Much ado about nothing?

Andrew Enum in the NYT:

“Anyone who has spent the past two days reading through the 92,000 military field reports and other documents made public by the whistle-blower site WikiLeaks may be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about. I’m a researcher who studies Afghanistan and have no regular access to classified information, yet I have seen nothing in the documents that has either surprised me or told me anything of significance. I suspect that’s the case even for someone who reads only a third of the articles on Afghanistan in his local newspaper.”

I don't even pretend to have looked through the paper mountain that WL dumped, but I was already familiar with the things Enum cites in this piece, so maybe there really is no "there" there.

Not that it would excuse the extreme lack of ethics and general sleaze of the whole exercise, mind you.

Quick hits 12/19

More links and tweets that have caught my eye, with a bit of commentary:

Telling sentence: “The majorities opposing Obama on the Guantanamo issue are even larger than those that oppose him on national health care.”

Some encouraging medical news.

The green mind at work: Prince Charles used up seven months’ worth of the average British person’s “carbon footprint” yesterday flying to Copenhagen on an executive jet to make a speech on climate change.

Oklahoma City’s Wednesday night shoes

John Stossel: “Someone will ration health care. In America, insurance companies usually do it. In most of the rest of the world, governments do. Costs skyrocket under both systems. Its time we tried the third option: let individuals use their own money to buy health care.”

John Hinderaker: “Don't fall for the pretense that the international ‘green’ movement is about anything other than anti-free enterprise and anti-American ideology.”

Robert Heinlein: “Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.”

How many people remember that Obama, during his campaign, promised a net spending cut?

There are still 14 days left, but I’m declaring this the photo caption of the year.

And this the bookstore display of the year.

When the directions say “Roll it on over the head” this is NOT what it means.

Climate change: nature’s way.

Tiger and PC in domestic violence

Why does an attempt to transfer the right to make medical decisions from the people to government surprise anybody? Did you expect a Chicago machine politician to show an enthusiasm for civil liberties?

Foreign Object Damage asks: “Does it concern anyone else that anger is the only emotion that President Obama has displayed in public over the last month?” What, did you think he wasn’t really part of the Angry Left?

Thogocracy update: Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla) wants to imprison a local critic. This idiot exemplifies the police-state mindset.

John Stossel on the matter: “Bullies like Congressman Grayson illustrate the danger of government power; government is the only entity that can legally use force. That makes government a fearsome master. It can use force to take our money, and homes, and our freedom.”

From @Jeff_Jacoby: Ex-soldier finds a gun, turns it into the police, & is promptly arrested for possessing a firearm. Beyond Orwellian.

Happiest state ranking, Texas a disappointing 16th (Austin must be dragging us down).

Ridiculous photo caption editorializing.

Tweets from the wild Mavs-Rockets game I attended:
From STEIN_LINE_HQ: Brace yourself: Mavs found pieces from two Landry teeth embedded in gash in Dirk's right elbow
From STEIN_LINE_HQ: Landry taken straight to hospital. Mavs needed 30 minutes to clean up Dirk's elbow just to get ready for X-rays.
From @kpelton: This Houston-Dallas game will not go down as a monument to quality NBA officiating.
From @MFollowill: Hearing stories the process of picking the teeth of dirk's elbow was quite gruesome. Didn't know if it was his bone or Landry's teeth. Wow!

Quick hits 12/1

Some quick tweets and links that have caught my eye:

From @mkhammer: Obama rhetoric flashback, March '09: "So, let me be clear...that cause could not be more just."

From @MoRocca via @freeloosedirt: Obama to send 30,002 troops to Afghanistan (congrats, Tareq and Michaele Salahi! This time you're invited.)

Interesting, as it moves the timeline back: @senatus: Harkin: We will deliver a health care bill to Obama before the State of the Union (on MSNBC). (via @wonkroom)

Bacon: the gateway meat

The Next Right: “please explain why the Downing Street memo was definitive proof of a rush to judgment and Climategate isn't.”

Why Tiger’s not talking

Why the need to rig climate “science”? Money, of course.

Government in action.

Did I say the good war?

Byron York on the Afghanistan as "the good war" lie coming home to roost:

If the base didn't support it, then why did candidates promise it? Because Democratic voters and candidates were playing a complex game. Nearly all of them hated the war in Iraq and wanted to pull Americans out of that country. But they were afraid to appear soft on national security, so they pronounced the smaller conflict in Afghanistan one they could support. Many of them didn't, really, but for political expediency they supported candidates who said they did. Thus the party base signed on to a good war-bad war strategy. ...

But now, with Democrats in charge of the entire U.S. government and George Bush nowhere to be found, Pelosi and others in her party are suddenly very, very worried about U.S. escalation in Afghanistan. "There is serious unrest in our caucus," the speaker said recently. There is so much unrest that Democrats who show little concern about the tripling of already-large budget deficits say they're worried about the rising cost of the war.

It is in that atmosphere that Obama makes his West Point speech. He had to make certain promises to get elected. Unlike some of his supporters, he has to remember those promises now that he is in office. So he is sending more troops. But he still can't tell the truth about so many Democratic pledges to support the war in Afghanistan: They didn't mean it.

PC kills

Dana Loesch:

"While DHS was busy putting tea parties and anyone who dares fly the official military Gadsen flag on the domestic terrorist watch list, a real terrorist was spouting off online, glorifying suicide bombings and our mission in Iraq. I mean, I’m sure if I drink enough I might be able to understand the perception that a bunch of middle-class people peacefully dissenting with certain Washington policies are way more dangerous than a dude who talked about terrorist stuff on social sites and had gotten authorities’ attention six months ago."

It is quite clear that political correctness killed those (currently) 13 people at Fort Hood. The fear of maybe, possibly offending somebody by removing a jihadist from our military had tragic consequences this time.

Do more need to die, or can we start being honest?

On appeasement

Is this thing on?

OK, then check out this quote from the great John Howard, former Australian Prime Minister:

"If you imagine that you can buy immunity from fanatics by curling yourself in a ball, apologising for the world - to the world - for who you are and what you stand for and what you believe in, not only is that morally bankrupt, but it’s also ineffective. Because fanatics despise a lot of things and the things they despise most is weakness and timidity. There has been plenty of evidence through history that fanatics attack weakness and retreating people even more savagely than they do defiant people."

Hopefully our president realizes this very basic fact.

Some quick hits

A lot of the short quotes or links I used to post here now go to my Twitter feed, since it takes so much less effort.

James Taranto: “Why did Obama win the Nobel Peace Prize? Because he pandered to the prejudices of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.”

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JammieWearingFool on the terrorist plot against a GOP congressman: “I blame MSNBC, CNN, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the leftwing blogosphere for fostering this climate of hate against Republicans.”

Consistent standards… no fair!

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Why didn’t Pinch Sulzberger get a cabinet position?

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Jules Crittenden: "It's a sad state of affairs when a Frenchman mocks an American president and you have to go with the Frog."

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Durable goods orders, housing sales dropped in August. Direct result of Cash for Clunkers diverting money from one kind of purchase to another? Probably, every time government incentivizes one kind of behavior it’s at the expense of another.

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“I can recall no other major American speech in which the narcissism of a leader has been quite so pronounced.” In the Washington Post, mind you, on Obama's UN debacle.

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The Empire State Building was illuminated red and yellow for a week, celebrating China's 60 years of communist rule. Really? What a disgusting gesture, celebrating that soul crushing death cult.

We're (almost) all neocons now

Jennifer Rubin:

“Politics is replete with irony but none greater than the sight of a president, who rose to power decrying the ultimately successful effort in one battlefield in the war on terror, looking now to those dreaded neo-con pundits and Republican lawmakers for support against the pre-9/11 mentality he was all too happy to promote on the campaign trail. . . . Maybe Obama should put aside the anti-Bush venom for a moment and give his predecessor a call—he might learn something about the lonely obligation of a commander in chief to resist the howls from the likes of Will, Hagel, and the netroots.”

I find it fascinating that the one issue on which he ran to the left is the one on which he has lurched right. On everything else, he ran as a faux centrist and governs as a hard leftist, but on Afghanistan he's downright neocon.

Of course this also means that he campaigned honestly on...well, nothing.

Do as I do, not as I say?

Fascinating Ted Kennedy anecdote:

Javier Rupérez -- Spain's ambassador to the US between 2000 and 2004 and currently Consul General in Chicago writes

Shortly after the Iraq war started I saw Senator Kennedy in a public session of the U.S. Supreme Court. As we were taking our seats he briefly took my arm and told me he greatly appreciated the attitude of the Spanish government regarding the decision taken by the White House because, he said, "although you know my position " -- he was one of the few senators to oppose the authorization for the war -- "I appreciate the solidarity with my country in times like this." "I would appreciate if you relay this to President Aznar," he added.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flatery

From an AP report:

EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Jacques Barrot said the 27-nation bloc wants to give anti-terror investigators at the U.S. Treasury access to European operation centers run by the bank transfer consortium SWIFT, expanding an existing 2007 anti-terror banking data sharing deal with Washington. To do so, it needs to negotiate under what conditions U.S. officials would have expanded access to such sensitive banking information. ...

The U.S. Treasury already has access to SWIFT's American database, but the banking consortium is setting up a new European office in Switzerland, which would focus on European clients. American investigators now want access to this new database as well.

SWIFT's other two database centers, in the U.S. state of Virginia and in the Netherlands, handle all the consortium's transfer orders, including those of European citizens.

"It would be extremely dangerous at this stage to stop the surveillance and the monitoring of information flows," Barrot said, adding that the current pact, which only covers U.S. operations of SWIFT have been "an important and effective tool to fight terrorism financing and to prevent terrorist attacks."

Powerline's reaction: "It's one more instance of the Obama administration not only adopting but expanding the once-secret anti-terror tools that were developed by the Bush administration. Somehow, though, I don't think this time around the SWIFT expansion will be the occasion for exposes or critical editorials."

As for me, I wonder if President Bush (43) has a sore shoulder from repeated pointing at the scoreboard.

Honor the Jackson Five

I love this from Move America Forward via PowerLine, a call to honor five Jacksons who really deserve it.

How not to deal with terrorists

An Instapundit correspondent reminds us of a 2005 quote from then-Prime Minister John Howard of Australia which seems particularly relevant today:

"If you imagine that you can buy immunity from fanatics by curling yourself in a ball, apologising for the world - to the world - for who you are and what you stand for and what you believe in, not only is that morally bankrupt, but it’s also ineffective. Because fanatics despise a lot of things and the things they despise most is weakness and timidity. There has been plenty of evidence through history that fanatics attack weakness and retreating people even more savagely than they do defiant people."

The euphemism treadmill

This passage from a James Taranto piece on the Obama administration's silly decision to stop using the term "enemy combatants" to describe enemy combatants.

The president is shrewdly employing what evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker calls the "euphemism treadmill," described in a 2001 MIT press release about a Pinker speech:

Why have the San Diego and Boston city councils recently banned the word "minority" as derogatory, when its literal meaning is neutral? He suggested this exemplified a "euphemism treadmill," in which a word for an emotionally charged concept is replaced, in hopes of redefining people's attitudes toward the concept. But instead, the new word becomes tainted, prompting the search for yet another fresh word, and so on.

Pinker said linguists had already noted the process with concepts as diverse as toilets ("lavatories, bathrooms, restrooms"), disabilities ("crippled, handicapped, disabled, challenged"), and old folks ("elderly, golden agers, senior citizens"). Thus, "Negro" became "black," which led to "African American"; "Oriental" became "Asian"; "Hispanic" became "Latino." This shows that changing a word is not enough to change attitudes, and indicates how far we have to go in achieving racial progress, he said. "We know we will have achieved equality and mutual respect when terms for ethnic minorities stay put."

Of course we've all taken notice of this phenomenon, and probably even made fun of it. But I never knew the official name for it (other then the, yes, euphemism "political correctness").

I'm not sure what they plan to call them now. The Europress prefers "youths," and I have to admit that the thought of Obama using that is delicious.

I'm only going to say this once, etc.

A reminder, should you talk to or otherwise correspond with me in any way in the next three weeks: I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR F-ING BRACKETS!

As you were.

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I’m glad my girlfriend doesn’t live in New Jersey:

“The painful Brazilian wax and its intimate derivatives are in danger of being stripped from salon and spa menus if a recent proposal to ban genital waxing is passed by the state’s Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling.”

I love Instapundit’s lines: “READ MY LIPS: No new waxes!” and “New Jersey Politicians Support Bush.”

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Gee, here’s a shocking development: “European countries that have offered to help the Obama administration close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have begun raising questions about the security risks and requirements if they accept prisoners described by the Bush administration as ‘the worst of the worst,’ according to diplomats and other officials.”

Closing a prison that holds hundreds of the world’s worst mass murderers and war criminals, what could possibly wrong there?

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A sad truth from John McWhorter: “When you’re black and 14, often you have a choice between doing well in school and having black friends.”

The notion that a kid who reads a book or tries in school is “acting white,” pushed by hip hop culture and assorted other black racists, is doing untold damage to black youth. Let’s hope that the election of Obama will start to turn that tide, but I suspect that eradicating black racism will be even harder than eradicating white racism proved to be. White racists had far fewer enablers in the media and academia.

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From a Rasmussen poll: “American workers are far more likely to belong to the investor class than a union. Just 9% of non-union workers would like to join a union.”

Which begs the question…is it good politics for the president to push a massive transfer of wealth from the investor class to unions, even if Big Labor thinks that it has already bought that level of influence?

It’s clearly not good for workers or the country as a whole, so the only remaining question is whether it is good politics.

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Interesting contrast between how big media covered the Iraq antiwar protests of the past (multiply the number of participants by 10, put it on the front page) with how they are covering the current rash of “tea party” protests. Or rather, how they are not covering them.

They hide, hoping you won’t decide.

Not so much, etc.

Scattershooting while wondering what ever happened to Keith Owens:

The difference between Obama and Jesus: Jesus knew how to build a cabinet.

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Jim Cramer fights back at Jon Stewart: “President Obama’s team, unlike Bush’s team, demonstrates a thinness of skin that shocks me. . . . Are they really that blind to the Great Wealth Destruction they are causing with their decisions to demonize the bankers, raise taxes for the wealthy, advocate draconian cap-and-trade policies and upend the health care system? Do they really believe that only the rich own stocks? What do they think we have our retirement accounts in, CDs? Where did they think that the money saved for college went, our mattresses?”

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Probably the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard: 10th President John Tyler, born in 1790, has two grandsons still living. When they talk about going back a generation or two, they mean business!

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A fact that doesn’t usually see the light of day, from the NYT: “Restrictions on embryonic stem cell research originated with Congress, which, each year since in 1996, has forbidden the use of federal financing for any experiment in which a human embryo is destroyed.”

Raise your hand if you had been led to believe it was Bush instead of Congress.

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Some lesser-known NBA nicknames.

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Democrats have hit on a new form of stimulus: steal the credit card numbers of a political opponent’s donors and use them to make fraudulent charges. Don’t look at me, I wasn’t the one who believed in this kind of change.

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Former teammate Mark Madsen on the Shaq flopping kerfuffle, the ultimate man bites dog story: “I played with Shaq for three years in Los Angeles and while I did see the big fella sacrifice his body and step in and take charges, I never once saw him flop in those three years. And the funny thing is that almost every team in the NBA tries to flop against Shaq. There are probably even coaches that teach their centers and forwards to try to flop on Shaq. So, this whole commotion about whether or not Shaq's play against Dwight Howard was a flop is so funny because everyone in the league tries to flop on Shaq and Shaq never flops back.”

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A former detainee at Guantánamo Bay has become the Taliban’s chief operations officer in southern Afghanistan. Good thing we’re planning on closing Guantanamo, so this kind of thing will become more common…you might even say it will explode.

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Noted fabulist Seymour Hersh has set tinfoil hatters atwitter with his tale of Dick Cheney hit squads (apparently not very good, since there are no known victims). Reason has a post on his loose relationship with the truth, with some classic comments. My favorite: “Sy Hersh has predicted 8 of the last 0 American invasions of Iran.”

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From one crook (Blagojevich) to another (Quinn) in the Illinois statehouse: Illinois Gov. to Propose 50% Increase in State Income Tax

Math geeks unite! etc.

Scattershooting while wondering what ever happened to Swen Nater:

Tuesday was Square Root Day, 3/3/09. I know I was partying, 7 years is a long time to wait for another chance.

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Some apologies.

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Sign of the times: The per capita rate of civilian killings in the border city of Juarez, Mexico in 2008 was nearly three-and-a-half times as great as the per capita rate of civilian killings in the Iraqi province of Baghdad

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More transparency in the Obama administration? Not so much: When Vice President Joe Biden spoke to the annual meeting of AFL-CIO officials at the plush Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach on March 5, television cameras were not allowed to cover his speech – on orders from the White House, Fox News quoted the AFL-CIO as saying.

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More evidence of the decline and fall of American Journalism. From the New York Times corrections page: “An editorial on Feb. 22 stated incorrectly that unlawfully entering the country is not a criminal offense. It is a misdemeanor for a first-time offender.”

Yes, a major newspaper editor did not know that illegal immigration was, you know, illegal. And still has a job, despite such fundamental ignorance.

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I was surprised to learn that Steve Nash, was the lowest-drafted player (15th) ever to win the MVP award. I would have guessed that some late first rounder or second (or later, in the old days) rounder would have done so at some point, given that some have become major stars.

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Ari Fleisher asks MSNBC why they are not "going after Democrat members of Congress for why they aren't distancing themselves from Keith Olbermann.”

I think it’s obvious: because the White House hasn't ordered them to.

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Just like Bush, but faster!: “From Election Day 2000 to Election Day 2008, the S&P 500 fell 29.8%. From Election Day 2008 til the afternoon of March 6, it’s down 33.3%.”

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Encouraging sign: Mississippi bans revenue-light cameras; Upon Governor Haley Barbour's signature, Mississippi would join Alaska, Arkansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin which have also banned automated citations (red-light and speed cameras) through judicial or legislative action. A similar ban passed the Montana state House of Representatives last month and currently awaits Senate action. An attempt to ban cameras in Missouri ran into a roadblock in a state Senate committee.

Hopefully Texas will see the light (pun intended) and follow suit; this is a scam whose time has passed.

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A note on buyer’s remorse from The Atlantic: “Like the college students who stayed up late to be inspired by his campaign rallies only to find Obama’s first significant action to be a stimulus program that will transfer about a trillion dollars from them to the Baby Boomers, Silicon Valley Obama supporters are likely to find that a government-dominated economic era will not a great one in which to start companies that threaten big incumbent corporations that have juice with the government. I hope they appreciate the irony.”

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Michael Barone with a sad tale showing that racism may be on life support but is still alive:

"Detroit City Council President Monica Conyers, wife of House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, presides over a hearing where white witnesses are advised to leave the room. Congressman Conyers joined the Judiciary Committee in 1965, when the Chairman was Emanuel Celler and the ranking was Republican William McCulloch, co-sponsors of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. What would they have thought of this? As a nation, we have become more tolerant and inclusive in the years since 1965. Detroit, alas, seems to have moved in the opposite direction."

Scoreboard!

From the Washington Post:

Review Finds Detainees' Treatment Legal

A Pentagon review of conditions at the Guantanamo Bay military prison has concluded that the treatment of detainees meets the requirements of the Geneva Conventions [...]

Walsh's report was a broad endorsement of the Pentagon's management of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and it urged prison authorities to continue efforts across the system to maximize the ability of the detainees to socialize and practice their religion, according to the government official. "Continue to avoid actions that are disrespectful to the detainees," Walsh wrote.

Ann Althouse: Let's see if he can say now, as he has before, I screwed up.

Will incompetence get one fired?

That's the question I am asking myself after this unbelievably stupid mistake by Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chair Dianne Feinstein:

Dianne Feinstein [...] recently stated that U.S. Predator hunter/killer drones "are flown out of a Pakistani base." The launch location is supposed to be a secret.

Feinstein's statement was front-page news in Pakistan. The government quickly denied that the Predators are based in Pakistan, but it's not likely that this self-serving denial trumped Feinstein's admission against her country's interest (not to mention Pakistan's).

Feinstein has thus helped undermine faith in America's ability to keep a secret. And that abililty can be central to securing the cooperation of governments in the Middle Eastern and Southeast Asia in combatting extremist factions that enjoy a degree of public support or sympathy.

Many, including some conservatives, say that President Bush should have involved Congress more deeply in the secret intelligence initiatives that followed 9/11. Perhaps. But Sen. Feinstein's loose lips illustrate one very real disadvantage of congressional involvement.

She should be stripped of her committee chairmanship at the very least, and probably her membership. Such irresponsibility cannot be tolerated even in times of peace, much less in the middle of an existential struggle.

An inconvenient truth

Really bad timing for the new preisdent:

Al Qaeda says in a statement that Said Ali al-Shihri, released from Guantanamo Bay a year ago, it now its number two man in Yemen.

Yeah, this is about as surprising as another Clippers loss, but I'm just sayin'...

A good start

I have no idea whether Obama will be a good, mediocre or poor president, since he's so inexperienced and such a blank slate. So I will take comfort in any encouraging signs I find, and it's hard to find one much better than this snippet from his inagural speech:

"We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."