America’s Marines

As I have posted several times, I come from a family that has a long history of serving this nation in the United States Army. This ad might have changed some of my ancestor's choice of branch of service. It is a fabulous ad.

H/T to Michelle Malkin, who also describes the asinine refusal of the City of San Francisco to allow filming of the ad there. Apparently the Marines simply chose to shoot on land owned by the Federal government - and administered by the commandant of the Marines. Better that way, really. The end shots are magnificent.

(Side note: This history, this legacy, is what Jay Grodner was up against in court. This is also why Grodner should take exquisite care to fulfill every, single thing he agreed to in his plea bargain.)

Another LA Times Editor Fired

Los Angeles Times editor James O'Shea has been fired after refusing to cut $4 million from the budget for the newsroom budget. He follows former editor Dean Baquet who resigned in 2006 after also refusing to cut the budget.

LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles Times fired its top editor after he rejected a management order to cut $4 million from the newsroom budget, 14 months after his predecessor was also ousted in a budget dispute, the newspaper said Sunday.
 
James O'Shea was fired following a confrontation with Publisher David D. Hiller, the Times reported on its Web site. The story didn't say when the confrontation took place.

Times spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan said the newspaper would have no comment.

O'Shea's departure comes just a month after the Times' parent, Chicago-based Tribune Co., was taken private in an $8.2 billion buyout by real estate magnate Sam Zell.

The departure also follows that of his predecessor, Dean Baquet, who was forced to resign after he opposed further cuts to the newsroom budget in 2006.

O'Shea, then the Chicago Tribune's managing editor, was brought in to replace him.

At the time, he asked the news staff not to see him as "the hatchet man from Chicago" and promised to fight to ensure the Times would "remain a major force in American journalism."

"If I think there is too much staff I will say so," O'Shea told the paper's editors and reporters in 2006. "And if I think there is not enough I will say that, too."

O'Shea is the third Times editor to leave the newspaper since 2005, all of them departing in disputes with management over how much to cut the news budget.

I know there will be much mourning of the agonies in the MSM by the readership here at the Crabitat. I'll just point out that I personally thought the LA Times has been doing a bit better since Baquet left.  Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but a bit better. I actually linked them on several occasions - and not to bash them.

Bobby’s Corner: A New Milestone!

Hey fellow socialists! It's me, your adored hero, Bobby Mugabe again. Yeah, I know it's been a while. But things get so busy sometimes running an anti-imperialist, new world order worker's paradise, its hard to take the time to send you all an update. But today, I made time to let you know about a significant milestone we have reached here. I have also set a new goal for my little socialist paradise that I think you'll all find exciting!

We have just issued the new, handy $10,000,000 bank note! Yes, I told you that everyone in Zimbabwe was now a millionaire, but this new note cuts down on the luggage space required to purchase something to eat. Like the other new milestone: the $15 million hamburger!

Forget the glitzy restaurants of New York and London: only in Zimbabwe would a hamburger actually cost millions of dollars.

The central bank of the southern African country has a issued a 10million Zimbabwe dollar note. The move increases the denomination of the nation's highest bank note more than tenfold.

Even so, a hamburger in an ordinary cafe in Zimbabwe costs 15 million Zimbabwe dollars.

The hope is that such a move will help end chronic cash shortages and disperse long, chaotic lines at banks and automated teller machines.

Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono said in a statement the 10 million Zimbabwe dollars notes will be issued along with 1 million and 5 million Zimbabwe dollars bills.

Previously, the highest existing note, introduced last month, was for 750,000 Zimbabwe dollars.

The new 10 million note is the equivalent of about £2 at the dominant black market exchange rate. A hamburger at an ordinary cafe costs about 15 million Zimbabwe dollars (£3).

That hamburger has trebled in price this month amid shortages of bread, meat and most basic goods.

Is this not wonderful news? Look at the progress we are making here! But as proud as I am about the wonderful changes I have brought about here, I will not rest until my new goal is realized. Remember that American hamburger chain that used to count how many hamburgers it had sold? They used to brag up "15 million served" and "100 million served" and so on. Well, they stopped counting those years ago and now say "billions and billions served." That gave me my new goal. I am directing every restaurant in the country to post a sign: "Billions and billions to BE served!"

God, I just love my ideas. I know you all do, too. Ta ta for now, kids. Fidel wants to play internet backgammon and he's on a losing streak. Maybe I can win the price of a burger off him.

Progressively yours,

Bobby Mugabe

Phony Tough Guy Meets Real Thing

In fact, Jay Grodner, Chicago divorce lawyer and legend in his own mind, met a whole room full of the real things. Grodner vandalized a Marine's personal car, simply because the car had a marine insignia. When he went to court to plea in the case, the Marine who's car was vandalized, Sgt. Michael McNulty, could not be there since he is preparing for a deployment to Iraq. So some other people showed up instead. The courtroom was packed with Marines. The judge in the case served in the Marines. The prosecutor in the case served in the Marines.

Jay Grodner, the Chicago lawyer who keyed a Marine's car in anger because the car had military plates and a Marine insignia, finally got his day in court last week.

Grodner pleaded guilty in a Chicago courtroom packed with former Marines. Some had Marine pins on their coats, or baseball jackets with the Marine insignia. They didn't yell or call him names. They came to support Marine Sgt. Michael McNulty, whose car Grodner defaced in December, but who couldn't attend because he's preparing for his second tour in Iraq.

Grodner was late to court for the second time in the case. Grodner called Assistant State's Attorney Patrick Kelly, (Marine Corps/Vietnam 1969-1972), informing Kelly that he would be late to court.

"He wanted to avoid the media," Kelly said Friday. "So he's coming a half hour late."

"I don't run my courtroom that way!" responded Judge William O'Malley, ordering Grodner be arrested and held on $20,000 bail when he arrived. Finally, Grodner strolled in. A short man, wide, wearing a black fedora, dark glasses, a divorce lawyer dressed like some tough guy in the movies.

Grodner told me he'd describe himself as a "radical liberal" who's ready to leave Chicago now with all this negative publicity and move to the south of France and do some traveling.

Judge O'Malley has also traveled, but in his youth. He was a police officer on the West Side during the riots before law school. And before that, he performed another public service. Judge O'Malley served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1961-1964.

During the proceedings, the judge described the offense as anger rose in his voice, especially as Grodner started balking on a plea arrangement he'd made with prosecutors.

"Is this what you did? Yes or no," Judge O'Malley asked Grodner.

"Without knowing, yes," Grodner said, sticking to his I-might-have-done-it-but-didn't-really-mean-it defense.

O'Malley asked again, in a stronger voice, not that of a judge but of a cop on the street or a Marine who meant business.

"DID YOU KNOWINGLY CAUSE DAMAGE TO THIS CAR?" O'Malley asked.

Grodner bowed his head, meekly, and responded in an equally meek voice:

"Yes," he said.

The judge promised Grodner a year in jail if he fails to meet all of the conditions of the plea agreement. I have no doubt whatsoever that Judge O'Malley will carry through with that promise exactly. Grodner should also be aware that real tough guys do not threaten.

They state fact.

More from Robbie at Urban Grounds, Blackfive and Wizbang.

A Hero Passes

Bertram "Jimmy" James, one of the 76 men who escaped from Stalag Luft III in what is now known as The Great Escape has died. 50 of the men who escaped with him were executed by order of Adolph Hitler after being recaptured. James was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp instead - where he promptly escaped yet again.

The British officer's adventures in Germany began in May 1940 when his Wellington bomber was shot down over the Netherlands, which had recently been overrun by the Nazis.

The military historian Howard Tuck, a close friend of the veteran, said that James had dug the first RAF escape tunnel of the war, at Stalag Luft I, in Bart, in 1941.

"He was the country's greatest living war hero. He had a truly remarkable life," said Mr Tuck. "This guy was truly unique and he was the finest gentleman anyone could ever meet. To me, he represented not only an era, but a type of Englishman you rarely meet. He was honest and funny, and I used to talk to him like he was 25."

When James was sent to Stalag Luft III, he immediately joined the group of Allied officers planning what eventually came to be known as the Great Escape.

More than 100 men were involved in digging the 365ft tunnel, codenamed "Harry". James was in charge of a team dispersing the excavated soil.

In total, 200 camp inmates were selected to make the attempt, with 76 escaping before a sentry discovered the mouth of the tunnel.

James had been allocated place number 39 and joined a group of 12 men who posed as foreign workers going home on leave. They had planned to head for Czechoslovakia, where they hoped to make contact with the local resistance, but were arrested while attempting to change trains.

At first, Hitler ordered that all those recaptured be shot but, allegedly due to pressure from Hermann Goering, who feared reprisals against Luftwaffe prisoners, the order was changed to "more than half to be shot". Of the 76 who escaped, three - a Dutchman and two Norwegians - reached freedom; the rest were recaptured. Fifty were executed, 15 returned to Stalag Luft III and eight, James among them, sent to Sachsenhausen.

But he remained undeterred. Using a table knife, he soon tunnelled his way out again, but was caught 14 days later. He was awarded the Military Cross and mentioned in dispatches for his escape attempts.

Paul Brickhill's wonderful book about the escape was one of my favorites when I was growing up. The movie is a real classic, although it was highly fictionalized and many characters were actually composites of several people. This website has a section comparing the real escape with the movie. (The movie actually fares quite well, possibly because the screenplay was written by James Clavell, who was himself a prisoner of war in the Pacific.) 

Rest in peace, Jimmy.

Getting It Wrong

You know, the media gets things wrong so often, it really is quite impossible to keep count. I've noted before that if you read a media report on some subject where you personally have some degree of expertise, you will find inaccuracies. Sometimes they will be stunningly stupid mistakes that will leave you shaking your head. Unfortunately, many people (though this appears to be changing) will then go right ahead reading the news and reacting to a story on which they have little personal knowledge as if it were completely true. Frankly, if they get it wrong on a subject you know, why in the world do you automatically assume they got it right on something else?

Today, the Associated Press graces us with a report on nuclear waste that, frankly, gets it stunningly wrong.

BEAUMONT-HAGUE, France - Thousands of canisters of highly radioactive waste from the world's most nuclear-energized nation lie, silent and deadly, beneath this jutting tip of Normandy. Above ground, cows graze and Atlantic waves crash into heather-covered hills.
 
The spent fuel, vitrified into blocks of black glass that will remain dangerous for thousands of years, is in "interim storage." Like nearly all the world's nuclear waste, it is still waiting for the long-term disposal solution that has eluded scientists and governments in the six decades since the atomic era began…….

……Now the "pros" are on a new mission to dispel a generation of scares and suspicion, saying nuclear power is less dangerous to humans and the Earth than burning oil or coal. The "antis" say nuclear energy can never offer 100 percent protection from its radioactive ingredients.

The splitting of uranium atoms in a nuclear reactor creates the exceptional heat that drives turbines to provide electricity. The process also creates radioactive isotopes such as cesium-137 and strontium-90 that take about 30 years to lose half their radioactivity. Higher-level leftovers includes plutonium-239, with a half-life of 24,000 years. (Ed Note: Wrong. The heat is not "exceptional" - it is merely heat.)

Direct exposure to such highly radioactive material, even for a short period, can be fatal. Indirect exposure, through seepage into groundwater, can lead to life-threatening illness for those living nearby and environmental damage. (Ed. Note: Wrong. Seepage  into groundwater directly exposes one to what has leaked. That is the object of vitrification. Bound to glass, the waste cannot leach.)

For now, the best scientific solution for getting rid of the most lethal waste is to shove it deep underground……

……Another option is recycling. Countries such as France, Russia and Japan reprocess much nuclear waste into new fuel. That dramatically reduces the volume: Forty years' worth of France's highly radioactive waste is stored under just three floor surfaces, each about the size of a basketball court, at Beaumont-Hague.

Recycling, though, produces plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons — so the United States bans it, fearing proliferation. (Wrong. Carter banned it, Reagan reversed the ban. But it has never restarted in the US due to political pressures - and erroneous reporting.)

And not all waste can be reprocessed. The deadliest bits — such as fuel rod casings and other reactor parts as well as concentrated fuel residue containing plutonium and highly enriched uranium — must be sealed and stored away.

The object of recycling is to reclaim the plutonium and uranium. What is left after that, the fission byproducts and non-reclaimable waste, is what is then vitrified - or melted into glass. The object of binding the residue with glass is that it will not leach into the environment.  Go read this and this and be better informed than the AP. Heck, even the Seattle PI has a better handle on vitrification of waste.

Slip Sliding Away

Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination,
the more you're slip sliding away
(Paul Simon, Slip Sliding Away)

Warnings are being issued all across the south about dangerous road conditions. Ice and snow, accompanied by plunging temperatures (coupled with a lack of equipment to handle that sort of thing in the south) is causing very dangerous conditions in many areas.

ATLANTA - Meteorologists warned the mixture of rain and snow that fell across the South a day earlier could make for icy roads early Sunday, with overnight temperatures in the upper teens and low 20s.
 
On Saturday, snow, rain and sleet spread across parts of the region, dusting lawns and shrubs with flakes and leading airlines to cancel several hundred flights.

"We're really stressing people should, especially in the north metro area, stay off roads as much as possible," said Laura Griffith of the weather service office in Peachtree City outside Atlanta.

The weather service posted freeze watches for Sunday morning in parts of Louisiana, including the New Orleans area. New Orleans put its freeze plan into effect to provide temporary shelter for the homeless for Saturday and Sunday nights.

Enough snow fell in Montgomery, Ala., for children to make snowballs to toss in front of the state Capitol, although the snow melted on contact with pavement.

Eleven-year-old Khryshanna Taylor saw snow for the first time Saturday in Montgomery and was unimpressed. "I have decided that I don't like snow!" she said as she hurried home after a brief attempt at a snowball fight.

Snow also fell as far south as southwestern Mississippi, with totals of as much as 3 inches, although the ground was too warm to allow it to accumulate. It was that area's first snowfall since 2001, the National Weather Service said.

Numerous flight delays are also mentioned in the story. Meanwhile, Accuweather is calling the brutal cold sweeping the Midwest and Northeast "potentially dangerous."

Potentially dangerous cold will have a hold on the northern Plains to the Northeast today, while lake-effect snow falls downwind of the Great Lakes. Meanwhile, a storm that dropped into the Northwest on Saturday will spread snow into the central Plains.

An arctic cold front will pass off the Northeast coast today, drawing the very cold air that has been hovering over the northern Plains behind it. Blustery conditions behind the front will make it feel even colder than actual temperatures from the North Central states to the Northeast.

Realfeel® temperatures will be frigid from the Great Lakes into the Northeast. The coldest air will make it to the interior portions of the Northeast and New England, where it will feel below zero degrees.

Actual temperatures in the northern Plains will be around 0 to 5 degrees. Once again, frigid winds will make it feel even colder. The expected temperature in Chicago for today is 12 degrees. According to the Associated Press, 20 warming centers will be set up across the city this weekend to help people deal with the dangerous cold. In addition, there are 100 homeless shelters scattered around the city. The Salvation Army is opening two more because of the bitter cold.

This is lethal cold, folks. The wind cuts like a knife out there right now - trust me. I just walked the puppy and she set a record for doing her business and running back for the door - and she loves being outside. Well, when it isn't this cold she does.

A Fictional World

Mark Steyn takes his turn at eviscerating the New York Times' dreadful smear job of returning veterans. That series tried to paint returning veterans as time bombs just waiting to kill innocent Americans. Never mind that statistically, the "killing rate" for returning veterans is quite a lot lower than in the general population. Never mind that you are at significantly greater risk of being killed by someone who has never served in any branch of the military. In the completely fictional world the Times operates in, all returning soldiers are defective and to be feared. Steyn wonders who is really in need of psychotherapy.

Obviously, as America's "newspaper of record," the Times would resent any suggestion that it's anti-military. I'm sure if you were one of these crazed military stalker whackjobs following the reporters home you'd find their cars sporting the patriotic bumper sticker "We Support Our Troops, Even After They've Been Convicted." As usual, the Times stories are written in the fey, more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone that's a shoo-in come Pulitzer time:

"Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak."

"Patchwork picture," "quiet phenomenon."… Yes, yes, but exactly how quiet is the phenomenon? How patchy is the picture? The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan either "committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one." The "committed a killing" formulation includes car accidents.

Thus, with declining deaths in the war zones, the media narrative evolves. Old story: "America's soldiers are being cut down by violent irrational insurgents we can never hope to understand." New story: "Americans are being cut down by violent irrational soldiers we can never hope to understand." In the quagmire of these veterans' minds, every leafy Connecticut subdivision is Fallujah and every Dunkin' Donuts clerk an Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

It was the work of minutes for the Powerline Web site's John Hinderaker to discover that the "quiet phenomenon" is entirely unphenomenal: It didn't seem to occur to the Times to check whether the murder rate among recent veterans is higher than that of the general population of young men. It's not.

Au contraire, the columnist Ralph Peters calculated that Iraq and Afghanistan vets are about one-fifth as likely to murder you as the average 18-to-34-year-old American male. Better yet, the blogger Iowahawk meticulously drew his own "patchwork picture" of another "quiet phenomenon": the Denver newspaper columnist arrested for stalking, the Cincinnati TV reporter facing child-molestation charges, the Philadelphia anchorwoman who went on a violent drunken rampage. As Iowahawk's one-man investigative unit wondered:

"Unrelated incidents, or mounting evidence that America's newsrooms have become a breeding ground for murderous, drunk, gun-wielding child molesters?"

I posted about the Ralph Peters piece in Full Metal Straitjacket. This all goes back to the Hollywooden fantasy world that the left draws its version of reality from, which Steyn once called the Full Metal Deer Apocalypse. In that fictional world, all soldiers are mentally defective, killers just waiting for a chance. It's more than just fiction, it is false. 

Funny thing, yesterday my son attended the wedding of one of his fellow Iraq war veterans. Since coming back from his second tour, he hasn't killed anyone. Neither have any of his fellow soldiers. Instead they have found jobs, gotten married, had children, you know, pretty much what everyone else does every day in this country. My son is being groomed to step up into a supervisory job because of his experience, not in spite of it.

It's sad that the Times and so many others in the media cannot see past their Hollywood-inspired fictions and see the real world. They are the losers here. They are the ones in need of treatment.

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll says that another generation may need the services of someone like B.G. Burkett. Cold Fury says "Never Again." Powerline notes a serious derangement at the NYT and in the media in general. Sisu emailed Iowahawk.

Bad Omen

Yesterday, residents of Washington, DC picked potential delegates for the Democratic convention. This was not the actual primary vote, that occurs next month. This was just selecting the prospective delegates themselves. There was a very, very bad omen for Clinton. About 900 people attended the event.

500 of them cast votes for Obama delegates, only 300 for Clinton.

About 900 D.C. Democrats caucused yesterday to decide which delegates would represent them at the Democratic National Convention this summer, depending on who wins next month's presidential primary.

Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) have been locked in a tight race for the Democratic nomination, with Obama winning the Iowa caucuses and Clinton besting him in the New Hampshire and Nevada primaries.

Yesterday, about 500 city residents voted for delegates for Obama, and roughly 300 cast ballots for Clinton delegates. Roughly 50 voted for delegates for former senator John Edwards. The District will send 37 voting delegates and four alternates to the national convention in Denver in August. Yesterday, voters selected the people who stand a chance of getting there, depending on who wins the Feb. 12 D.C. presidential primary. Maryland and Virginia also will hold primaries that day.

Ouch. That is a significant difference - and is also an indication of how the actual primary may go. It is also an indication that Edwards is rapidly losing clout and may not be able to play kingmaker, even though many media types are still saying that he can.

It Depends On What The Word ‘Win’ Means

CNN has the results up from the Nevada Caucuses. All the media is shouting that Clinton "won" in Nevada. I suppose that really hinges on the definition of the word 'win.' Obama did, indeed, walk away with 13 delegates to Clinton's 12 even though Clinton won the raw vote count. Obama also now leads in total committed delegates with 38 to Clinton's 36.

Can you say 'Pyrrhic victory?' I knew that you could.

If Clinton keeps on winning this way, she'll be declaring victory even as Obama is nominated at the convention.

Suzanne Pleshette, 1937 - 2008, RIP

Suzanne Pleshette, who prided herself on being an actress rather than a star, has died. She was 70 years old.

LOS ANGELES — Suzanne Pleshette, the beautiful, husky-voiced film and theater star best known for her role as Bob Newhart's sardonic wife on television's long-running "The Bob Newhart Show," has died, said her attorney Robert Finkelstein. She was 70.

Pleshette, who underwent chemotherapy for lung cancer in 2006, died of respiratory failure Saturday evening at her Los Angeles home, said Finkelstein, who is also a family friend.

"The Bob Newhart Show, a hit throughout its six-year run, starred comedian Newhart as a Chicago psychiatrist surrounded by eccentric patients. Pleshette provided the voice of reason.

I remember her well from that old sitcom. That was back in the day when I still watched television. Rest in peace.

The Dismal Science

Kevin Hassett attempts to debunk five common myths about what a recession is - or is not - in today's Washington Post. It's worth a read even if you already know the facts versus the legends. It might help you explain something more clearly to the truly clueless.

When Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle branded economics the "dismal science" in 1849, he gave it a name that would stick. (Some theorize that he picked on economists since, like most Scots back then, Carlyle had never visited a dentist.) Fortunately for economists, 1849 was a pretty good year. If Carlyle had seen how economists behave during recessions, he probably would have dubbed their subject something far worse.

Economists have the same occupational hazard as baseball managers and football coaches: Every person on the street knows their job better than they do. And if you listened to the economic stimulus package talk last week from the White House and Capitol Hill, not to mention Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, you could be forgiven for thinking that the recession is just around the corner. But the main result of all this chatter is that far too many myths about recessions have made their way into popular culture.

1. We're already in a recession.

The truth is, nobody knows. The responsibility for declaring the stages of the business cycle is informally held by that most dreaded of concepts — a committee of economists. The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) uses a number of economic indicators, including personal income, unemployment, industrial production and sales and manufacturing volume, to determine the health of the economy. It's not true that they declare a recession if economic growth is negative for two quarters in a row. If it were that simple, we wouldn't need a committee.

If you want to know about the state of the economy in real time, you can't rely on the NBER. If the NBER did the D.C. weather forecast, here's how it would work. The bureau would gather precipitation data from every neighborhood, then interview residents to make sure that the data are accurate. After much deliberation, it would tell us whether it had rained last month. Same with recessions: The NBER's pronouncements historically come long after recessions have begun, a whopping seven months on average. By the time the bureau announced the recession of 1991, it had already ended.

Hassett works for the American Enterprise Institute, so he knows a bit about the subject. The thing that bugs me about all the 'stimulus' talk in recent days is explored by Hassett. Frankly, that technique never has worked. It is always too little, too late. Unfortunately, the politicians are utterly intent on passing out lollipops to the people. We're going to get some intervention - that will again prove too little, too late. I wish the politicians would read this piece.