Blue Crab Boulevard

No commercial that appeared last night during Super Bowl XLI directly addressed Iraq, which would have made it ever so much easier to write this convoluted attempt at trying to tie an unrelated event together with the advertisements that appeared during the game. But hey, when you're writing for the pre-eminent partisan Bush hatred newspaper in the country, you have to imagine things that are not there to somehow blame it on the administration.

There were a whole bunch of ads that didn't mention Iraq and, indeed, had no relation to it. Nor even could, to a rational human being. But it is important to mention that war at every chance even when it has no relation to anything whatsoever under discussion. Because otherwise Bill Keller gets all nasty with you and expects actual work.  It is, after all, what the New York Times does best! Screw the facts, get on with the Bush bashing!

Let's cut to the chase, shall we? There was an ad that mentioned the Prudential Insurance company and its long standing symbol, the rock of Gibraltar. An icon that it has used as a symbol since before your reporter was even a gleam in his father's eye. But if you say the words, "The rock" repeatedly after drinking three bottles of cheap wine while standing on your head in your bathtub, it sounds a lot like "Iraq". Or possibly like "Scooter Libby" which would be almost as good. But then you realize you went a bottle too far and pass out. 

…..Only to find yourself writing ad reviews for the New York Times a few hours later. With a splitting headache and serious bruising from tumbling over in the bathtub. But you have a completely fictional hook for your article that your editor will get excited over. Damn! Life is good!

UPDATE: Others charmed with Elliot's asinine reporting:  The Corner, The Moderate Voice, Brainster's Blog, Done With Mirrors, Riehl World View, The Political Pit Bull, Captain's Quarters, Wizbang, Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, Ace of Spades,    

This is stinking to high heaven of a setup publicity stunt. And I really hope they throw the book at this creep. Ehren Watada, who abandoned his troops and refused to deploy with them to Iraq, the act of a coward, is going to his court martial finally. But his stunt, and it really does look like a stunt, is now unraveling and he looks to be about to serve time. But the cards that have been played thus far show exactly how this was a setup and a stunt planned and executed by Watada.

Watada has spoken out against U.S. military involvement in Iraq, calling it morally wrong and a breach of American law.

"As the order to take part in an illegal act is ultimately unlawful as well, I must as an officer of honor and integrity refuse that order," Watada said in a video statement released at a June 7 news conference.

Despite having already been charged, he spoke out again in August, at a Veterans for Peace rally in Seattle.

"Though the American soldier wants to do right, the illegitimacy of the occupation itself, the policies of this administration, and the rules of engagement of desperate field commanders will ultimately force them to be party to war crime," Watada said then.

Watada and his Honolulu attorney, Eric Seitz, contend his comments are protected speech, but Army prosecutors argued his behavior was dangerous to the mission and morale of other soldiers.

"He betrayed his fellow soldiers who are now serving in Iraq," Capt. Dan Kuecker said at one hearing. Kuecker has not commented on the case outside of court.

Seitz unsuccessfully sought an opportunity to argue the legality of the war, saying it violated Army regulations that specify wars are to be waged in accordance with the United Nations charter. His final attempt was quashed last month when the military judge, Lt. Col. John Head, ruled Watada cannot base his defense on the war's legality. Head also rejected claims that Watada's statements were protected by the First Amendment.

The Army had subpoenaed two journalists who interviewed Watada, drawing criticism from free-press advocates, but that fell by the wayside as prosecutors dropped two of the four counts of misconduct in exchange for Watada admitting he made statements to freelance journalist Sarah Olson and Greg Kakesako of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

"This should be seen as a victory for the rights of journalists in the U.S. to gather and disseminate news free from government intervention, and for the rights of individuals to express personal, political opinions to journalists without fear of retribution or censure," Olson said in an e-mail message.

No, it should be seen for what it really is. He set the journalists up and used them like a rented mule. I'm guessing that Watada only bailed the reporters out to avoid the press turning on him and exposing his behavior. 

Yeah, this coward deserves free speech right protected by all the fury and screeching of the left wing noise machine. But the troops who serve must be silenced. Go to jail, Watada. See how your pals support you then. 

Iraqi insurgents have been bragging on the internet that they have new weapons to down US helicopters. US forces have suffered four helicopters downed in the past two weeks. American officials are acknowledging that it does, inded, look like the helicopters were shot down. So, one needs to ask a simple question here:

Who sent in the new weapons?

Caldwell said the helicopters had been shot down in four separate incidents in which 21 U.S. servicemen and private security contractors were killed, confirming earlier witness reports and leaks from within the U.S. military.

Dozens of U.S. helicopters have come down, some hit by missiles or gunfire, in four years of fighting. But the unusually high number lost in such a short time raised questions about whether militants had changed tactics or were using more sophisticated weapons.

"There has been an ongoing effort to target our helicopters," Caldwell told reporters in Baghdad. "We have had four helicopters shot down … it appears they were all the result of some kind of ground fire."

He said the incidents were still under investigation, but in the meantime U.S. helicopters were changing the way they flew in support of Iraqi and American troops.

"Based on what we've seen, we are already adjusting our tactics and procedures in how we deploy our helicopters," Caldwell said.

An al Qaeda-backed group — the Islamic State in Iraq — on Sunday issued a video which it said showed its fighters downing a U.S. helicopter northwest of Baghdad. The crash on Friday, the latest such incident, killed the helicopter's two crew.

The video, posted on a Web site used by insurgents, showed masked militants firing on a low-flying helicopter before firing what appeared to be a missile at it.

The craft, trailing smoke, flew away as militants chanted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest), then disappeared behind a hill. The video, which could not be authenticated, later showed billowing smoke apparently caused by the crash.

This is actually pretty straightforward. Please look at the map below:

I'm sure my son was watching.

Not so many years ago, there were hundreds, no thousands, of small roadside attractions. They sprouted everywhere after the Second World War. The website Roadside America has cataloged a lot of those that have survived. But those small oddities are disappearing one by one as the years pass and tastes change. There used to be one around every bend in the road in the Adirondack Mountains when I lived there. But they declined and became tatty and shopworn over time and eventually they started to fail one by one and vanish.

Another one is gone now in Wisconsin. A "Mystery Spot" where gravity does not seem to work right.

After more than half a century of wowing tourists (and causing probably more than a few cases of nausea), the Wonder Spot, a mysterious cabin where people can't stand up straight, water runs uphill and chairs balance on two legs, is no more.

Owner Bill Carney has sold the iconic attraction to the village of Lake Delton for $300,000. The village wants to build a road through the crevice where the Wonder Spot has stood since the 1950s.

Now, the Wonder Spot, one of more than a dozen sites around the nation dubbed "gravity vortexes" and a throwback to postwar, family-oriented tourist attractions, has a date with a bulldozer.

"We're kind of wondering how the town is going to deal with the gravitational forces under the road. That might be an issue with driving and how you bank a curve," joked Doug Kirby, publisher of RoadsideAmerica.com, which catalogs odd tourist attractions.

Kirby's site lists the Wonder Spot as one of 21 so-called "mystery spots." Lake Wales, Fla., has Spook Hill. Irish Hills, Mich., has the Mystery Hill. California has the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz.

The story behind each one is similar — gravity doesn't work in them. People seem to grow smaller, can't stand up straight and can barely walk.

Promotions boast that strange forces in the spots trump the laws of physics. Others say they're just elaborate hoaxes.

"It seems like to spend a lot of scientific effort to debunk these places you're just sucking the fun out of a tourist attraction a lot of people enjoy," Kirby said.

There's a bit of sadness at losing these old standbys of tourism. In the days before mega theme parks and massive tourist destinations where you get herded like cattle and stand in long lines waiting for your three minute ride of pre-programmed fun, these small attractions were things you remembered. Vacations, trips meant stopping at several of these as you drove along the highways. I can still remember The old North Pole, New York, which is still open these days under new ownership. It was the first "theme park" and was studied by Disney to develop the monster parks of today. But the old Frontier Town is dead and gone now, a victim of the demise of the drift away from the Western movie and TV shows of the '50s and '60s. But then, one can find anything on the internet these days, can't one?

Jules Crittenden has a good post up about what he sees as a shift Westward in the war by islamists. He's projecting attacks in Europe based on intelligence that has reached the British.

The war with extremist Islam has just entered a new phase. Times of London: Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan and Iraq have issued orders for British cells to conduct a “low-tech” campaign of abductions and beheadings.

ISLAMIC terror cells in Britain have been instructed to carry out a series of kidnappings and beheadings of the kind allegedly planned by the nine terrorist suspects arrested in Birmingham last week.

The “strategic” assassination instruction was issued by Al-Qaeda’s leaders in Pakistan and Iraq to dozens of their followers in this country. It was uncovered by MI5 last autumn, senior security sources say.

… The revelation explains the recent deployment of a permanent SAS unit to London. The unit has been placed on 24-hour standby to respond to a terrorist attack in the capital. It would aim to carry out a hostage rescue mission within minutes of being alerted.

… One well placed source said: “Cells in the UK have been alerted to carry out this type of attack as opposed to the more sophisticated type of bombing in which you place a large number of volunteers at risk. All you need for a beheading is a bit of courage and a sharp knife.” 

In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, I was puzzled by the lack of follow-on. I asked the terrorism and security experts I was talking to at that time why al-Qaeda didn’t do the logical thing.  Activate the domestic cells for a series of synchronized low-intensity suicidal attacks with guns or bombs.  A dozen people killed by Islamic gunmen in each of a dozen US cities at the exactly same time on a Tuesday morning rush hour, or in the malls on a Saturday afternoon, would bring the United States to a screeching halt.  (And no, I’m not giving them ideas. This kind of thing is (A) obvious and (B) has been discussed quite a bit.)  We knew the cells existed.  Two al-Qaeda operatives picked up in Jordan had been Boston cabbies just a couple of years earlier.

The experts pointed out that no … quite rightly to date … al-Qaeda was fixated on dramatic large-scale attacks.  Planes falling out of the sky.  International landmarks exploding.  They don’t like the pennyante nature of small-scale attacks of a sort considered part of the normal fabric of life in their own neighborhoods.  Because the audience wasn’t us. The audience was the Islamic world. 

All of that has changed now and al Qaeda is not able to conduct its dramatic, high profile attacks with any success. But they can play to the Muslim audiences in Europe.

One of the reasons I have strongly supported the war on terror is actually exactly the opposite of what I am regularly accused of around here by the lefties who drop by to screech now and then. I have supported it because the next attack, or series of attacks, in the US will actually bring cries for more and tougher actions against the terrorists and real - as opposed to dreamed-up - threats against civil liberties. Jeff Goldstein, riffing off Crittenden, sees Europe going right down that path if the attacks begin happening.

What will be soon evident, I think, is a stunning philosophical inversion come spectacularly to light:  as Europeans who once denounced the US for forcefully prosecuting the war against Islamists begin to recognize that their social liberalism and western guilt won’t protect them from encroaching fascism gilded and reinforced with religious pretense, and so as a result begin calling on their governments to fight back in ways that the US Constitution would likely forbid, the US, for its part, always the continental wannabe, is only now coming around to that original European position—helped out by endless partisan criticisms against the campaign, by a cultural weariness toward war, by an academic establishment steeped in transnational leftism with a desire to see the US “humbled”, and by media opportunism (or bias, take your pick) that has, by force of will, almost completely sapped us of our willingness to fight Islamism proactively.

That, I think is the real danger. We will be in full reactive mode soon unless things change. If that happens, if we lose the initiative, then this whole ruckus about global warming will be completely meaningless. Because the much-vaunted "nuclear winter" that was the last big eviro-scare will be upon us in short order.

Well, not really ruined, I guess. But it is a bit disconcerting to spend a good part of the day with the family at a museum, laughing and joking on the car ride and having a pretty good day. Then returning to find Kos (Kevin O'Meara) has gone off on our military. The mask is fully off.

Now, I'll simply let Lightning from OPFOR beat hell out of Kos' (O'Meara's) complete lack of understanding of civics.

The other thing that amuses me is the fact that some would praise Ehren Watada for "practicing First Amendment freedoms of speech, press and conscience" on the one hand, yet condemn servicemen who voice frustration with the media and public on the other. So, you want it both ways?

Let's get a few things straight. I swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and to obey the orders of the President and the officers appointed over me. At no time did I swear to do the bidding of the American citizenry, as one of the writers on Daily Kos would have us believe. No, I am obligated to obey your elected representatives. It's called a constitutional republic, ladies and gents. Go back and retake 9th grade civics, please.

You want my First Amendment rights abrogated when I try to counter the anti-war bias that I see creeping into news reports, but you'll proudly champion my rights if I choose to speak out against a war that was initiated by the duly elected President of the United States, with the support of your elected representatives in Congress? Tell me, who is really out to limit my rights? The U.S. government, who says that a Marine officer can not openly criticize elected officials, or the Daily Kos, who says that all servicemen should not be allowed to criticize the American public at all?

But thanks for showing the world what's under the rock, Kos (O'Meara). You pretty much just lost the middle. In the twisted logic of the left, we must always listen to revolting generals like Wesley Clark, but never any of the troops who might disagree with you. We must honor first amendment rights for dishonorable and dishonored people like Watada but must silence those who ask for support.

But, hey, go try to order "your" military around, Kos (O'Meara). It'll be fun to watch that little exercise.

UPDATE: Clarified that Kevin O'Meara was the poster, not Kos himself.

One university in Virginia has sent an email to students asking them to refrain from feeding the squirrels. People will start talking if too many coeds are eaten. The Animal Uprising™ has to feed its troops somehow.

LYNCHBURG, Va. - Audrey Hudgins never saw it coming, but then, who would have?

Hudgins, a sophomore from Durham, N.C., was sitting on a bench outside the campus' Main Hall on Tuesday when a squirrel crawled up her leg and sat in her lap.

"They come close to you, they're really friendly, but they don't climb on you," Hudgins said Wednesday.

To Hudgins' surprise, the squirrel - described as an infamous chowhound named Toby - snatched a piece of the strawberry Nutri-Grain bar she was holding.

"I said to myself, That doesn't happen every day.' "

But when Toby went back for a second bite it locked on, and bit through Hudgins' right thumbnail.

At that point, the communications major said she tried to unlatch the squirrel by beating it against the bench.

"What else do you do in that situation?" she asked. "There's no stop, drop and roll."

Hudgins is now undergoing a series of rabies shots, since the squirrel escaped and was not tested. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard strongly recommend keeping a bat (baseball variety, not winged mouse) close at hand. It can be handy when squirrels attack. Although beating it against the park bench was a nice touch, too.

Additional story coverage here.

Henry Porter has a real must read column up in the Observer. He takes a look at the tolerance of intolerance in Britain. His judgment of it is harsh, indeed.

Imagine the Archbishop of Canterbury or any senior Anglican clergyman giving a sermon which suggested that homosexual men should be thrown off a mountain; that they were no better than filthy dogs. Imagine another priest rising in another church to preach that children should be hit for not praying, that women were deficient, should walk behind men and only go out with their man's permission. Consider what the reaction would be if a third joined in by saying all Jews were born liars.

The media would be trembling with indignation for weeks. Questions would be asked in the House and the archbishop called to account for the state of his church. There would be demonstrations, commissions of inquiry and Baron St John of Fawsley would be summoned from retirement.

But when these statements are made in British mosques and recorded by a secret camera for a Channel 4 Dispatches programme, it seems nobody takes much notice. This might have been because Undercover Mosque was broadcast three weeks ago, as the nation was obsessed with Jade Goody's behaviour on Big Brother. While Goody has the power to cause an international incident, it seems that weekly attacks on women, gays and Jews raise little interest.

I suspect the lack of outrage has a lot to do with the degree of separate development that has taken place in Britain while so many of us were living the multiculturalist dream. Whatever Muslims say, the standards that most British institutions live by simply do not apply to the missionaries of Saudi fundamentalism who, as demonstrated beyond doubt by this documentary, are attempting to poison relations between Muslims, Christians and Jews in Britain and to establish what amounts to a separate community under Sharia law.

Porter points out the unhinged conspiracy theories that dominate among younger Muslim males in Britain. Terror arrests are seen as a plot against Muslims. Bombings by islamists, more plots. The list goes on and on. But there are also hopeful signs with some people in the Muslim community standing up against the islamist extremists.

There is a twisted set of double standards in place that allows the extremists a free hand to spout venomous hatred with impunity. The West cannot simply continue to allow that double standard to exist in the name of multiculturalism.