May 18, 2004

Question:

Is it me, or has Michel Moore gotten fatter? The last time i saw him was at the Oscars in 2003. i don't think he looked as humongous back then. What he needs is a personal trainer. A tough one, like at one of those boot camps for fatties, maybe.

i can almost picture it now:

Holy Jesus! What is that? WHAT IS THAT?!

Sir, a jelly doughnut, sir!

A jelly doughnut?!

Sir, yes, sir!

How did it get here?

Sir, I took it from the mess hall, sir!

Is chow allowed in the barracks, Moore?

Sir, no, sir!

Are you allowed to eat jelly doughnuts, Moore?

Sir, no, sir!

And why not?

Sir, because I'm too heavy, sir!

Because you are a DISGUSTING FATBODY, Moore!

Sir, yes, sir!

And i'd love to see Moore trying to run laps, with the personal trainer alongside to motivate him:
Pick 'em up and set 'em down, Moore! Quickly! Move it up!

Were you born a fat slimy scumbag, you piece of shit?! Or did you have to work on it?

Move it up! Quickly! Hustle up!

The fucking war will be over by the time we get up there, won't it, Moore? MOVE IT!

Are you going to fucking die, Moore? Are you going to die on me?! Do you feel dizzy? Do you feel faint? Jesus H. Christ, I think you've got a hard-on!

Yah, boot camp might do him a lot of good, i think.

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May 17, 2004

Sarin Bombshell

Like ants when their anthole has been disturbed, the Bush-haters are running around crazy, not quite sure what to make of this Sarin story. From DU:

Call me crazy but the finding of Sarin gas seems to indicate a spiralling decrease in security. If true it simply proves the point that borders are not secure. WMDs that were not in Iraq before are there now. Note to Bush: Be careful what you wish for.
Nice spin. Why is it so hard to admit the possibility that Bush was right? DU is a laboratory for cognitive dissonance. It ought to be assigned reading in psychology 101 courses.

When it comes to poison gas discoveries, i'm still holding my breath (heh heh). i'll wait and see if any significant stockpile is discovered. You see, unlike the Bush-haters, i had pretty much accepted that my side might have been wrong about WMDs. It's called intellectual honesty.

On the right, guys like Hannity and Medved were always pretty confident that we'd find the stuff. But even John Kerry was hedging his bets, saying last week that the WMDs might still be found. If you asked me, i would have scowled and said that asshole Scott Ritter was probably right. In fact, i said as much over a year ago.

On the right, the counter-argument was always: "If Saddam didn't have WMDs why did he refuse to allow inspections? Why didn't he cooperate fully?"

Two reasons make perfect sense to me. One, Saddam did finally relent. Just before the war started, i seem to remember a report about Saddam's 11th hour offer to allow full, unrestricted inspections, which we refused. If true, i'm not bothered by our refusal in the slightest. He had to go.

The other reason is that Saddam, correctly as it turns out, believed that we were going in no matter what. Knowing that he had an unavoidable fight coming, and that his military was totally unprepared to resist, much less win, he needed the myth of WMD as a force multiplier. If you know you're going to get rolled no matter what, isn't it a good idea to let the other guy think you've got a knife in your back pocket. It might give you that extra second or two you'll need to get the hell out of Dodge.

Another factor i've considered, in my attempt to explain why Saddam acted like he had WMD's while saying that he hadn't, is an often overlooked rationale behind most inexplicable human behavior: simple incompetence. You've seen it at your job countless times, i'm sure. A huge task is given to be completed within an unreasonably short time limit. Everybody scrambles to put it together, but there are inevitable mistakes.

The better the workers, the fewer mistakes, of course. But in the case of Iraq, these people were all short timers, who knew they were going to be out of a job soon. So the 1441 report they had to do contained a lot of errors, things they just didn't have time to check out for consistency. A lot of it might have been cut and paste. They probably didn't proofread it properly. Then when we got the report we interpreted it as being evasive; they had something to hide. When in fact they didn't. They were simply incompetent.

But, now that i've given my reasons for thinking that there were in fact no WMDs, it appears that i may be wrong again. Hopefully, i am wrong and we will uncover a cache of the stuff, if only to get it out of the hands of the enemy.


Update: According to Michele, now the Bush-haters are saying sarin is not a WMD? That's one for the Huh? files!

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May 11, 2004

This Is Not A Religious War Bullshit

This is not a religious war like the Civil War was not about slavery. When the enemy prays to God while slicing off the head of an innocent civilian, you bet your ass it's a religious war. We just don't want to admit it.

The enemy has no problem admitting it.

How many of you realize that when the Ottoman Empire entered WWI on the side of Germany and Austro-Hungary (that's the losing side, for those who slept through history class), they did not do so by "declaring war," like any normal country would. No, the Ottoman Empire entered WWI by declaring "jihad."

It's always a religious war for those fuckheads.

The ultimate goal of the terrorists is religious. It is the establishment of a pan-islamic empire under religious rule according to shari'a law. It is the destruction of all jews. And by destruction, they mean slaughter. It is the forced conversion of Christians and Hindus, etc. to their evil bastardized religion.

They sliced off a guy's head.

They're barbarians. Brute animals. Worse than devil worshippers. At least devil worshippers only kill cats. These fucks kill innocent humans, and blaspheme the name of God while doing it. What awaits these pig-fuckers when they die? Eternal fucking fire, you can count on it. Hotter than a million mutha-fucking suns.

What does it take to slice off the head of another live, conscious human being? An innocent human being. With a knife. What is involved in that procedure? Could you do it? Do you think Private England would be capable of such a thing? Or Specialist Graner? Or General Karpinski even?

i bet even Scott Peterson couldn't do it. Not while the victim was still alive. Not with a knife.

Cutting through a fellow human's neck while they're still alive, with a knife, means slicing down through skin, severing arteries and veins, loosing a torrent of pulsing blood, sawing back and forth through thick muscle and tendon, crunching through the hollow, wheezing, screaming windpipe, hitting bone and disk, sawing again, pushing down, hearing it crunch, pop, putting your weight into it, slicing through the spinal cord, watching the body go limp, gripping the handle tight in all the slippery blood, sliding the blade through the last cords of muscle and tendon, blade striking the floor, watching the head roll forward, now just an inanimate object, though its eyes are open, then raising it, still warm, up to the camera.

Could you do that? Can you imagine the mind of someone who could? i simply can't fathom that kind of evil.

They chanted to Allah while they sliced off an innocent man's head. You can say this is not a religious war. You can say that God, assuming you believe in Him, doesn't take sides in a war. i say bullshit. God will deal with these unholy bastards. They will die someday, as all men must, and they will be shocked when they are finally confronted with His just punishment. His divine retribution. i pray too, that the United States will become the instrument of their death.

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The True Atrocities

The true atrocities are being commited by our enemies, not by us.

berg

But i pray that they will yet know the terrible retribution that awaits them. We must remain strong.

Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
say to those with fearful hearts,
'Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.'

[Isaiah 35:3-4]
Be strong.


Angry Update: What the hell's wrong with you people?! They fucking beheaded one of our guys! They fucking filmed it. i'm looking around the blogosphere and no-one, save Michele (God bless her), has a fucking word to say about it. Instapundit thinks it's only worth a measly line. Where's the Rottweiler? Where's Finch? Where's DuToit? Where's Lucas? i wanna see some rage, something, anything. Is everybody asleep, too shocked to care? The media will let this slip by if they can. i bet it won't be the lead on tonight's news. i bet it won't make tomorrow's front page. It's up to us to publicize this horror, people. Vent the outrage that the vast majority of non-blogging Americans are feeling right now. Just fucking say something!

Update 2: The Rottweiler checks in. Serenity checks in. Moxie checks in. Zomby too. And Reynolds deems it worthy of a few more lines. Sarah groks. So do Peter and Karol. LGF describes the video for those, like me, who can't watch it. Also, go read Will and Stephen at Vodkapundit. Then of course, there's Lileks. Tom draws strength from Churchill. See also Misha's second take, and Paul's take, and especially Banagor's "The Rage."

And many thanks go to my good friends at Candied Ginger for their link. Please read Candace's piece, perhaps the best of the lot on this tragedy.

As always, Wizbang was on top of it right away. But this morning's post disappoints me. Today is not a day for bikinis.

Sadly, the liberal bloggers that i read regularly have all chosen to ignore this atrocity. It's not a matter of left vs. right, Bush vs. not-Bush. Nick Berg was an American. How can anyone ignore his murder? It was intended as a message to all of us. A noteworthy piece at etalkinghead may explain why the only blogs that want to talk about Nick Berg seem to be on the right.

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May 10, 2004

Only Serious Progressives Should Read This

You know me. i'm a staunch Republican. Although i'd never vote for Nader, i can still listen to the man and put myself in the place of someone who opposes Bush, hypothetically speaking. And when i do, i can't see how any principled progressive can say that the man does not make a hell of a lot of sense.

What do we do as red-blooded Americans who want clean politics and progressive, responsive policies . . . ? We sit around engaging in the 'least worst?' [He imitates a voter, holding his nose.] 'I'll go vote for Gore.' Or do we get out there, like Thomas Jefferson counseled, try to change the paradigm, enrich the dialogue, get more candidates, local, state, national.
Democrats gotta be wishing they had Gore right about now. Kerry makes Gore look like Clinton, and everybody knows it. Including Nader, who offers this strategic criticism and advice:
I'm going to say [to Kerry], look, you're not doing that well in the last month. Here's a chickenhawk . . . making you explain your first Purple Heart, and why you did this and that. You've had Dick Clarke . . . and . . . Michael Moore and . . . Bob Woodward putting Bush on the defensive, and you're getting blurred.

The problem is these consultants who have got their hooks into the Kerry campaign. I mean, $27 million for a Madison Avenue image builder? He's not his own person. If there's one thing the mass of voters can see through, that's someone who is not his own person, someone who has more antenna than brains. They really see through that.

And you peaceniks out there? You know where Kerry stands on the war in Iraq. How can you support him? Your man is Nader, he will end it now.
You can take the greatest country in the world into a war quagmire, based on fabrications, deceptions, and lies.... The one thing you don't want to do when you're fighting terrorism is to produce more of it, and he's doing exactly that. He's now turned Iraq into a magnet for stateless terrorists, and we're stuck, because now collective ego is involved.

[People say:] 'We're not going to cut and run. We got to support the troops.' To which I say, I want to to protect the troops, to get them out of there. [emphasis added]

You disgruntled Democrats, instead of talking about how you can dump Kerry gracefully and replace him with another Democrat, why not take this opportunity to really overthrow the tyranny of the two party system? Don't let the old boy network of Democratic party operatives in their smoke filled rooms dictate who you can or can't vote for.

Stop voting defensively, stand up for your principles and for what you really believe. You hate the war? You hate corporate power? You wanna see the environment protected? Gotta have those abortions on demand? Do you really think Kerry shares your principles? A former military man whoÂ’s admitted to shooting civilians in wartime? An elitist snob who's been sucking off the tit of corporations by way of marriage all his adult life? A hunter who owns guns and SUVs is gonna care about the environment? Can you really trust a churchgoing catholic to defend your precious abortion rights?

You progressives. Why would you vote for the status quo? Another Yale rich boy president who, instead of having cronies in Big Oil dictating the shots will simply take his direction from his Big Ketchup in-laws. Don't play that game anymore.

[Democrats] say, 'support us, we have to beat George Bush.' I'm sorry. We played that game for 20 years. We're not playing it.
But isn't a vote for Nader a vote for Bush, you say? Maybe. But not if Kerry's going down anyway. Did you ever ask yourself “why isn't Kerry leading in the polls by 20 points, with all the bad news lately?” Because he sucks, that's why. And people are going to stay home rather than vote for him.

In October there will probably be a last minute surge in support for Nader when people realize KerryÂ’s going to lose, and Nader will get blamed for blowing the election again. In reality, a surge in Nader votes will be a protest of people who realized that Kerry was going down anyway and they felt free to vote their conscience.

So why not follow your conscience right now and tell everyone that you're voting for the guy who agrees with you the most? Suggest to your friends that they do the same. Build momentum for Nader now, don't wait until it's too late. If Nader starts polling high early in the summer, one of two things might happen. Either his support will snowball and he might win, or Kerry will realize that he needs to move closer to Nader's ideology to have a chance. Either way, you progressives come out ahead!

Seriously.  ; )

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Should He Stay Or Should He Go?

The calls for Rumsfeld's resignation seem to be nearing the point of critical mass. i'm as yet undecided on the issue. i've always liked the guy, and i think he's been a great Secretary of Defense. i think it's unfair to blame him for what happened at Abu Ghraib, yet i understand the doctrine of accountability. The demand that he resign is mainly hardball "gotcha" politics, in my view.

Yet i don't see the demands lessening any time soon. Rummy did not make friends among the uniformed elite, with his abrasive management style. i doubt they'd go to bat for him. The left is salivating at the chance to force a resignation, because they so desperately want to recapture the power they think they had back in the days of Vietnam.

Ideally, i'd like to see Rumsfeld stay, but CENTCOM go, along with a lot of the top brass over in Iraq. Sacrificial lambs? Maybe, but i think there's plenty of legitimate criticism regarding the post "end of major combat" phase, which would justify an overhaul of the leadership now. Often in war -- and you saw this in WWII a lot -- turnover at the top is the only way to get younger, more effective officers into command positions.

However, i'm afraid that the chant "Rumsfeld must go" may get so loud that politically, Bush may have no choice but to get rid of him. Unfair as i think that would be, it might also be the best thing for our country.

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May 06, 2004

Excellent News

Here's a bit of good news out of LAX, if you can believe that. Six French journalists were arrested and deported when they tried to enter the country to cover a trade show.

Six is definitely a good start. Now, how quickly can we round up the rest of the journalists and Frenchies and kick them out too?

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Wow.

"Here is the most powerful guy in the world, and he wants to make sure I'm safe."

Via Blogs for Bush.

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Kick-Ass Salvadoran

Thanks to Sarah for pointing out this heroic member of the Salvadoran military, serving in Iraq. It's a story you won't hear Don Rather talking about, or Seymore Hirsch writing about.

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