinton may just have that little embarrassment to deal with. It seems that the Clinton's party invitations requesting a cool $500,000 for a super-whamadyne seat of honor fell flat. So did the offer of reduced price tickets. Then the offer of really cheap tickets. And now the band may beg off.

When America's liberal elite were offered the chance to pay up to $500,000 each (about £260,000) to attend Bill Clinton's 60th birthday extravaganza tonight - with the added promise of a private Rolling Stones concert - a packed house was expected.

Wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea sent out about 10,000 invitations to Hollywood tycoons, movie stars, captains of industry and Wall Street - with all proceeds to go to the former President's charitable foundation.

Those who pledged the top price were promised the 'Birthday Chair Package', with the best seating for the concert as well as a chance to have photographs taken with Mr Clinton during a round of golf and a three-day series of cocktail, brunch and dinner parties.

The minimum price, with inferior concert seats and no brunch, was set at $60,000 (£31,000). But with many rich Democrats sending their regrets, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that last Wednesday the Clintons drastically slashed prices to $12,500 (£6,500) for one reception and the concert, or $5,000 (£2,600) for just the Stones.

With the looming possibility of Bill and his long-suffering wife and daughter finding themselves amid a sea of empty chairs at the 2,900-seat Manhattan venue, tickets then went on sale to the public for as little as $1,710 (£900).

And there is a danger that the Clintons' plans may end in a total fiasco, after the Stones cancelled Friday's show in Atlantic City when Mick Jagger complained of a sore throat and was ordered to rest by a doctor.

The supergroup has flown to New York in preparation for today's concert but an insider said it was too soon to know whether Jagger will be fit enough to perform.

This is funny, indeed.

The End Of An Icon

Oh, the humanity! Say it ain't so, Joe! For the love of God, Montressor! Oh, hell, I stepped in it! All of those are cries of anguish and distress. But there is a new one. One that is even worse and more troubling.

No more pink flamingos!

The company that invented the pink plastic lawn flamingo is going out of business, a victim of high plastic resin prices and the increasing cost of electricity. This is the end of an era. Just another signpost along the road to the decline and fall of the West.

But the original version of the plastic flamingo may be singing its swan song after inspiring countless pranks — and being alternately celebrated as a tribute to one of nature's most graceful creatures and derided as the epitome of American pop culture kitsch.

Union Products Inc. stopped producing flamingos and other lawn ornaments at its Leominster factory in June, and is going out of business Nov. 1 — a victim of rising expenses for plastic resin and electricity, as well financing problems.

The small privately held firm has been in talks with a pair of rival lawn ornament makers interested in buying the molds and resuming production of the flamingos, designed in 1957 by local son Don Featherstone.

"We think the flamingo will go on," Keith Marshall, Union Products' chief financial officer, said at the company's aging brick factory, where just a few years ago more than 100 employees churned out flamingos by the millions.

Just a couple workers were still around to wrap up business. At the front desk stood a lone flamingo with the words "Happy 50th birthday" written with a black marker on the side, symbolizing hope that the flamingo will rise phoenix-like from the ashes to be reborn.

Other companies' knockoff versions of the Featherstone original remain in production. But the uncertainty surrounding the original has aficionados of kitsch snapping up what they can via the online auction site eBay and elsewhere in case Featherstone versions go out of stock for good.

Mike Smollon, a firefighter who sees plenty of plastic flamingos in his Boynton Beach, Fla., neighborhood, traveled to Leominster to attend a wedding last month and was surprised to learn the city about 50 miles northwest of Boston is home of the original flamingo.

"I guess it never dawned on me that pink flamingos would be made anywhere else than Florida," the 55-year-old said.

Smollon had never owned flamingos before. But, on learning of Union Products' demise, he was inspired to drop by the factory and buy a dozen pairs — $15 per pair for regular pink ones, and $25 for gold-colored special issue flamingos commemorating the bird's upcoming 50th birthday.

"This could be the end of them, and I wanted to get some," he said.

Smollon shipped the flock home and gave most of the birds to friends. He kept the most valuable ones for himself — those he had autographed by Featherstone during a visit to the retiree's home in Fitchburg, just down the road from Leominster.

My wife will be utterly devastated.

Zombie Makes Appearance

Well, Fidel Castro surfaced in video and in still photos. This is supposed to prove he is still alive. Now, put aside the fact that there are a number of ways that this could have been set up in advance. Let's not play the conspiracy theory game. Instead, take a look at the photo published in Cuban media. If he is actually still alive, he is a very, very sick man. He looks awful.

The Communist Youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde dedicated its front page to the Cuban president, printing a blown-up picture of a pensive Castro with the title "Always fighting for something, and fighting with optimism!"

The 80-year-old Cuban leader, who temporarily ceded power to his brother Raul in July following intestinal surgery, had not been seen since mid-September when photographs of him receiving world leaders at a summit in Havana were released.

The latest photos apparently were taken during the filming of a video broadcast Saturday, in which Castro, looking thin and tired, was shown walking slowly but steadily in an unidentified room and reading in a loud voice from Saturday's edition of Granma, the Communist Party daily newspaper.

"They've declared me moribund prematurely," he said. "But it pleases me to send my compatriots and friends this small video."

He said his recovery would be prolonged and not without risk but added he was making good progress.

"I am coming along just as planned … I feel whole," he said. "I'm not the least bit afraid of what will occur."

He called rumors of his death ridiculous and insulting, claiming they were the work of his enemies.

"Let's see what they say now," he said.

I'd say Fidel has a voodoo priest handy with direct access to Baron Samedi.

When necromancy is performed, the Baron Samedi is invoked in a cemetery. Three people must be present. They dress the cross on the grave with Baron Samedi's traditional clothes, and burn incense and herbs. Then they request his help. They know the Baron has arrived when the clothes on the cross flap as if disturbed by wind. Some actually claim to see him - a tall black man with white beard and eyeless sockets in his head, though he can see very well.

The participants ask the corpse various questions. If it answers them, the corpse is rewarded by a limited time as a zombie. The zombie acts as the servant of the people who raised him, and performs tasks for them.

That would explain (T)Hugo Chavez's report that Fidel wanders about at night all over Cuba. Zombies own the night, after all. So Fidel "surfaced" in a quite literal sense.

Leftist Paradise, Citizen’s Hell

Mexican troops have surrounded Oaxaca and appear to be poised to launch assaults of the barricades manned by the leftist extremists who have held that city in thrall for months now. The leftists are calling for people to man the barricades, while average people understand that they are being asked to commit suicide at the leftist's request. It's just not fair, they complain.

The teachers whose strike over pay raises in May began the uprising in Oaxaca agreed to go back to work on Monday, and the federal presence appeared designed to bolster law and order ahead of their return. But some strikers and their leftist supporters were outlining plans for street-by-street resistance.

Officials said police had begun to enter the city and remove some barricades, and reporters saw about a half-dozen federal police trucks equipped with water cannon and bulldozer blades moving onto a highway about 100 yards from signs that said "Welcome to Oaxaca."

Dozens of officers with riot shields and batons established a line in front of the trucks, as protesters angrily shouted "Army out!"

"They're going to kill us. It's not fair," said Juana Garcia, a 48-year-old housewife. "We can't do anything, we have no weapons."

A few blocks away protesters prepared their defense, putting up a makeshift barricade and tossing mounds of fist-sized stones into pickup trucks, apparently to distribute to supporters.

"We are calling on all our colleagues, and all the people, to stay firmly on the barricades," Roberto Garcia, a protest leader, said late Saturday. "But we are also categorically stating that we don't want to clash with the federal forces."

Yup, leftist doublespeak at its best. We don't want clashes, which is why we're piling up stones (and most likely Molotov cocktails as well). The leftist leaders are completely willing to fight to the last drop of the people's blood, whereupon, they'll run and hide undoubtedly.

UPDATE: TourPro over at Adirondack Base Camp just popped onto Memeorandum. He's been keeping a running post on the doings in Oaxaca for quite some time now. Since his wife and daughter went down there, in fact. We've exchanged links a few times now. He's almost a hometown boy, even though he lives down by Lake Champlain.

Intrepid Sails Again

The USS Intrepid, now a museum in New York Harbor, is finally setting sail again. Only she'll go stern-first, hauled by tugboats. The journey will be quite short, only a few miles to a dry dock in New Jersey. She will undergo a scheduled two year overhaul to correct the effects of corrosion. (And, gee whiz, no conspiracy theories needed, either!)

Not off to war this time, but just five nautical miles down New York harbor to a dry dock, where the retired World War II veteran will spend two years undergoing what its owners call "refurbishment and restoration." It will be the ship's first voyage since it was saved from the scrap yard and turned into a museum in 1982.

The Intrepid's departure will begin with pomp and ceremony, including speeches, patriotic music, a Navy flyover and a parade of "honor ships," Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, said Thursday. On the way to its dry dock in New Jersey, it will stop near ground zero to unfurl a huge American flag as a salute to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

White said the patriotism-themed event was appropriate for a ship that participated in every major battle during the last two years of the war in the Pacific, surviving five Japanese kamikaze suicide attacks and losing 270 crew members. It also served in the Korean and Vietnam wars and as a recovery ship for NASA astronauts.

But now, after a quarter-century on Manhattan's West Side, the Intrepid is in need of extensive work to fix deterioration from the effect of weather and salt corrosion. The $58 million plan also calls for more work and living spaces to be opened to the public, and a rebuilding of its pier, where it will return in November 2008.

Some of the 23 aircraft exhibited on the ship will remain on the flight deck, shrink-wrapped in protective covering, and others will be taken elsewhere for their own refurbishing, said Eric Boehm, Intrepid's aircraft restoration manager. Exhibits inside the ship, including a replica statue of the Iwo Jima flag-raising, have been crated for storage.

I've visited the Intrepid, it is a great attraction for New York City. It's too bad it will take two years to perform the overhaul, but it needs to be done to keep it floating so future generations can see it as well. Bon voyage.

A Reflection On Dominoes

Debra Saunders has a piece up over at Real Clear Politics that points out just how wrong an imposed timetable for withdrawing American troops from Iraq is. Because there will be repercussions in the short term as well as in the long term. It is vital that people understand that.

When Americans supported sending forces to Iraq, Feinstein voted in favor of the resolution authorizing force in Iraq. Now, polls show that Americans have soured on the war — certainly Californians oppose it — and Feinstein, who is running for re-election, was happy to point out that she regretted that vote.

So she wants a timetable. As the senator put it, "I think it may even be productive positively to say, 'Look we're going to aim to have all our people out by the end of '07.'" Feinstein added that all the polls show that Iraqis want U.S. troops to leave.

I am in favor of withdrawing according to any timetable approved by democratically elected Iraqi lawmakers. But unlike Feinstein, I think it makes more sense to let Iraqi leaders ask for U.S. troops to leave when they feel secure enough to do so — rather than rely on polls. Right now, Iraqi leaders want U.S. boots on the ground.

Saunders discusses the problems of letting polls dictate strategy. Simply put, polls can be misleading, as can the willful mis-reporting of what the polls are saying.

The PIPA poll asked, "Thinking about any hardships you might have suffered since the U.S.-Britain invasion, do you personally think ousting Saddam Hussein was worth it or not?" The answer for 61 percent: Yes, it was worth it.

If you think that a superficial look at polls should dictate foreign policy, consider this. The PIPA poll found that 47 percent of Iraqis think their country is headed in the right direction. Compare that to a recent poll that found that 44 percent of Californians say the state is headed in the right direction.

News on the Iraq war is bound to be bad when the media fail to report news that does not reinforce the media view of this war as unwinnable. It took less than two weeks after the war in Iraq began for The Chronicle to run the first opinion piece that called the war a "quagmire."

The erosion of support for the war is at least partly attributable to the willful attacks on the war and the administration by politicians and the media. They have wanted a quagmire from day one. But if they succeed this time, there are dominoes that will fall, just as there were dominoes that fell after the pullout from Vietnam.

Well, U.S. troops have been in Afghanistan longer than in Iraq. Still, Feinstein said that she supports keeping troops in Afghanistan because "the Afghanis want the NATO forces there. Iraqis want us out. We have become an occupying force."

How long do you think that support will last if jihadis around the world decide to camp out in Afghanistan? How long will it take before polls show American support for U.S. troops in Afghanistan falling? How long then will it be before Feinstein wants an Afghanistan timetable?

I fear one of the dominoes that will fall this time might be America itself.