Be sure to drop by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory website for some cool new pictures taken this week by the Cassini mission, including this shot of the surface of Saturn's moon, Enceladus.
Now Hear This Mood: special Now Playing: "A Common Disaster" by the Cowboy Junkies
At Little Green Footballs, Charles Johnson has posted a link to a sound file provided by an "LGF operative" in which New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey told an audience of moonbats yesterday that Karl Rove set up Dan Rather with the Killian Forgeries.
When asked what evidence he had to prove it, Hinchey weasels out of it, saying that it was just his belief.
So this guy ---a United States Representative--- is spreading the lie that the Bush White House is the source of these fake documents, but can't back it up. What a fucking liar.
This is the very picture (or sound) of getting busted. Excellent work, sir, whoever you are.
Names
Courtesy of Jonah Goldberg at NRO's The Corner comes this amazing website where you can type in your name and see its popularity over the past century or so.
The Full Panoply This would have to be my very favorite of all the essays I've yet read by Michael Ledeen. (Emphasis added.)
Our victory in Fallujah has had enormous consequences, first of all because the information we gathered there has made it possible to capture or kill considerable numbers of terrorists and their leaders. It also sent a chill through the spinal column of the terror network, because it exposed the lie at the heart of their global recruitment campaign. As captured terrorists have told the region on Iraqi television and radio, they signed up for jihad because they had been told that the anti-American crusade in Iraq was a great success, and they wanted to participate in the slaughter of the Jews, crusaders, and infidels. But when they got to Iraq -- and discovered that the terrorist leaders immediately confiscated their travel documents so that they could not escape their terrible destiny -- they saw that the opposite was true. The slaughter -- of which Fallujah was the inescapable proof -- was that of the jihadists at the hands of the joint coalition and Iraqi forces.
A jury yesterday found Stewart guilty of using her privileged position as the lawyer of the so-called "Blind Sheik," who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, to pass messages between the jailed terrorist and his terrorist followers in Egypt.
During a visit to Sheik Omar Abdel el-Rahman's cell in Minnesota in 2000, she and a translator conspired to distract prison officials in order to receive and later deliver a coded directive whose purpose was to initiate new terrorist acts in Egypt.
So, you can see why Howard Dean is so outraged today at certain remarks made by the chairman of the New York Republican Party, Steven Minarik:
"The Democrats simply have refused to learn the lessons of the past two election cycles, and now they can be accurately called the party of Barbara Boxer, Lynne Stewart, and Howard Dean[...]"
Dean and Boxer may not like being lumped in with the third leg of that stool, but there's really only one question I want answered:
Unambiguous
Did you see the White House's reaction to former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination this weekend? They are not pulling their punches, are they?
"We condemn this brutal attack in the strongest possible terms," said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, adding that the killing was "a terrible reminder that the Lebanese people must be able to pursue their aspirations and determine their own political future free from violence and intimidation and free from Syrian occupation."
I'll say this much: if we could operate inside of eastern Syria, our men and women in Iraq wouldn't be suffering so much. Let the IDF take care of the Bekaa and we'll take care of all the Saddamite pipelines leading from Damascus towards Iraq.
And just what were Kerry and Assad talking about in Damascus the other day?
Always on the Job
Just saw a segment on Comrade Jennings' evening news program featuring one of my old bosses, Bill White, who's now the Mayor of Houston. Mr. White was talking about his program to keep the traffic moving in Houston. Pretty neat, if not dramatic.
Bill White's kinda vanilla, frankly, but my favorite memory of working on his staff when he was the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party is from some time spent in South Oak Cliff, an old and low-rent suburb of Dallas.
We were sent there one morning before the state convention to do some community outreach stuff; in particular, to tear down and clear out a few old dilapidated garages and dead trees from some elderly citizens' property. I was pitching in around a tree in one lady's backyard while my friend Corey was up on a ladder, sawing into a branch. We were chatting and working away when along comes Bill White with some camera crews in tow.
In no time at all, Mr. White had wheedled the saw from Corey's hand and got up on the ladder for an action shot. You know: the natural posture of any millionaire businessman. We just stood around and giggled.
The future mayor was pretty shameless about it, but what the hell? As far as introductions to phoniness go, that one was pretty palatable.
Hammered Dog Shit Mood: smelly Now Playing: "What's New, Pussycat?" by Tom Jones
I don't know where I first picked this phrase up, but it's certainly been appropriate to my condition the past few days. Some sort of flu or cold bug brought me pretty low, but I'm feeling much better today. Plenty of ginseng tea, vitamin C, Robitussin, and chicken lemon grass with Thai peppers and I am on my way.
Why the Insults? Now Playing: Phil Hartman doing Frank Sinatra
What's the deal with all of these chickenshit remarks about Camilla Parker Bowles, the longtime lover and, now, fiancee to the Prince of Wales? Making fun of her looks? She's an attractive woman for her age and strikes me as being genuinely in love with Charles Windsor. Which means that she is particularly beautiful to him. What, are people still mad at him for loving one woman before being forced to marry another one whom he didn't? How reasonable.
Best wishes to the royal couple. Maybe a few of their detractors will grow up between now and the wedding and be happy for the man after all these years.
Terry McAuliffe, Loser
Be sure to read Byron York's review of the DNC's farewell party for outgoing chairman Terry McAuliffe. It sounds pathetic.
But what's even more pathetic is the Democratic Party's belief that McAuliffe (and Bill Clinton, for that matter) is a great success because of his fundraising abilities. In my mind, that's like a pimp convention naming someone Employee of the Year: Was business good? Then keep it to yourselves.
I've developed a major league dislike of Terry McAuliffe over the past four years or so, I don't mind saying. He's a shifty, lying sack of Ted Kennedy and one of the most unjustified braggarts I've ever observed in politics. Thankfully, none of his predictions ever came true.
But at least he's left the DNC in sound fiscal shape. Yee-hah!
"Jesus Christ Can Help You with That" Now Playing: "Angel Mine" by the Cowboy Junkies
I've been sick this weekend, so it was especially annoying earlier this afternoon when a bunch of college-aged kids came pounding on my door to sell me on Jesus Christ.
"No thanks. No thanks. I'm sick..."
"Well, Jesus Christ can help you with that."
"Yeah, I understand..."
"There's no way to heaven except through Jesus Christ."
"I know, I know..."
I simply don't get what motivates these people. They're working on commission, you may be sure, but I don't care about that. My home is my sanctuary. Got that? This is my sacred temenos ---and I don't want to be disturbed by others who believe that they're earning their way into God's good graces by spreading the gospel at the expense of my time and tranquility.
Just imagine the cruelty of an attractive 20 year-old girl telling an involuntarily and terminally celibate man that the only way to heaven is through a dead Jewish prophet. Outrageous! Heaven is your body, madam. You are a flesh cathedral ---the sacred precinct of Eros himself. The High Chemist of all Creation. The Cause of Life in every sense.
Well, maybe not you, in particular...
I hope for your sake that you get another man into your life besides the one you've got now. If you don't understand that today, you will tomorrow.
A General Observation on Public Education Mood: not sure
I recently had a business lunch with a representative from a major textbook publisher during which I explained to her my view of "bright kids" versus "slower kids" and the problems inherent in trying to teach classes with such wide differences in ability. I basically said that, when I was a schoolteacher, I decided at last that the best thing I could do was to train my focus on the brightest kids.
I don't know whether she agreed with that, but she said, in light of my own professional interests, that such a view might not be helpful to me. Good advice, of course, but it must be said that tracking (grouping kids by ability) is a good thing. I can't apologize for that.
It's a huge disservice to bright students with high potential to force them to endure the emotional and disciplinary disturbances of slower and less cooperative classmates. If our society could bring itself to accept the intellectual and behavioral differences among our youth ---and accept that all kids would be better served by more specialized attention at every level--- our education system could truly flower.
This isn't a call for the ethnic, gender, or cultural segregation of American schoolchildren. I don't believe in that shit and I say it's wrong. But I am all for honoring and serving the abilities of our brightest minds in one kind of class ---and recognizing what education theorists call "multiple intelligences" in other classes.
We don't have this sort of system instituted in enough places because this society does not do nearly enough to make the investment in education that it should. And I believe there's something fundamentally wrong with our political culture when we are afraid to provide our best students with honors and advanced classes. It's also unacceptable that we do not find more ways to engage those kids with different interests and abilities in ways that will make the most of their talents. The latter point is every bit as true as the former.
Shooting for the mean is a false kind of egalitarianism that disserves everyone.
There
The Power Line is relaying an Associated Press report of the resignation of Eason Jordan. It reads, in part:
Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.
"I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise," Jordan said in a memo to fellow staff members at CNN.
This isn't true, of course, but let it pass for now.
Power Line notes that "The AP can't resist getting this part of the story wrong":
But the damage had been done, compounded by the fact that no transcript of his actual remarks has turned up.
Absolute nonsense. Power Line continues:
Actually, of course, the videotape "turned up," but the Davos folks decided to keep it under wraps, apparently in an effort to help Jordan. Jordan's problem wasn't confusion about what he said; his problem was CNN's inability to create confusion about what he said.
There are multiple witnesses to Jordan's slanders, including Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd. These slanders were recorded in an open venue. Why won't the anti-American assholes who run the World Economic Forum stand up like men and admit it?
Just Sign It
Via the Power Line, here's a little something from Thomas Lipscomb, who did such excellent work on John Kerry's horseshit and lies during the campaign. And regarding Kerry's recent post mortem appearance on Meet the Press:
Asked about his Christmas Eve in Cambodia "seared, seared" in Kerry's memory, according to one of his Senate speech transcripts, Kerry tried a half-baked variation on the theme: "Was it on that night? No, it was not on that night. But we were right on the Cambodian border that night. We were ambushed there, as a matter of fact. And that is a matter of record, and we went into the rec-- you know, it's part of the Navy records."
You have to wonder how Kerry ever managed to get through earlier encounters in other election seasons with those who suggested that his war record was full of embellishments. It did happen, but he always came through. This time, though? As John O'Neill knew, this time was for all the marbles.
It's obvious to me that John Kerry could not have afforded to see his full military service record released during the campaign. Not when he had balanced so much of his credibility on the rope of his experience in Viet Nam. And why? Because he lied about that experience. And he didn't want the world to know the circumstances of his discharge.
If Kerry does, as he's promised everyone and his dog, sign the Form 180, I'll be surprised. But I wouldn't be surprised to learn what's in his record.
Power Line: "Eason Jordan Is Finished" Power Line is reporting that Michelle Malkin has been in touch with Barney Frank, a participant at the Davos meetings, and confirms that Eason Jordan did, in fact, make the claim that our troops are deliberately "targeting journalists" for death in Iraq. Malkin writes:
I asked Rep. Frank again if his recollection was that Jordan initially maintained that the military had a deliberate policy of targeting journalists. Rep. Frank affirmed that, noting that Jordan subsequently backed away orally and in e-mail that it was official policy, but "left open the question" of whether there were individual cases in which American troops targeted journalists.
After the panel was over and he returned to the U.S., Rep. Frank said he called Jordan and expressed willingness to pursue specific cases if there was any credible evidence that any American troops targeted journalists. "Give me specifics," Rep. Frank said he told Jordan.
Rep. Frank has not yet heard back yet from Jordan.
Don't think that this is some minor issue, folks. The guy who runs CNN is making an outrageous accusation about the integrity of our armed forces. Is there any way that this attitude doesn't influence CNN's coverage of the war for Iraq?
Austin Bay on Eason Jordan
You'll need to go see this post by Austin Bay for more information on what worms CNN and Eason Jordan are. Regarding the "arrangement" CNN came to with the Saddamites, here's Bay:
The network's deal with the devil lasted a dozen years. The deal brought the network a commercial advantage over more tough-minded competitors. Moreover, CNN's depiction of Saddam's regime often differed, oh, a hundred degrees from the critical reporting of the NY Times' John Burns. (Saddam jailed Burns at least twice--underlining my point about the risk correspondents face.) Sure, CNN portrayed Saddam as a strong man - but by the way, Iraqi children were dying. Though Saddam had invaded Kuwait and had a meanish streak, in CNN's Iraq children died because of UN sanctions enforced by the US military. CNN played a "he's bad, but--" game. I'll wager the journalistic excuse was "balance"--a balance Saddam and Baghdad Bob certainly appreciated. CNN's "balance" was of course anything but balance -over the long haul I believe the network put a finger on the scale that gave Saddam undeserved moral and political weight. We now know the reason Iraqi children were dying: Saddam had corrupted the UN's Oil For Food program and was skimming money that was supposed to buy medicine and food.
The biggest laugh is that the anti-American Left honestly believes that the Big Media apparati are tilted against them. They sneeringly call Big Media the SCLM (the "So-Called Liberal Media"), but with obvious propagandists like Jordan, Rather, Arnett, and Couric out there? I'd say they were kidding, but today's anti-war Left has no sense of humor ---or humility or patriotism or of how tiresome their cynicism is.
special
Just kickin' it Anglo-Saxon-Hibernio-Ashkenazic style back at the crizzib...beeyotch! 
smelly
not sure