Engaging Reality

The murder of Pierre Gemayel - in broad daylight - in Beirut should be giving the "realists" at least some pause. The barrage of trial balloons hinting that "dialog" with Damascus and Tehran are good things should be strongly questioned right about now. Because it is clear - to all but the Clue Proof™ that Syria had a hand in the latest political murder. Michael Young, writing in the Times of London asks a simple question: How does that engagement idea look now?

In recent weeks the idea that the United States and the UK should “engage” Syria, but also Iran, to stabilise Iraq has been all the rage. On Tuesday, in an east Beirut suburb, Lebanon’s industry minister, Pierre Gemayel, showed what the cost of engagement might be. The scion of a prominent Christian political family was assassinated in broad daylight. This was the latest in a series of killings and bomb attacks that the UN investigator looking into the murder of the late Prime Minister, Rafiq Hariri, has determined are linked.

….

Syria has encouraged its powerful Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, to bring down the Government. The recent ministerial resignations were led by the party which has been planning demonstrations to force the Government out.

Developments in Lebanon make the idea of engaging Syria at best premature. The Hariri investigation is continuing, and until the UN releases its final report on the assassination it makes no sense to talk to a Syrian regime that may find itself in the dock. Moreover, its President, Bashar Assad, has implied he would not allow Syrian suspects to appear before the tribunal, making a confrontation between Damascus and the international community likely. Eager partisans of engagement could have egg on their faces.

And maybe that is the best way to present this: it would be an embarrassment verging on humiliation for the "realists" if it turns out that they pushed hard to "engage" a nation that is using cold blooded political murder to advance it's strategy. And that nation got caught, red-handed, by none other than the UN. (Contrary to the opinion of the moral equivalence folks out there, what Syria did here is not the same as a targeted killing of your military enemies. Gemayel did nothing to try to kill Syrians or incite others to do so.). So, how is this idea looking, James Baker?

Willing to risk your reputation on that bet?

Birthday Trifecta

Longtime readers may remember me mentioning this before, but November 23rd is a significant date around the Crabitat. My youngest brother, who I affectionately refer to as "Mad Dog", has a birthday on November 23rd. Which, in and of itself, is no big deal. Everyone has a birthday, after all. (Except maybe Al Gore, he might be a robot.) But years after Mad Dog was born, my oldest boy happened to be born on November 23rd.

Now, Mad Dog believed that this was intentional and a fitting tribute to him. I don't exaggerate - well, not much- when I say that Mad Dog was ecstatic when my son was born on his birthday. He dropped over for a beer or four after I had gotten a nap in (it was a loooooong labor). It was non-stop high-fives - between opening of beers, of course. My oldest boy is by far and away Mad Dog's favorite nephew.

Later, when I married my second wife (and last, this one's a keeper, if she'll keep me), it came out that her birthday happens to fall on November 23rd. This Mad Dog took as a sign of his imminent induction into deification. This was the holy grail, the trifecta of birthdays. It was no use trying to dissuade him of his belief that November 23rd was a holy day.

In a way, it is, after all. Three people who mean a lot to me share that date. There is something special about today's date.

Happy birthday to all of you.

Poisoned Defector Dies

Alexander Litvinenko, the former member of the Russian security service who defected to the West has died from whatever poison was administered to him. Doctors have about ruled out thallium as the culprit, but are no closer to the cause.

Alexander Litvinenko, a fierce critic of the Russian government, had suffered heart failure and was heavily sedated as medical stuff struggled to determine what had made the 43-year-old critically ill.

"The matter is being investigated as an unexplained death," London's Metropolitan police said in a statement.

The former spy said he believed he had been poisoned on Nov. 1, while investigating the slaying of another Kremlin detractor — investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. His hair fell out, his throat became swollen and his immune and nervous systems were severely damaged, he said.

Just hours before he lost consciousness, Litvinenko said in an interview with The Times newspaper of London that he had been silenced.

"I want to survive, just to show them," he said in the interview was published in Friday's edition of the paper, copies of which were available late Thursday. They "got me, but they won't get everybody."

Doctors at London's University College Hospital said tests had virtually ruled out poisoning by thallium and radiation — toxins once considered possible culprits behind the poisoning.

"The medical team at the hospital did everything possible to save his life," hospital spokesman Jim Down said, confirming the Russian's death Thursday night.

"Every avenue was explored to establish the cause of his condition, and the matter is now an ongoing investigation being dealt with by detectives," he said.

Dr. Geoff Bellingan, the hospital's director of critical care, said extensive tests had failed to uncover what had caused Litvinenko to fall ill.

The Times of London interview can be found here.

UPDATE: The Australian has also picked up the interview.

Giving Thanks

There are so very many things we have to give thanks for in this country. And so very many of those things we may not even recognize or think about, things we take completely for granted, are because of fellow Americans who are willing to defend us and our way of life. There is so much venom in any political discussion today, that it is hard to realize that the acrimoniousness is possible only because of the nation we have been lucky enough to be born in. That freedom to say what you think, without (genuine) fear of being silenced is because those who came before us were willing to defend those freedoms.

I am thankful to have known many men who fought for other people's freedom as well. Those who served in the Second World War, a generation that is passing now, fought and died for other nations to be free. Some of those nations now harbor many who denounce the United States. But their freedom to do so was paid for with American blood.

I am thankful for the ability to speak my thoughts and write them down for others to read. I am thankful that those rights were protected for me by others in past years. I am thankful for the people who still stand between us and those who would destroy us. I am thankful for the men and women who are away from home right now to carry out those tasks of defending the free world.

From the Middle East to Central Asia and beyond, U.S. service members like Staff Sgt. Dominco Washington passed a day meant to celebrate American bounty in far-flung deployments, longing for home while focusing on their missions.

"There are times when you think it would be nice to be home, nice to be with the ones you love," Washington, of the 3rd Reconnaissance Military Transition Team, said while waiting in the dark along a wind-swept Fallujah street for a company of Marines searching houses.

"But you can't think too much about yourself, get too down and be a disruption to the other guys," said the 30-year-old, who hails from Norfolk, Va., but lives with his wife and 10-year-old daughter on a U.S. military base in Okinawa, Japan.

From their positions across Iraq's dangerous and insurgent-dominated Anbar province, more than 20,000 Marines quickly and quietly marked Thanksgiving amid their work, while trying to bring some homestyle traditions to Iraq.

There was a flag football tournament on fields of hard-packed sand that became blanketed by blinding dust whenever medical evacuation helicopters took off or landed nearby.

"Thanksgiving is food and football. That's what we do every year. It's America, even if we're in Iraq," said Cpl. Daniel J. English, a native of Antwerp, Ohio, in the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion.

A television lounge at Camp Fallujah planned to show NFL games live, even though they didn't start here until the middle of the night. Cardboard turkeys, pumpkins and pilgrims in belt-buckle hats were plastered around many buildings.

Inside the base's two sprawling mess halls, three-foot turkey sculptures fashioned out of butter greeted the troops, who piled their trays high with roast turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cornbread as well as pumpkin and four other varieties of pie. The menu also included prime rib, crab legs, shrimp cocktail, fried chicken and collard greens.

"It's the most important day of the year for us," said Raymond Yung, director of one of the food service crews at Camp Fallujah.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Late To The Party

But better late than never! Readers here were told about Beccy Cole some time ago, but Pajamas Media has just linked her as well. But it is well worth re-linking to my old post and to the new PJM one. Read some of the comments at PJM - they are quite revealing. I love the one that defines "fascist": "Jake has just proven again that the modern definition of a fascist (or even a "fascsit") is someone who is winning an argument with a liberal." Heh.

Heck - go give a listen, for the first time or just listening again. (One of these days I'll figure out how to put video here.)

But Is It Art?

This seems kind of silly, a pointless dispute that just keeps going around and around. Still, there is an interesting question in it. What, exactly, constitutes art these days?

SOAP LAKE — Rick Froebe erected a backyard "fence." It's not a white-picket fence.

Instead, it's made of seven old toilets, a few used bathtubs and some broken down water heaters.

He said it's to "keep the golfers out" of his yard.

Froebe's home, 832 Canterbury Road, is nestled along Lakeview Golf & Country Club near Soap Lake. He watches closely from his back porch as golfers negotiate the green of the 354-yard, par-4 first hole.

"Choice real estate in Grant County," said Froebe, co-owner of Coulee Dam/Ephrata Plumbing.

On Monday, three scarecrow-like dummies sat on toilets and looked on as golfers finished their putts. The old commodes, bathtubs and water heaters first appeared on Halloween. The dummies came down for a few days, now they're back.

Froebe, who's owned the home for the previous 15 years, already had a backyard fence in place — the chain-link version. He claims it's not enough to keep golfers and neighborhood cats from getting his dogs all riled up.

Froebe contends the dogs get excited enough to start barking as players drive their golf carts near the green, search for their balls, chat, chip and putt. Neighbors began complaining about the barking.

Gerald Coulter, representing the country club's nine-member board of directors, called the situation "completely ridiculous." That's the consensus of the board, Coulter said, following last week's meeting.

"I've had several people call that were upset with (the 'fence'). It's an eyesore," Coulter said. "I'm surprised the health department hasn't been out there because of the used toilets and water tanks. It's not a sanitary condition."

The dispute, once over course rules, has morphed into a dispute over dogs barking and they just seem to be getting each other riled up. But oddly enough, Froebe, who calls his fence "plumber art", may not be all that far off the mark. There is a weird humor in the fence (click the link to look at a picture). Childish? Probably. Any worse than what is being passed off as art these days? No, not at all. But the "fence" does have a certain cohesion to it, even if it is being silly. Think about some of the "sculpture" you see in public places these days. Is this really any worse?

How To Discredit An Idea

Without really trying all that hard. SeeDubya at Junk Yard Blog takes a righteous smack at the people suddenly talking smack about weird conspiracy theories.

Many within the Republican Party–most of them principled conservatives who are right on nearly everything else–disagree with me on the priority of controlling what comes across the border. I think there are a few who are scoundrels and adopt the position they take out of greed or out of some weird ideological quirk. Some of them don't like the rhetoric and the personalities calling for tighter borders and allow that dislike to affect their position. A few of them are dumb or remain willfully ignorant of the risks our current border situation poses (I was in this latter camp myself until about, oh, 9/12/01).

But most of them are simply people who disagree with me–they are people who have thought about the issue and weigh the risks and costs differently than I do. They're loyal Americans and they want what's best for the country. They just happen to be wrong about it–and, I think, dangerously so.

What they are not is secret agents of an internationalist conspiracy, dedicated to eradicating America's sovereignty in order to bring on that sweet, sweet New World Order. There do exist such people who are committed internationalists, who think the world has outgrown the tired old notion of Westphalian sovereignty, and who want to see the U.N. running things (actually, I even know someone like that, a law professor, but he's a fringe lefty and not at all secret about it). But you're not going to find those people on the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board . And you're making yourself look like an idiot trying to convince me that's where they are. If you are trying to convince me that George Bush is running some Illuminati endgame here, you're just making yourself look ridiculous. Not just yourself, but also that policy you feel so very strongly about.

I have heard these conspiracy theories a number of times before and have stayed right off them as subjects because they are downright weird. But they continue to pop up so I guess it is time to say something. These are, to me, a right wing version of the 9/11 conspiracies. And SeeDubya is right, this kind of thing overshadows the legitimate reasons for concern about the border that a lot of us have. Read the whole thing and follow the links.

The Traditional Thanksgiving Pizza

I've actually had a couple of requests for this, so here's the recipe. The real trick here is the spices and whatnot in the crust. Makes a huge difference:

1 Pkg dry yeast
1 cup warm water (105-115° F)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbs olive oil
2-1/2 to 3-1/2 bread flour
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp rosemary (crushed)
1 tsp thyme
1/4 cup grated Parmesan (substitute asiago if you have it)
plus whatever other spices or herbs you like

I use a KitchenAid mixer with a dough hook, but this can be done by hand as well. Mix the first four ingredients (plus the spices, Parmesan and herbs) then add 2-1/2 cups flour. With the mixer, you mix for about one minutes on speed two, then start adding more flour gradually. The goal is to make a stiff enough dough to cling to the hook and clean off the sides of the bowl. Mix about two more minutes. Place in a greased bowl - remember to turn the dough in the bowl so the top gets greased). Cover and let stand in a warm place about one hour. Punch dough down.

Roll dough out onto a pizza stone. let stand 5-10 minutes. Pierce dough with tines of a fork all around. It should look like a pincushion when you're done. Place in a 450° F oven for ten minutes. Remove and put toppings on. I favor tomato sauce, Canadian bacon, sliced black and green olives and a mixture of mozzarella, provolone, asiago and Parmesan cheese. Return to oven and bake an additional ten minutes or so - watch it carefully, though. It sometimes cooks faster or slower depending on how heavy a hand you have on the toppings. Remove from oven when done, slide pizza off stone and onto a cutting board (or it will keep right on cooking - that stone holds heat for a while).

WWI U-Boat Wrecks Discovered

The wrecks of two German U-boats from the First World War have been located off the coast of the Orkney Islands. They have been identified as the U92 and the U102 and may have run into a British minefield in the area. There is a certain bitter irony to that fate for the commander of the U102.

They were initially found earlier this year by chance, during the MCA's ongoing process of conducting sonar surveys in British waters, and were recently identified as the wrecks of U102 and U92 after experts examined original plans of the boats.

The MCA said the two boats may have been sunk on the Northern Barrage — a series of mines laid in the area.

Intriguingly, one of the U-boats, U102, carried Commander Kurt Beitzen, who killed Lord Horatio Kitchener, then Secretary for War — best known for posters bearing his moustachioed likeness with arm pointing out, above the text "Your country needs you".

In May 1916, Beitzen's U-boat U-75 laid 22 mines along the west cost of Orkney. A month later, Kitchener was on the HMS Hampshire on a mission to Russia, when his ship ran into the mines, and Kitchener died along with most of the crew.

More on U-boats in general can be found here.

Words Of Wisdom From Animal House

If only the Swedish authorities had made it mandatory for all the moose in Sweden to watch the movie Animal House, this would never have occurred. The immortal words of Dean Vernon Wormer to Kent "Flounder" Dorfman could have prevented this tragedy! "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son." But, alas. It is too late. The moose drowned.

"The moose appears to have eaten too many fermented apples and become confused out on the ice," Luleaa police spokesman Erik Kummu told Aftonbladet on Thursday.

Emergency services were scrambled but they were unable to save the four-legged apple thief.

For several days prior to the moose's demise, local residents had contacted police after seeing the animal munch its way through rotting fruit, Aftonbladet said.

This may well be the same drunken "elk" we reported on earlier. But then again, the story says that alcoholic moose are common in Sweden. Really, what else is there to do in the long winters?

The Essential Society

The Telegraph has hit a major nerve apparently. One reader wrote in to state, rather firmly, that he wanted to form a "society of people who had never seen The Sound of Music and have no intention of doing so". That opened the floodgates.

The Daily Telegraph's celebration of the outsider – the men and women of Britain who refuse to follow the pack - struck a chord across the nation yesterday with hundreds of people downloading our membership certificate for the Society of People Who Never…

The idea started in The Daily Telegraph's letters page last week when a reader said that he wanted to form a Society of People Who Had Not Seen The Sound of Music and Have No Intention of Doing So.

An avalanche of letters since bears testimony to the fact that readers have perhaps never had an outlet to vent their spleens about pet hates.

Here are some of the cultural trends you are proud to buck:

I have never started a sentence with the word "basically" and finish with "you know".

Keith McNally

Never had any desire to have a meal at The Ivy.

Michael Barber

I have never read the Da Vinci Code, or seen the movie and never will. Ditto Big Brother.

Laura Merton

I have never understood why anyone would want to swim with dolphins or lie for ages in their bath surrounded by candles.

There are a lot more, too. Many of these are very, very funny. Best of all, you can download and print off a fancy certificate, suitably customized, of whatever activity, trend or bit of pop culture you have no intention of ever doing. (The link to the certificate in the story is broken, however. Hopefully they will get that fixed).

On The Running Of Errands

My mission this morning involved getting to a store at 8am to be one of the first in line to buy something which the store only had a few of. No, it was not a PlayStation 3, but I can't talk anymore about what it is until the big day has come and gone. But I had firm instructions to get there and buy it. When I emailed my wife to tell her I had succeeded, I sent this along:

Thrashing through the crowd
Just don't get in my way
I'll run right over you
To get that gift today

I should write Christmas songs.

“A Christmas Story” Brought To Life

There are fans and then there are fans. Brian Jones is in the latter category. The 30-year old Jones loved the movie A Christmas Story so much that he bought the house that was featured in the movie, renovated it to match the movie and is opening it for tours.

For Ralphie, the object of desire was an official Red Ryder, carbine-action, 200-shot, range model air rifle. (Go ahead, say it, "You'll shoot your eye out, kid.") For Jones, the gotta-have-it item was Ralphie's house — the one in "A Christmas Story," the quirky film that's found a niche alongside holiday classics like "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Miracle on 34th Street."

Jones has restored the three-story, wood-frame house to its appearance in the movie and will open it for tours beginning Saturday. His hope is that it will become a tourist stop alongside the city's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and other destinations.

He's unsure whether he'll make enough money to cover his $500,000 investment, but as sure as a kid's tongue will stick to a frozen flag pole, he's committed to the project.

"I just want people to come and enjoy it as I have," said Jones, a 30-year-old former Navy lieutenant.

"A Christmas Story" wasn't a big hit when released in 1983 but repeat TV airings and, in recent years, a 24-hour run on TBS starting Christmas Eve have made its story of boy's quest to get a BB gun for Christmas as infectious as the bespectacled Ralphie's eager grin.

Not only that, but Jones makes and sells leg lamps just like the one Ralphie's father wins in the movie. It is, after all a major award. And probably Italian - the crate is labeled "fra-jill'-ee".

When the San Diego resident's dream of a becoming a Navy pilot like his father was denied because of his eyesight, his parents sent him a package to lift his spirits. Marked "FRAGILE" on the outside, it contained a leg lamp his parents built to look just like the one received by Ralphie's father, who proudly displayed it in the living room window, boasting, "It's a major award!"

Jones' mom noted that he could probably make a business out of selling them. In 2003, he started doing just that.

"I tooled together 500 lamps in my 1,000-square-foot condo in San Diego and sold them all in the first year," Jones said.

And he's still making and selling them — $129.99 for the 45-inch model, $159.99 for the 53-inch "deluxe full size" leg lamp.

(Click the picture to go to the Red Rider Leg Lamps website)

Repudiating Themselves

AllahPundit performs a much needed smackdown of Alcee Hastings and his disinformation campaign. Hastings is calling lots of people various names, but glossing over a number of salient facts So are his defenders.

Alas for poor Hastings, the boss has already completed her magical journey through time back to August 3, 1988, where she’s fiendishly rigged the House vote to make it look like every major politician in today’s Democratic universe assented to impeaching his ass.

She did a really thorough job, too:

One of the newcomers to the House was the future Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had been in office a little more than a year. She voted to impeach Hastings.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, the future Majority Leader, also voted to impeach. And so did the lawmakers who will soon chair powerful House committees. Rep. Conyers, now in line to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. Charles Rangel, soon to chair the Ways and Means Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. Barney Frank, in line to head the Financial Services Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. Henry Waxman, next chair of the Government Reform Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. John Dingell, in line to chair the Energy and Commerce Committee, voted to impeach…

So did other well-known Democratic lawmakers like Rep. John Lewis, Rep. (and later Sen.) Barbara Boxer, Rep. (and later Sen.) Charles Schumer, Rep. (and later Sen.) Richard Durbin, Rep. Ed Markey, Rep. Ron Dellums, Rep. Julian Dixon, and Rep. Richard Gephardt.

By emphasizing his acquittal in federal court and downplaying the subsequent impeachment proceedings, he’s essentially asking Pelosi and co. to rebuke themselves for having voted as they did and admit that their findings of fact at the time were wrong.

I've already had more than a few of the disinformation patrol swooping in to deposit their received talking points. The chorus goes: "he was never convicted, la la la". But it is the same old song and dance. Many of the people sitting in the Congress today, fellow Democrats, removed him from office. They obviously saw enough evidence to vote the way they did. So, is Pelosi going to repudiate her earlier actions and put Hastings in the chair? We'll see, I guess.

But it is instructive to look at who is supporting Hastings based on the "never convicted" meme. Many were the same people screaming the loudest about the Fox Network's plan to air an interview with another man who was never convicted. Interesting set of double standards.

Turkeys On A Train!

Or at least they were trying their darnedest to get on one. The wire report makes light of it and says the turkeys were just trying to escape their Thanksgiving fate.

RAMSEY, N.J. - Some wild turkeys, it appears, were trying to get out of New Jersey before Thanksgiving Day. A spokesman for the NJ Transit said train officials reported a dozen or so wild turkeys waiting on a station platform in Ramsey, about 20 miles northwest of New York City, on Wednesday afternoon. The line travels to Suffern, N.Y.

"For a moment, it looked like the turkeys were waiting for the next outbound train," said Dan Stessel, a spokesman for NJ Transit. "Clearly, they're trying to catch a train and escape their fate."

Transit workers followed the bird's movements on surveillance cameras. "I have no idea how they got there," Stessel said.

A Ramsey police dispatcher said the department had received three calls about the traveling turkeys who also were blamed for causing morning rush hour traffic problems on a roadway.

Sure, laugh it off, you poor fools. We warned earlier that the terror turkeys were plotting attacks on Thanksgiving day. We told you about the dry run they conducted on the Triborough Bridge, we warned you about the fiendish fowls using fiendishly foul biological weapons. We even told you about the lunch money shakedown artists. But people don't listen. So we'll explain this for the clueless. The turkeys were not waiting for the train to escape their fate, but rather to meet their destiny. Try to envision The Taking of Pelham One Two Three with wattles and feathers!