So now we know what the big media think of us.
No, I don't mean we know what they think of bloggers - that part was clear long ago. I mean we know what they think of ALL of us - their potential audience - with their casual dismissal of citizen-journalists.
Jonathan Klein's contempt for the "guy sitting in his living room in pajamas" is at the very root of the problems CBS is facing right now. Have you ever watched CBS News or 60 Minutes in your PJs? Then he's talking about you. You - the citizen, the TV watcher, the consumer, the one who pays their bills - you are the poor shmoe sitting at home in your pajamas. You, my friend, have no checks and balances. Your voice does not count. You are nothing.
Thank you, Jonathan Klein, for this moment of illumination. Thank you for showing us that you don't respect us in the morning, or at any other time.
Now it's time for us to wake up.
2004-09-15
Rathergate
I don't have much to add to the forged memo scandal that hasn't been said already. I'm willing to believe the Defense Department may have access to some advanced technology ... so did they have a time machine in 1972 for importing advanced technology from the future? Somehow I doubt it.
The amazing thing about the fake memos is just how bad the forgeries are. Really, it's hardly accurate to even call them "forgeries" ... they're more like Monopoly money. We can only figure that they were done by someone too young to have ever seen a typewriter, and who had no concept of how the thing works. Folks who've grown up with computers may not realize just how profoundly the experience of typing differs from composing on a computer. A typewriter is basically a mechanical device for printing letters on a piece of paper; many of the functions we take for granted on a computer are PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE on a typewriter.
(For example: word wrap and proportional spacing. A typewriter gives you a fixed number of character spaces per line - say, 80 spaces - and when you run out of spaces, the machine simply STOPS. To prevent ending a line in the middle of a word, you listen for the little bell that goes "ding!" when you're about five spaces from the end. At that point you decide whether you have enough spaces left to finish the word, or whether you need to hyphenate - that's why dic*tion*ar*ies have words broken up by syllables. Then you hit "carriage return" - or pull the lever on a manual model - to start a new line. If you have to go past the end of the line, you can hit "margin release" but then the product looks sloppy.)
The MSM could salvage some of their credibility by distancing themselves from this sorry joke, but they're not. They simply don't know what to do. The events of this past week have changed the media forever - and no time machine will be able to take us back.
The amazing thing about the fake memos is just how bad the forgeries are. Really, it's hardly accurate to even call them "forgeries" ... they're more like Monopoly money. We can only figure that they were done by someone too young to have ever seen a typewriter, and who had no concept of how the thing works. Folks who've grown up with computers may not realize just how profoundly the experience of typing differs from composing on a computer. A typewriter is basically a mechanical device for printing letters on a piece of paper; many of the functions we take for granted on a computer are PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE on a typewriter.
(For example: word wrap and proportional spacing. A typewriter gives you a fixed number of character spaces per line - say, 80 spaces - and when you run out of spaces, the machine simply STOPS. To prevent ending a line in the middle of a word, you listen for the little bell that goes "ding!" when you're about five spaces from the end. At that point you decide whether you have enough spaces left to finish the word, or whether you need to hyphenate - that's why dic*tion*ar*ies have words broken up by syllables. Then you hit "carriage return" - or pull the lever on a manual model - to start a new line. If you have to go past the end of the line, you can hit "margin release" but then the product looks sloppy.)
The MSM could salvage some of their credibility by distancing themselves from this sorry joke, but they're not. They simply don't know what to do. The events of this past week have changed the media forever - and no time machine will be able to take us back.
Let's blogroll!
Kerry on Vietnam. Go check out "Kerry vs. O'Neill" at Armies of Liberation to find out what John F. Kerry actually said in 1971.
What if? LaShawn Barber in on a roll with the implications of a Kerry presidency - chas v'chalila!
"Possibly the finest paragraph ever written on the internet." That was one commenter's appraisal of this post at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler:
A tribute to the pajama-clad armies may be found at Kesher Talk. So go already!
What if? LaShawn Barber in on a roll with the implications of a Kerry presidency - chas v'chalila!
"Possibly the finest paragraph ever written on the internet." That was one commenter's appraisal of this post at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler:
Their fear of religion had them supporting a brutal fundamentalist theocracy; their demand for sexual equality had them supporting a country where women were horsewhipped for showing ankle; their horror at genocide had them supporting a man who ran death camps to meet the mass grave quotas; their disgust for soldiers had them support a country that was little more than an army ruling over the captive breeding stock that refilled the ranks ...Go read the whole thing at the link.
A tribute to the pajama-clad armies may be found at Kesher Talk. So go already!
2004-09-14
Morning Report: September 15, 2004
Forged memos dog CBS. For those of you who haven't been following the internet for the past week (and really, it IS worth following, even when Dreams Into Lightning isn't posting!), the blogosphere has scored a major coup against the MSM with the revelation that several derogatory memos about George W. Bush - ostensibly written by his Texas Air National Guard commanders in 1972 - were crude forgeries. The documents, produced by Dan Rather on 60 Minutes, appeared to have been produced on Microsoft Word, not an IBM Selectric, calling the 1972 dating into serious question. For the full story, see Rathergate at LGF.
Kerry coached horror stories, 'Nam vet says. ' A veteran who testified to John Kerry about atrocities he committed in the Vietnam War is now claiming that the Democratic presidential candidate coerced him to tell tales. Steven Pitkin, an Army combat veteran, told FOX News that Kerry coached him and others to say they had witnessed war crimes, even after Pitkin told Kerry that he had not. ...' Fox News story on Vietnam atrocity allegations
Syria testing chemical weapons on Sudanese? Sources are reporting that the German daily "Die Welt" claims Syria is testing its chemical weapons on Sudanese civilians. According to the AFP story, 'Syria tested chemical weapons on civilians in Sudan's troubled western Darfur region in June and killed dozens of people, the German daily Die Welt claimed in an advance release of its Wednesday edition. The newspaper, citing unnamed western security sources, said that injuries apparently caused by chemical arms were found on the bodies of the victims. It said that witnesses quoted by an Arabic news website called ILAF [www.elaph.com] in an article on August 2 had said that several frozen bodies arrived suddenly at the "Al-Fashr Hospital" in the Sudanese capital Khartoum in June. ...' Don't miss Andy McCarthy's comments.
The Emperor has no pajamas. "Eat your heart out, Cox & Forkum."
Kerry coached horror stories, 'Nam vet says. ' A veteran who testified to John Kerry about atrocities he committed in the Vietnam War is now claiming that the Democratic presidential candidate coerced him to tell tales. Steven Pitkin, an Army combat veteran, told FOX News that Kerry coached him and others to say they had witnessed war crimes, even after Pitkin told Kerry that he had not. ...' Fox News story on Vietnam atrocity allegations
Syria testing chemical weapons on Sudanese? Sources are reporting that the German daily "Die Welt" claims Syria is testing its chemical weapons on Sudanese civilians. According to the AFP story, 'Syria tested chemical weapons on civilians in Sudan's troubled western Darfur region in June and killed dozens of people, the German daily Die Welt claimed in an advance release of its Wednesday edition. The newspaper, citing unnamed western security sources, said that injuries apparently caused by chemical arms were found on the bodies of the victims. It said that witnesses quoted by an Arabic news website called ILAF [www.elaph.com] in an article on August 2 had said that several frozen bodies arrived suddenly at the "Al-Fashr Hospital" in the Sudanese capital Khartoum in June. ...' Don't miss Andy McCarthy's comments.
The Emperor has no pajamas. "Eat your heart out, Cox & Forkum."
2004-09-07
I Am A Jew and My Father Was A Jew
My father described his father as mildly anti-Semitic, "not an Archie Bunker type" but not without his prejudices either. Dad was born in 1920 and grew up in the New York area, spending some years in New York City. He would later write of his early curiosity about "the people my father spoke of with such contempt."
My father? Picture a cross between Albert Einstein and Captain Kangaroo, and you begin to get the idea. I remember him as a kindly man, soft-spoken and very precise in his speech. He recalled the Depression years vividly, and spoke bitterly of the humiliation of watching his father search desperately for work. During World War II he served in the Army, in Battery A, 136th Field Artillery, 37th Infantry Division. He spoke of the war occasionally, but only occasionally.
Like my mother, Dad grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home; like her, he started looking for answers on his own as a young adult. They met in a Unitarian Universalist church in Connecticut, and found they shared a fondness for the poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson. They were married in 1959.
My father held a master's degree in literature from Wesleyan, and taught high school English for many years before moving on to a new career on the editorial staff of Choice Magazine - a position he held from my early childhood until very late in his life. He had an unappreciated gift for oratory, I think, and enjoyed reading aloud. When he spoke, he always chose his words carefully; losing this gift with the onset of Alzheimer's must have been a very cruel fate for him.
Both of my parents were liberals, but I think Dad was more of an idealist than my Mom, in the sense of being a perfectionist about the future. He didn't share my mother's driving rage (which could be directed against anyone, at any time), but he did have a deep-seated mistrust of anything that smacked of snobbery or elitism. He respected Senator Lieberman, but found him too conservative: "He votes like a Republican," Dad once grumbled.
Curious about traditional religion, I began studying Hebrew in my mid-teens. After a year or two, I started attending services at the synagogue, and so did my father. When I left home to join the Air Force in 1981, neither of us had officially converted but we were both leaning in that direction. I converted with a Reform congregation in Tucson in 1984, and eventually had an Orthodox conversion in San Francisco in 1988.
What we both saw in Judaism was a balance of opposites: nationalism and universalism, feeling and intellect, mysticism and rationalism, tradition and growth. For both of us, too, it was a gateway into a community, an older and richer one than we could have known otherwise. We liked the way social activism and Jewish values went hand-in-hand. My father was also interested in the theological debates: the encounter with modernity, the problem of evil. He devoured books on liberal Jewish thought by people like Jacob Neusner, with whom he corresponded. (Myself, I always found the scholarly stuff a bit dry. I loved Soloveitchik, but in general I skipped the philosophizers.) Dad's real passion, though, was Jewish music. He collected recordings of the great cantors (another taste I'm afraid I didn't inherit) and in the last few years of his life he became active in the choir at the Conservative synagogue. I'll always remember the joy it gave him to be involved in the community that way - and his sorrow at not having started earlier.
I'm hard pressed to say how much I'm like my father. I do not know whether I resemble him a lot or a little. Sometimes I think I take after my mother more. She was obsessed with the quest for truth. She wanted to peel back the layers of illusion and find the secret that lay at the core of reality. Not formally educated (but with an IQ most college professors would envy), she read books on science, history, Gnosticism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Born in 1929 on the eve of the stock market crash, she had little memory of the Depression, but I believe she was deeply changed by the newsreels that she must have seen as a young woman. I don't think she ever forgave G-d for the Holocaust.
Illness came upon my father quickly. He'd been healthy all his life, but things started going wrong all at once: heart trouble, cancer, Alzheimer's. He had to leave a holiday performance in the synagogue because he was too ill to continue. He died quietly in his sleep four years ago, on the second night of Rosh Hashanah.
Mom lived on a little longer. She rarely left the house, being in poor health herself, but she enjoyed the company of her caretaker and her next-door neighbor, who also had an interest in Judaism. I don't know whether she ever made her peace with G-d. She died last year, on the second night of Passover.
After her death, I learned that she'd had her hospital records changed to list her religion as "Jewish".
- Asher Abrams
This post is my contribution to Jonathan Edelstein's "Arrival Day Blogburst" in celebration of American Jewry's 350th year. I will be posting more Jewish-themed material over the next few days (including the 11th of September).
Administrative note: Today's post was delayed due to technical problems with Blogger. My apologies to Jonathan for missing the September 7 date; perhaps we can think of today as "yomtov sheini", especially in view of the day's diaspora theme.
Please visit Jonathan Edelstein, The Head Heeb.
My father? Picture a cross between Albert Einstein and Captain Kangaroo, and you begin to get the idea. I remember him as a kindly man, soft-spoken and very precise in his speech. He recalled the Depression years vividly, and spoke bitterly of the humiliation of watching his father search desperately for work. During World War II he served in the Army, in Battery A, 136th Field Artillery, 37th Infantry Division. He spoke of the war occasionally, but only occasionally.
Like my mother, Dad grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home; like her, he started looking for answers on his own as a young adult. They met in a Unitarian Universalist church in Connecticut, and found they shared a fondness for the poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson. They were married in 1959.
My father held a master's degree in literature from Wesleyan, and taught high school English for many years before moving on to a new career on the editorial staff of Choice Magazine - a position he held from my early childhood until very late in his life. He had an unappreciated gift for oratory, I think, and enjoyed reading aloud. When he spoke, he always chose his words carefully; losing this gift with the onset of Alzheimer's must have been a very cruel fate for him.
Both of my parents were liberals, but I think Dad was more of an idealist than my Mom, in the sense of being a perfectionist about the future. He didn't share my mother's driving rage (which could be directed against anyone, at any time), but he did have a deep-seated mistrust of anything that smacked of snobbery or elitism. He respected Senator Lieberman, but found him too conservative: "He votes like a Republican," Dad once grumbled.
Curious about traditional religion, I began studying Hebrew in my mid-teens. After a year or two, I started attending services at the synagogue, and so did my father. When I left home to join the Air Force in 1981, neither of us had officially converted but we were both leaning in that direction. I converted with a Reform congregation in Tucson in 1984, and eventually had an Orthodox conversion in San Francisco in 1988.
What we both saw in Judaism was a balance of opposites: nationalism and universalism, feeling and intellect, mysticism and rationalism, tradition and growth. For both of us, too, it was a gateway into a community, an older and richer one than we could have known otherwise. We liked the way social activism and Jewish values went hand-in-hand. My father was also interested in the theological debates: the encounter with modernity, the problem of evil. He devoured books on liberal Jewish thought by people like Jacob Neusner, with whom he corresponded. (Myself, I always found the scholarly stuff a bit dry. I loved Soloveitchik, but in general I skipped the philosophizers.) Dad's real passion, though, was Jewish music. He collected recordings of the great cantors (another taste I'm afraid I didn't inherit) and in the last few years of his life he became active in the choir at the Conservative synagogue. I'll always remember the joy it gave him to be involved in the community that way - and his sorrow at not having started earlier.
I'm hard pressed to say how much I'm like my father. I do not know whether I resemble him a lot or a little. Sometimes I think I take after my mother more. She was obsessed with the quest for truth. She wanted to peel back the layers of illusion and find the secret that lay at the core of reality. Not formally educated (but with an IQ most college professors would envy), she read books on science, history, Gnosticism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Born in 1929 on the eve of the stock market crash, she had little memory of the Depression, but I believe she was deeply changed by the newsreels that she must have seen as a young woman. I don't think she ever forgave G-d for the Holocaust.
Illness came upon my father quickly. He'd been healthy all his life, but things started going wrong all at once: heart trouble, cancer, Alzheimer's. He had to leave a holiday performance in the synagogue because he was too ill to continue. He died quietly in his sleep four years ago, on the second night of Rosh Hashanah.
Mom lived on a little longer. She rarely left the house, being in poor health herself, but she enjoyed the company of her caretaker and her next-door neighbor, who also had an interest in Judaism. I don't know whether she ever made her peace with G-d. She died last year, on the second night of Passover.
After her death, I learned that she'd had her hospital records changed to list her religion as "Jewish".
- Asher Abrams
This post is my contribution to Jonathan Edelstein's "Arrival Day Blogburst" in celebration of American Jewry's 350th year. I will be posting more Jewish-themed material over the next few days (including the 11th of September).
Administrative note: Today's post was delayed due to technical problems with Blogger. My apologies to Jonathan for missing the September 7 date; perhaps we can think of today as "yomtov sheini", especially in view of the day's diaspora theme.
Please visit Jonathan Edelstein, The Head Heeb.
2004-09-06
Morning Report: September 6, 2004
Russia mourns Beslan terror victims. The first of the more than 350 known dead - over 150 of them children - were set to be laid to rest Sunday, on the first day of mourning for Russia's terror victims. Last week's agonizing four-day ordeal began when 40 to 50 terrorists seized a school in Beslan, South Ossetia, and held some 1,200 people hostage. The hostages included about 700 children aged 7 to 17. Several hostages were killed on the first day. Although some hostages were released, the death toll continued to climb daily until an exchange of heavy gunfire ended the standoff on Friday. One boy, unable to stand the thirst any longer, begged for water from one of the terrorists and was bayoneted. Ostensibly the work of Chechen separatists, the attack was almost certainly the work of al-Qaeda. Of the 27 terrorists killed, ten were identified as Arabs, not Chechens. The Chechen leader, Aslan Maskhadov, has denied involvement.
Details:
Debka homepage is currently carrying a timeline of the crisis.
Fox News on the aftermath of the tragedy.
The Belmont Club looks at Putin's limited options.
The Mesopotamian recalls the words of al-Jawahiri.
Little Green Footballs notes al-Qaeda's fingerprints on the operation.
LGF also quotes The Telegraph with a plea for decent Muslims to put an end to the evil being done in their name.
This blog examines a piece by Time.com.
Roger L. Simon has a number of recent posts, and all of them are worth reading.
Details:
Debka homepage is currently carrying a timeline of the crisis.
Fox News on the aftermath of the tragedy.
The Belmont Club looks at Putin's limited options.
The Mesopotamian recalls the words of al-Jawahiri.
Little Green Footballs notes al-Qaeda's fingerprints on the operation.
LGF also quotes The Telegraph with a plea for decent Muslims to put an end to the evil being done in their name.
This blog examines a piece by Time.com.
Roger L. Simon has a number of recent posts, and all of them are worth reading.
2004-09-05
Arrival Day: 350 Years of Neocons?
Jonathan Edelstein, a.k.a. The Head Heeb, deserves a big "L'Chaim!" In addition to his very fine blog focusing on African and Israeli/Mideast affairs, he's promoting the commemoration of Arrival Day, September 7. The date marks the anniversary of the landing of the first Jewish immigrants in New Amsterdam on September 7, 1654, so this year's Arrival Day will signal some 350 years of American Jewish history. I am joining Jonathan in taking the occasion to reflect on what it means to be an American Jew.
Given that both the Jews and America are traditionally the parties on which the world's ills are blamed, it's pretty much inevitable that American Jews will end up being the scapegoats for almost everything - most recently the advent of that political faction known as the "neoconservatives", which, whatever the name may mean, is certainly proof that a cabal of Zionists in Washington are plotting to take over the world.
Sorry, I can't post the plans here. Anyway, as Nietzsche observed, "If the Jews wanted to take over the world, they'd have already done it by now." But I will be happy to join this conspiracy and post a few thoughts on being Jewish in America.
Given that both the Jews and America are traditionally the parties on which the world's ills are blamed, it's pretty much inevitable that American Jews will end up being the scapegoats for almost everything - most recently the advent of that political faction known as the "neoconservatives", which, whatever the name may mean, is certainly proof that a cabal of Zionists in Washington are plotting to take over the world.
Sorry, I can't post the plans here. Anyway, as Nietzsche observed, "If the Jews wanted to take over the world, they'd have already done it by now." But I will be happy to join this conspiracy and post a few thoughts on being Jewish in America.
2004-09-03
Time's Tony Karon Draws Predictable Lessons from Russian Atrocity
"Hostage Bloodbath Highlights Putin's Chechen Failure" - This is the exact wording of the headline for an editorial that Time.com has drolly included in its "news" section.
This, all by itself, tells you exactly where the article is going. The editorialist Tony Karon, aided by Yuri Zarakhovich, seeks to draw a close parallel between Putin's "war on terror" - which, in the writers' estimation, he is obviously losing - and President Bush's, while rigorously avoiding any actual connection between the two.
This gives the impression that Russian troops rashly stormed the school, precipitating enormous loss of innocent life. But as Debka reports, Russian security chief stated no military storming of besieged school was planned, only continued negotiations. Troops opened fire to save hostages’ lives when terrorists ignited explosives in the gym and fired on fleeing hostages. Trigger that prompted military acction still unclear. So while it's too early to say for sure that Time's account is wrong, we are justified in treating it skeptically.
But at least half of those "Chechen gunmen" weren't Chechen: Twenty hostage-takers killed, 10 of them Arabs – al Qaeda terrorists, some Saudis, according to Debka, and in keeping with MSM reports as well.
Now just in case you're still wondering where all of this is leading, skip down to near the end:
Now as you'll recall, the root cause of the problems in Israel/Palestine is the Israelis' unwillingness to negotiate or to pusue a peaceful solution; and it is the Israelis' heavy-handed tactics that have been solely responsible for the radicalization of islamist elements among the Palestinians. Well, it's the same principle here. What Putin needs to do, of course, is give the Chechen freedom fighters (even if they are Arab al-Qaeda operatives) whatever they ask for. Then, just as surely as night follows day, the Chechens will lay down their weapons and live in peace with their neighbors.
Yeah, right.
The carnage that ended the hostage crisis at a school in southern Russia is a grim reminder of the abject failure of President Vladimir Putin's own "war on terror."
This, all by itself, tells you exactly where the article is going. The editorialist Tony Karon, aided by Yuri Zarakhovich, seeks to draw a close parallel between Putin's "war on terror" - which, in the writers' estimation, he is obviously losing - and President Bush's, while rigorously avoiding any actual connection between the two.
At least 150 people are reported to have been killed Friday after Russian troops stormed a school where some 300 had been held captive by a group of masked Chechen gunmen demanding that the authorities free their jailed comrades.
This gives the impression that Russian troops rashly stormed the school, precipitating enormous loss of innocent life. But as Debka reports, Russian security chief stated no military storming of besieged school was planned, only continued negotiations. Troops opened fire to save hostages’ lives when terrorists ignited explosives in the gym and fired on fleeing hostages. Trigger that prompted military acction still unclear. So while it's too early to say for sure that Time's account is wrong, we are justified in treating it skeptically.
At least 150 people are reported to have been killed Friday after Russian troops stormed a school where some 300 had been held captive by a group of masked Chechen gunmen demanding that the authorities free their jailed comrades.
But at least half of those "Chechen gunmen" weren't Chechen: Twenty hostage-takers killed, 10 of them Arabs – al Qaeda terrorists, some Saudis, according to Debka, and in keeping with MSM reports as well.
And the latest bloodshed has come scarcely a week after twin suicide-bombings [also by al-Qaeda] brought down two Russian airliners and a third wrought havoc outside a Moscow subway station, leaving more than 100 dead.
Now just in case you're still wondering where all of this is leading, skip down to near the end:
The more important lesson from President Putin's war, of course, is that military means alone cannot snuff out a politically motivated insurgency. Instead, in Chechnya — as, perhaps, in the Palestinian territories — a military response that has left open no political track to more moderate nationalist elements has tended to work in the favor of the Islamists ...
Now as you'll recall, the root cause of the problems in Israel/Palestine is the Israelis' unwillingness to negotiate or to pusue a peaceful solution; and it is the Israelis' heavy-handed tactics that have been solely responsible for the radicalization of islamist elements among the Palestinians. Well, it's the same principle here. What Putin needs to do, of course, is give the Chechen freedom fighters (even if they are Arab al-Qaeda operatives) whatever they ask for. Then, just as surely as night follows day, the Chechens will lay down their weapons and live in peace with their neighbors.
Yeah, right.
Is the tide turning?
As a matter of choice, I don't have TV in my home, and this week was one of the few times I've really regretted it. By nearly all accounts, the 2004 GOP convention was one for the history books. I've downloaded the transcripts of the major speeches, and I plan to spend the weekend reading them. Republicans all over America - both born-and-bred, and newcomers to the party like myself - have reason to be proud of their party's performance.
And Zell Miller! Wow. Can't tell you how pleased I was to learn that Chris "hardball" Matthews had finally gotten a taste of his own medicine. Heh. So, what's it like to pick on someone your own size, Chris? How's it feel?
(Bleg: Does anyone know where I can get a videotape of the Republican convention? Extra credit for Zell Miller's performance on Chris Matthews.)
Let's also reflect on how the average, undecided American must have viewed the contrast between the words spoken at the convention - some of them frivolous, many impassioned, but all sharing a bright and worthy vision for America and the world - and the antics of the buffoons cavorting on the streets outside.
So it's not surprising that the poll numbers are starting to show the effect of the Republican Convention. Now, for the first time, President Bush has a significant lead over John Kerry. And I don't think things can go anywhere but up from here for Bush. As many commentators have remarked, Kerry does not represent any ideologically cohesive voting bloc; he can attract as many supporters as he does only by virtue of the fact that he can truthfully tell supporters of position A that he's supported A, while also telling the anti-A faction that he has opposed A and supported B.
But as the date of the election draws inexorably closer, the Kerryites will begin to have the uneasy realization that they cannot say for sure whether he's for A, B, both, or neither. Many left-leaning liberals will turn to Nader or Cobb. Moderates, as they better understand the choices America faces in the Mideast and throughout the world, will support Bush.
It may be that the islamofascists are already realizing the likelihood of a second Bush term. They may be making plans now to either cut their losses, or go out in a blaze of bloodshed.
We must make sure that their losses are total, and all the blood shed is their own.
What Bush must do - NOW, not next year - is confront the IRI regime in Tehran, which is working feverishly to build enough atomic bombs to incinerate Israel and intimidate a newly free Iraq. We cannot let this happen. If you haven't done so yet, please put your name on the Iran Regime Change Petition.
The tide may be turning, but the hardest part is surely still to come.
And Zell Miller! Wow. Can't tell you how pleased I was to learn that Chris "hardball" Matthews had finally gotten a taste of his own medicine. Heh. So, what's it like to pick on someone your own size, Chris? How's it feel?
(Bleg: Does anyone know where I can get a videotape of the Republican convention? Extra credit for Zell Miller's performance on Chris Matthews.)
Let's also reflect on how the average, undecided American must have viewed the contrast between the words spoken at the convention - some of them frivolous, many impassioned, but all sharing a bright and worthy vision for America and the world - and the antics of the buffoons cavorting on the streets outside.
So it's not surprising that the poll numbers are starting to show the effect of the Republican Convention. Now, for the first time, President Bush has a significant lead over John Kerry. And I don't think things can go anywhere but up from here for Bush. As many commentators have remarked, Kerry does not represent any ideologically cohesive voting bloc; he can attract as many supporters as he does only by virtue of the fact that he can truthfully tell supporters of position A that he's supported A, while also telling the anti-A faction that he has opposed A and supported B.
But as the date of the election draws inexorably closer, the Kerryites will begin to have the uneasy realization that they cannot say for sure whether he's for A, B, both, or neither. Many left-leaning liberals will turn to Nader or Cobb. Moderates, as they better understand the choices America faces in the Mideast and throughout the world, will support Bush.
It may be that the islamofascists are already realizing the likelihood of a second Bush term. They may be making plans now to either cut their losses, or go out in a blaze of bloodshed.
We must make sure that their losses are total, and all the blood shed is their own.
What Bush must do - NOW, not next year - is confront the IRI regime in Tehran, which is working feverishly to build enough atomic bombs to incinerate Israel and intimidate a newly free Iraq. We cannot let this happen. If you haven't done so yet, please put your name on the Iran Regime Change Petition.
The tide may be turning, but the hardest part is surely still to come.
Russian School Siege Marks New Low
Purportedly the work of Chechen separatists, the obscenity in the Russian school building in North Ossetia involved a number of Arabs:
It is likely that the al-Q/IRI alliance will turn its attention more to central and western Asia in the coming weeks; they may also focus more on targeting Americans. Meanwhile, we can expect Putin to deal robustly with the threat to Russia.
Twenty others died in exchanges of fire with troops, at least nine of them Arabs, officials said.
It is likely that the al-Q/IRI alliance will turn its attention more to central and western Asia in the coming weeks; they may also focus more on targeting Americans. Meanwhile, we can expect Putin to deal robustly with the threat to Russia.
2004-08-31
Canadian FM Pettigrew Condemns Iranian "Farce"
Disgusted by the Iranian regime's lack of cooperation in investigating the death in Iranian custody of Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi, Canadian Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew raised the possibility of "joint pressure" by Canada and its allies against Tehran.
Read the article at Free Iran.
The Canadian government has accused Iran's hardline courts of covering up the true circumstances of Iranian-born photographer Zahra Kazemi's death last year in order to protect senior judiciary officials implicated in her murder.
"We've tried dialogue with the Iranian government but it has turned into a farce, this situation around Madame Kazemi," Pettigrew told reporters after meeting Belgian Foreign Minister Karl de Gucht.
"Certainly we are sharing our outrage at the way the Iranian government and the judiciary system has treated this citizen. We lose no opportunity to raise it."
"What we want is to know what has happened in that jail, we've asked for the body to be returned to Canada so that we could autopsy it. They say it's an accident, that she fell. Well, we'll know. When you have the body you know those things," he added.
Read the article at Free Iran.
Najaf: A War for Shi'a Leadership
Big Pharaoh has some very illuminating observations in his analysis of the Najaf confrontation.
Read the rest at the link.
'Last April, Sadr ignited his first uprising. His gang stormed the holy shrine in Najaf and literally occupied it. They controlled the keys and the treasures. When the fighting intensified, Sistani ordered all armed groups to leave Najaf including American forces. Sadr didn’t comply, his occupation of the shrine continued, and US forces had to withdraw outside Najaf to fulfill their part of the shaky truce. Poor Sistani, he lost all control over the shrine and that didn’t feel good. What would the pope feel if a wayward monk occupied the Vatican and its treasures?!
Today Sistani sleeps with the keys under his pillows! How did the keys jump from Sadr’s pocket to Sistani’s bed? Did Sistani form a militia? Sistani stayed for over 3 months with no keys, how did the old man manage to return them back? ... '
Read the rest at the link.
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