An Immoral Abandonment

Even some members of the major media are beginning to question what the rush to exit Iraq will mean. Jake Tapper of ABC News tried to get Harry Reid to answer what should be a simple question: what about the Iraqis?

I tried to get an answer to what I blogged earlier today.

I did not succeed.

TAPPER: Senator Reid, what do you say to critics who say, "Look, the Senate voted, including two of you up on the stage, to authorize the president to use force in Iraq. Is there not a moral obligation of the United States to make sure that the Iraqi people are safe before the U.S. withdraws"? It's very clear that withdrawing U.S. troops might make U.S. troops safer, but it won't necessarily make the Iraqi people safer.

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID, D-NEV: As reported in the news this morning, 69 percent of Iraqis feel they are less safe because of the presence of Americans; 21 percent of the Iraqi people feel they're safer. That's pretty clear that American troops who are over there protecting the Shias, the Sunnis and the Kurds — they're not welcome. That's the reason that they're doing a good job of protecting the Shias, Kurds and Sunnis, but they are all trying to kill our soldiers. That is a recipe to bring our troops home. And that's why the Levin-Reed amendment is so critically important. …It transitions the mission within 120 days, and by the first day of May of next year, our troops will be out of there, our combat troops will be out of there. They will be left to do counterterrorism, training the Iraqis — continuing to train the Iraqis and protecting our resources. That's what the Iraqi people want and that's what American people want.

TAPPER: I'm sorry, if I could just follow up very quickly…Do you think the Iraqi people will be safer with U.S. troops out?

Tapper never got an answer. Reid is playing a very, very short-sighted political game here. He can score points with his friends on the left and relegate Iraqis to a genocide. What the current posturing by Reid is ignoring is the human cost. It is also ignoring a flat fact: Whoever wins the White House in 2008 will have to deal with the wreckage Reid and Pelosi will leave behind with their bitter partisanship. If it is Hillary Clinton, she will be left to deal with the ruin of the Middle East and the huge destruction to America's national interest.

The very loud left can preen about how all the blame will be on the backs of George Bush and anyone who supports the war. But they will find out - the hard way - that the world does not agree. Because this will not be a Republican defeat - it will be an American defeat. And the world will blame America - not the parties, no matter how well-meaning. And whoever sits in the Oval Office will get to deal with that. The posturing of the Democrats on this will come back to haunt them, regardless of who is President.

But thank you, very sincerely, Jake Tapper. At least you tried to get Reid to face the facts of the blood that will be all over his hands - and the hands of every, single screeching member of the left. Every, single death in the genocide that will follow a withdrawal will be on the hands of those who forced that action. And America, not just the Republicans, will pay dearly this time.

“On The Whole, I’d Rather Be In Philadelphia”

That is, of course, a rather famous quote attributed to WC Fields. It would certainly be an appropriate thing for prospective buyers of this house in Rhode Island to say. Really, the renovations the place needs are all within the norms for real estate - especially for "fixer-uppers". But the neighbors leave a bit to be desired.

Vultures are lousy neighbors.

HOPKINTON, R.I. - The house is for sale well below its assessed value, has four bedrooms and sits on more than a half acre of land. It's also got lots of vultures, and that's made it a tough sell.

The trees around the Hopkinton house are a year-round nesting ground for turkey and black vultures. The previous owners blamed the birds for polluting their well, scaring their children and causing various illnesses.

But real estate agent Patrick Murray said he's optimistic it could make a good home for the right buyer. It's listed at $189,900, below the assessed value of $222,800, and Murray is pitching it as a place that could "make an excellent bird-watching bed-and-breakfast establishment."

It is quite obvious what is happening here. The buzzards have designated this place as a potential "not-fast-enough food" restaurant. As in, if you stand still, they'll pounce. This can be a bit disconcerting for prospective owners of the establishment in question. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard do not think this is related to the Animal Uprising™. After all, even animals have certain standards. We will note - and we swear this is true - that there is a large flock of vultures in our area that make it a habit of circling a specific location in the town. It is the local nursing home. (Actually, we really wish we were making that one up.)

(Side note: A real yeoman's work in collecting quotes from WC Fields can be found here. Kevin Rayburn has spent far too much time sifting through a lot of material to glean all this out. We are eternally grateful.)

Elephants Invade Canada

A typical evening at the 911 call center in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada:

"Hi, um, we've found an elephant walking down the street," the unidentified man says in a recording of an emergency call to police, repeating it twice to a seemingly bewildered policeman.

"How big are we talking about?" the officer responds.

"A full grown elephant," he shouts. "It's following one of my friends."

And some doubters still question the Animal Uprising™. Pachyderm stalkers on the streets of a quiet Canadian city, undoubtedly looking for trouble, and there are still those who think we are making this stuff up.

OTTAWA (AFP) - It was no dream. Two elephants seen roaming the streets of a sleepy town in central Canada in the wee hours of the morning had actually escaped from a traveling circus, police said Thursday.

The massive pachyderms, named Bunny and Suzy, had escaped from Garden Bros. Circus at about 3 a.m. in Newmarket, near Toronto, when an electric fence around their pen was inadvertently disabled.

Police said the elephants took a "stroll" around town and "snacked on several nearby trees," but did not cause any injuries or property damage.

An astonished resident awakened by their stomping and chewing before dawn notified police, who helped steer the animals back to their pen.

"Inadvertently disabled" indeed. The pair of ponderous, predatory pachyderms were obviously released by accomplices - we'd keep a close eye on the monkeys, they're good with electrical devices. Well aside from that misfortune Curious George had with the fuse box. But we digress. We would just like to point out that Newmarket is not far from Toronto and Yonge Street. Where the pair would not have even raised an eyebrow. They could have carried out their insidious plans with impunity. (Those who have been to Yonge Street, especially near the Eaton Centre, know we speak the truth here.)

Diane Sawyer Sort Of Gets A Clue

Well, not really, she just thought it was "hurtful". But she related a story on Good Morning America that actually says rather a lot about the smarts of the average American - and the utter cluelessness of the American media. Many members of the media absolutely believe their own propaganda that it is truthful and fair in its reporting. Americans know better.

Thursday’s edition of "Good Morning America" featured a Diane Sawyer anecdote that revealed the low opinion Americans have of journalists. After wrapping up a segment on people who avoid jury duty, the ABC co-host recounted the "hurtful" experience she had in a courtroom:

Diane Sawyer: "You know, I wanted to sit on a jury once and I was taken off the jury. And the judge said to me, 'Can, you know, can you tell the truth and be fair?' And I said, 'That's what journalists do.' And everybody in the courtroom laughed. It was the most hurtful moment I think I've ever had."

So, as a note to anyone wanting off jury duty - admitting you report the news will instantly get you bumped for bias.

No More Use

It seems that Cindy Sheehan is no longer of any use to the Koz Kidz. It seems her threat to run against Nancy Pelosi has turned the Kidz against her. Harshly. So much for absolute moral authority.

Cindy Sheehan’s decision to run against Nancy Pelosi has fractured her base of moonbat support. She’s been kicked out of the Daily Kos, because she doesn’t meet their Democrat test of purity any more, and now the Kidz are posting rueful farewells to their former icon of absolute moral authority: Daily Kos: Cindy Has Changed, Not Us.

Unfortunately the power of your message declined the more you saw yourself as a leader of a larger political movement.  

And this is capped off by the incredibly condescending statement today:

Please understand that I am doing it for your children and grandchildren (and my surviving ones).

In other words, our analysis isn’t valued (not really sure why you asked for our feedback in the beginning then). Many of us believe that you are both unqualified to be a Congressperson and your strategy of challenging Pelosi is unwise politically.  But according to you, we simply don’t understand that you’re doing it for “our children.”  

If you think the right was hard on Sheehan, just wait until the left gets up to speed. This woman will be a complete pariah. And for someone with a pathological need for attention, that is not going to go well for her. Cindy Sheehan made the mistake of believing the left believed in her. But she was just being useful to them. She isn't any longer. It will be a hard dose of reality for Sheehan.

Prickly Problem

What do you do when heavily armed terrorists infiltrate your facility and begin eating your garden hoses? Simple, you bait traps with potatoes and chocolate milk and round them up. No, really.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A new type of intruder has been needling authorities at Israel's top secret nuclear research center — one of the four-legged variety.

Israeli Parks Authority spokeswoman Osnat Eitan confirmed a newspaper report that park rangers had been sent to the facility at Dimona, believed by experts to be used to produce atomic weapons, to catch dozens of porcupines that have been chewing through saplings and garden hoses.

Using potatoes and chocolate milk as bait, the prickly animals were being trapped and moved elsewhere, Eitan said.

Israeli authorities will not acknowledge anything about the Dimona facility aside from allowing that the cafeteria serves a mean Reuben sandwich on Wednesdays. But the porcupine infiltration unit of the Animal Uprising™ is obviously up to no good. We suspect that if we see thirty foot tall porcupines in the near future that they managed to get in.

Nobel Prize Winning Hypocrite

Betty Williams, Nobel Peace Prize winner and serial death threat issuer, is a complete disgrace to the award she won. Even more so than Jimmy Crater, I think. Because she is so openly and creepily hypocritical. She would love to kill George Bush with a nice, non-violent murder.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Betty Williams came from Ireland to Texas to declare that President Bush should be impeached.

In a keynote speech at the International Women's Peace Conference on Wednesday night, Ms. Williams told a crowd of about 1,000 that the Bush administration has been treacherous and wrong and acted unconstitutionally.

"Right now, I could kill George Bush," she said at the Adam's Mark Hotel and Conference Center in Dallas. "No, I don't mean that. How could you nonviolently kill somebody? I would love to be able to do that."

About half the crowd gave her a standing ovation after she called for Mr. Bush's removal from power.

"The Muslim world right now is suffering beyond belief," she said.

"Unless the president of the United States is held responsible for what he's doing and what he has done, there's no one in the Muslim world who will forgive him."

This time she wasn't lecturing school kids about murdering the president at least. Have fun explaining your multiple threats against the President of the United States to the Secret Service, Betty.

Excuses

The Opinion Journal editorial today calls the sudden genuflection by politicians to "benchmarks" in Iraq nothing more than a smokescreen. They point out that both the current ambassador to Iraq and the commander of the forces there are asking for more time and less reliance on bogus benchmarks.

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador in Iraq, is a 36-year career diplomat who has served under seven administrations in Iran, Syria, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Pakistan. He's no partisan gunslinger. So it's worth listening to his views as Congressional Democrats and a growing number of Republicans press for a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq on the excuse that the Iraqi government hasn't met a set of political "benchmarks."

"The longer I'm here, the more I'm persuaded that Iraq cannot be analyzed by these kinds of discrete benchmarks," Mr. Crocker told the New York Times's John Burns in an interview on Saturday, referring to pending Iraqi legislation on an oil-sharing agreement and a relaxation of de-Baathification laws. "You could not achieve any of them, and still have a situation where arguably the country is moving in the right direction. And conversely, I think you could achieve them all and still not be heading towards stability, security and overall success in Iraq."……

…….General Petraeus also noted that "the level of sectarian deaths in Baghdad in June was the lowest in about a year," evidence that in this key battlefield the surge is making progress. As a result, al Qaeda is being forced to pick its targets in more remote areas, as it did last week in the village of Amirli near Kirkuk, where more than 100 civilians were murdered. More U.S. troops and the revolt of Sunni tribal leaders against al Qaeda are the most hopeful indicators in many months that the insurgency can be defeated.

But that isn't going to happen under the timetable now contemplated by Congress. "I can think of few commanders in history who wouldn't have wanted more troops, more time or more unity among their partners," General Petraeus told the Post. "However, if I could only have one at this point in Iraq, it would be more time."

A withdrawal will bring about a genocide. The entire Middle East will be in serious danger of a general war. Just this morning the Daily Mail ran a series of pictures of what general war looks like. Politicians need to face up to what will happen - both to Iraq and to this nation - not use benchmarks as a smokescreen.

Updating The Biblical Plagues

Plagues of locusts are so yesterday. In these modern times we have modern plagues. Like caterpillars. Billions and billions of caterpillars. A few of the critters can eat as much grass in a day as a cow.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - It has all the makings of a potential rangeland disaster: thousands of acres of grass and the herds of cattle, antelope and other animals that need to eat it versus an emerging army of spiky caterpillars with voracious appetites. But ranchers hope quick action will take care of the caterpillars — also known as range worms — before they can destroy pastures in northeastern New Mexico.

Some ranchers are trying to keep the caterpillars at bay using crop-dusters, pickup trucks outfitted with foggers and an insecticide called permethrin.

They've already sprayed 108,000 acres and have at least 40,000 acres to go, Union County extension agent David Graham said Tuesday.

"We're trying to knock them back," he said as he prepared for another day of spraying.

While ranchers in northeastern New Mexico regularly live with range caterpillars, Graham said the latest invasion was "the worst case we've had in 10 years."

Entomologists say recent moisture and the resulting green pastures could help this year's caterpillar population, but ranchers' efforts and natural predators could keep them in check.

(I just searched a number of media outlets in New Mexico hoping to find some video or photographs. Every one I checked is carrying the AP story with no local coverage at all. And they are right there. If you needed any proof of media laziness, there it is.) Where I live we are having some problems with tent caterpillars. Talk about voracious. Those suckers will strip a branch of leaves literally while you watch.

When ‘Shrooms Attack

Mexico, home of the giant mushroom. A mushroom weighing more than 40 pounds was recently discovered in Southern Mexico. This thing is ginormous.

This mushroom, which weighs more than 40lb, was discovered in a forest in southern Mexico.

The specimen, macrocybe titans, is more than two feet tall. It was found near Tapachula in Chiapas state, according to the Southern Border University Centre.

Officials said they did not yet know what researchers planned to do with it.

In comparison, here is a picture of a "normal" specimen of macrocybe titans. Normal being a relative term. While the researchers are mum on what they have planned for the giant fungus, there are rumors that a hunt is on for Babe the blue ox.

Well, any creature raised in Paul Bunyan's camp tended to grow to massive proportions, and Babe was no exception. Folks that stared at him for five minutes could see him growing right before their eyes. He grew so big that 42 axe handles plus a plug of tobacco could fit between his eyes and it took a murder of crows a whole day to fly from one horn to the other. The laundryman used his horns to hang up all the camp laundry, which would dry lickety-split because of all the wind blowing around at that height.

All of which is completely true of course. After all, this is the internet. Incidentally, ginormous is now an officially official word.

DICTIONARY: Merriam-Webster adds one of our favorite words — ginormous — to its fall edition. Fun trivia: The word appeared in a British dictionary of military slang in 1948.

BBC Admits Fraudulent Controversy

The BBC creatively edited a sequence of video clips to give the impression - widely reported yesterday - that Queen Elizabeth had "stormed" out of a photo shoot with Annie Leibowitz. The trailer showed a confrontation, then the Queen apparently stalking out.

Only the clips were reversed - the "stalking" part was shot as the queen walked to the shoot in the first place. The BBC admitted its fraud.

 A trailer released yesterday for the forthcoming BBC1 documentary series A Year With The Queen gave the impression that the monarch had abruptly halted the photoshoot when Leibowitz asked her to remove her crown.

Scenes of the pair clashing over the request were followed by footage of the Queen walking down a corridor and telling her lady-in-waiting: "I'm not changing anything. I've had enough dressing like this, thank you very much."

But the footage was actually filmed as the Queen made her way to the sitting.

The BBC said: "In this trailer there is a sequence that implies that the Queen left a sitting prematurely. This was not the case and the actual sequence of events was mis-represented.

"The BBC would like to apologise to both the Queen and Annie Leibowitz for any upset this may have caused."

Reversing the clips to manufacture a controversy is a page straight out of the Michael Moore handbook of fauxtography. This is really not a minor thing. That the BBC would send out something so easily proven to be false says rather more about their editorial standards than they realize.

Passchendaele

The Daily Mail has a series of hand-tinted photographs taken at the battle of Passchendaele, more commonly called the Third Battle of Ypres. On July 31, 1917, Allied soldiers pushed into a rain-sodden no man's land. By the time the battle ended in November, the Allies had advanced about five miles from their start point. One quarter of a million Allied soldiers died, averaging a staggering 2,121 each day.

One of the major conflicts of World War I, it was conceived by British Commander-in-Chief Sir Douglas Haig as a "big push" that would, finally, bring a breakthrough in the stalemate in Flanders.

Officially named the Third Battle of Ypres, the hope was that by breaking through German lines at this point on the Western Front, the Allies could reach the Belgian coast and capture the German submarine bases there.

The Allies prepared the way with a massive two-week bombardment in which 3,000 heavy guns sent more than four million shells pouring into the German lines.

Then, on July 31, the troops poured into a No Man's Land that within days and under torrential rain had become a sodden bog.

It became so deep that men, horses and pack mules drowned in it. What was supposed to be a breakthrough became a battle of attrition.

The total number of dead in the battle reached almost 500,000.