joyfulchristian

Have you ever ...

... known someone who made it easier to believe in God?

By that I mean do you know someone who is such an incredible person that it seems impossible that there could be any explanation other than God's handiwork?

I've met a few. Not many, but a few. For them I'm grateful.

I don't know either

Joe Carter wonders why Senators make such poor presidential candidates? It's a good question, but I don't know the answer either.

Also, Joe is taking a hard line on commenter wars.

A lighter note

Heh.

Take responsibility for your actions

I think David Adnesnik has the issue of Kerry's medal throwing exactly right:

As for Kerry's inconsistent comments about the medals during his various Senate races, those aren't really worth bothering with. What really gets me is that on Good Morning America, Kerry tried to pin all the blame for this controversy on the GOP attack machine rather than recognize that his own questionable behavior was responsible for it.

Kerry seems to think that as long as he can point out that his critics are politically motivated that that fact alone will disprove their charges. Until he's capable of understanding that, the motiviations of his critics aside, his own actions and subsequent statements are what opened up this nightmare he will be incapable of dealing with it.

One of the things that amazes me about Kerry is that he seems to prefer equivocation over explanation. Either he was right to throw whatever awards he actually threw, or he wasn't. If he thinks he was right, he should explain to the American people why he was right. If he was wrong, he should say he was wrong, explain how he was wrong, and tell us how and why his position has changed.

Instead, he seems intent on nuancing us to death.

So how do you win a Frank J contest?

Why, kiss up to the judges of course.

Glad Kofi's got his prorities in order

Here we are, terrorists trying to destroy civilization, and what is the head of the great UN worried about? Global warming.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The Iraq war and terrorism have shoved critical environmental problems like global warming and dwindling natural resources out of the world spotlight, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Wednesday.

"However understandable that focus might be, we cannot lose any more time, or ground, in the wider struggle for human well-being. Just as we need balanced development, so do we need a balanced international agenda," the U.N.

*sigh*

Do the liberals not know how they sound?1

I had Neal Boortz's show on the radio for a while this morning. He had a liberal caller on who was defending Saddam Hussein's use of rape and torture as political tools. He actually said, and i'm paraphrasing here, yeah, rape and murder is bad. But it's perfectly understandable because, you know, he's an evil dictator and dictators have to do things like that to stay in power.

Has this guy ever listened to himself? And he's not the only one. Lots of liberals have been saying things like this.

Has it not occurred to these people that if you find yourself defending rape, torture, and murder that maybe, just maybe, you've lost track of the morality of the situation?

¹ The headline originally said "stand" instead of "sound" which wasn't what i meant and didn't make any sense.

Heave ho

..., Bob Kerrey's got to go.

That's the gist of this Michelle Malkin article.

Catapulted back into the limelight thanks to the mass murder of 3,000 innocent men, women, and children, Kerrey took advantage of his terrorist-induced celebrity to appear on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Now, it would be one thing if Kerrey used his privileged position to inform Stewart's younger audience of the gravity of the 9/11 panel's task. But instead, Kerrey yukked it up. First, he dished with Stewart about President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney's upcoming private meeting with the commission. When Stewart mocked the president's "buddy system," Kerrey guffawed: "He is bringing his buddy, that's exactly right, for safety." Emboldened by audience applause, Kerrey riffed that it was more like "Screw you, buddy." Asked by Stewart whether people were really blaming each other over the terrorist attacks during closed hearings, Kerrey snorted: "Oh, [***-***], yeah." More audience approval. (Taking the Lord's name in vain is always good for a few cheap laughs.) (Kerry's referenced taking of the Lord's name omitted by me because I'm not going to print that kind of thing.)

Malkin's right to say that Kerrey needs to go. This commission is supposedly designed to find out why we were unable to prevent 9/11 and make recommendations about how to prevent future attacks. This is a serious matter. Kerrey has proven himself a fundamentally unserious person.

Well, I might post a little after all

Couldn't pass this up:

"Antarctica has been declared U.S. property," the anchorwoman announced, "President Bush saying he rightfully bought it from the natives - the penguins - for a handful of beads. All scientists and penguins still remaining on the South Poll have been herded up and placed in labor camps. The U.N. has quickly condemned this action, the U.S. representative to the U.N. responding by biting Kofi Anan and then swinging from the chandelier. A U.N. peacekeeper was brought in to bring calm... and then proceeded to attack everyone. The name of the peacekeeper has not been released, but reports are that he was angry. Very angry.

"In other news, President Bush is polling even better now against John Kerry who is currently embroiled in a legal battle with D.C. Comics. They have sued John Kerry for unspecified amount for being what they call a "blatant rip-off" of the Batman villain Two-Face..."

Thank you Frank J.

Long day today

I'm exhausted and still have work to do tonight. Probably no free ice cream today. Sorry.

The following post is on a need to know basis

Ghostwit.

If you don't understand, then trust me, you don't need to know.

This could be a big blow to the Kerry Campaign

On Drudge's front page (sorry, there's no individual link for this story) he's got the following:

In an interview published Friday in the LOS ANGELES TIMES, Dem presidential hopeful John Kerry claimed he "never ever implied" that he threw his own medals on the Hill in 1971 to appear as an antiwar hero -- but a new shock video shows John Kerry -- in his own voice -- saying he did!

According to Drudge, Good Morning America is going to run this story tomorrow. For a lot of Americans, the issue of Kerry's medals is already a sensitive subject. I don't know how this is going to fall out, but I'm guessing it's time for damage control mode.

Update: Drudge has a more complete story. I loved this part:

Kerry's campaign refused comment Sunday afternoon, citing a policy not to respond to the DRUDGE REPORT.

Heh.

Eroding freedom

Madsen Pirie notes a disturbing element of government provided collective services.

Resolve beats nuance

Mark Steyn explains one of Kerry's big problems:

That's the problem for the Democrats. If ''resolve'' is the issue, can you beat it with ''nuance''? If I had to name the definitive Kerry campaign headline it would be this, from Britain's (left-wing, Kerry-backing) Guardian last week: ''Kerry Says His 'Family' Owns SUV, Not He.'' That Chevy Suburban in the yard has nothing to do with him. Who you gonna believe? A respected senator or your lying eyes?

His statement is true in the sense that his ''family'' (i.e., Teresa) also owns the house and the grounds, and indeed a big chunk of his presidential campaign. But it's hard to claim that your powers of diplomatic persuasion would have won over the French and Germans when you can't even win over your ''family.'' And do Americans want to hand over responsibility for Iraq to someone who won't even take responsibility for the car in his driveway?

That is the issue, isn't it?

I love satire

I just stumbled across the blog BlameBush! and I've got to say that it's hilarious. For instance:

After weeks of skyrocketing gas prices, John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam Veteran, was "incensed and outraged" over the possibility that Bush will lower gas prices just in time for the elections.

"Fo' shizzle mah nizzle, I'm incensed and outraged," Kerry told a crowd of teenagers at a "Get Out the Vote" rave this week. "If Bush had any sense of fairness, he'd keep gas prices high until after November. Word!"

Kerry, who has been running on a "The economy's collapsing, and we're all gonna die!" platform, has good cause to be suspicuous. As most people know, the pricing signs at every gas station across the country are wired directly to a switch in the Oval Office. When Shrub wants to grease his rich oil buddies for more campaign contributions, he thrusts the switch forward and gas shoots up 50 cents a gallon. When he wants to score political points just in time for the election, he eases the switch back and prices go down. When gas prices don't change at all for a while, it's because Bush is so hungover that he can't lift his arms high enough to reach the switch. So, in effect, when gas prices are up, it's Bush's fault. When gas prices are down, it's Bush's fault. If gas prices remain the same: Bush's fault. From the damn of history, the Bush family has been in complete control of what we pay at the pumps.

Until now.

Go ahead. You know you want to read the rest.

Does anyone know the answer to this question?

Over the last 12 hours I've gotten a number of hits from people trying to figure out if Pat Tillman was a Christian. I have no idea, although based on everything I've heard about the man, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

Left of liberal?

A friend pointed out this Flying Space Monkey post that can help you spot such critters.

I am so very, very tired ...

... of sending our young men and women off to die to fix everyone else's problems.

With the death of Pat Tillman, I couldn't help but think of John Hawkins incredible essay, "Confessions Of An Isolationist Wannabe":¹

Rarely a day passes on the internet without another article being written that claims America is a "hegemon", that we're like "like Rome," or that we want to "create an empire." Take it from a Conservative, ultra-nationalistic, America-first hawk; Americans on the whole would rather drive bamboo shoots under their fingernails than "rule the world."

To the contrary, isolationism is so ingrained in the American culture that it might as well be genetic. You have no idea how much I, like most Americans, would enjoy totally withdrawing from the world.

But let's face it, the United States is mired in every region of the globe. We protect Taiwan from China & South Korea from their belligerent former countrymen in North Korea. We still even protect Japan and have countless military bases in Europe for crying out loud.

Don't even get me started on the Middle East. The amount of aid we give to nations in the region and the amount we've spent on military conflicts and maintaining the peace over there is staggering. But if we were buying oil from Iraq today instead of Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia would it make that much of a difference? It would be so tempting just to bring our troops home and find out.

Every time I see a disingenuous representative of the Saudi government talking about how much his government loves the US or some stupid Palestinian blowing himself up while his mother declares that he's a hero, I just want to wash my hands of the whole damn planet. And to be able to let Africa and Latin America fend for themselves would be a dream as well. You don't how much I'd love to hear Bush say, "Well I guess Zimbabwe and Argentina created their own problems so it's their responsibility to come up with a solution." Oh and how sweet it would be to tell the United Nations and everyone in the EU except for Britain to take a hike. Let them figure out how to deal with the next Somalia or Bosnia without our help.

John is so very right here. I know of very few Americans who have any desire to keep sending our military off all around the world fixing everyone else's problems. Who in their right mind, after all, would enjoy the thought of spending so much blood and treasure to protect other people and fix their problems?

So why do we keep doing it? Well, the first reason is that we, as a nation founded and grown by misfits and outcasts have a natural affinity for the oppressed and downtrodden. Secondly, we don't seem to have any choice; every time we try to leave the rest of the world alone, things end up blowing up in our backyard.

America stayed out of World War I for a long time because we didn't feel it affected us. Washington's warning to "avoid entangling alliances" is almost a siren song for the American soul. All we really want is to be left alone. When the conflict finally grew to the point that it couldn't be be ignored, most Americans who supported the war did so because they were promised that it was the "War to End All Wars."

In the decades that followed, America withdrew from the world again. After all, people thought, haven't we done our part to put things right? Haven't we sacrificed enough to show the rest of the world how futile this stupidity is. So when Hitler and Hirohito begain their relentless march, most American's placed themselves firmly in the "do-nothing" camp. FDR was not the great domestic visionary the Democratic Party likes to pretend he is, but when it came to the new war, he was one of the few Americans capable of understanding how bad things were. The average American simply refused to understand.

And they kept right on refusing until a few thousand of our soldiers and much of our Navy found themselves at the bottom of a harbor in Hawaii. Only then did we re-learn the lesson that when the rest of the world screws up big enough, we always end up paying for it no matter how hard we try to stay out of the way. So we sent our boys off to fight and die again. Off to risk their lives to fix somebody else's problems so we could be left in peace again.

This time the lesson held, at least with those in authority. We stuck around in the outside world much longer this time. We rebuilt Germany and Japan in our image so as to minimize the risk that this would happen again. And we formed Nato. Formally, this was a mutual protection pact. Realisitically, Nato was as much about keeping the American people, and therefore America itself, engaged with with western Europe enough to be able to keep the Soviet Union at bay. In other words, it was as much about PR in the US as it was about military cooperation.

And for a long while, we stayed involved. And eventually, through engagement, we were able to beat the Soviet Union without ever engaging in direct conflict. Yes, we'd fought some proxy wars. And yes, they'd cost us dearly. But it didn't cost us as much as it could have if we'd waited to get involved until we had no choice.

This made us feel pretty good about ourselves. Good enough that for a few short years, we decided that being pro-active wasn't all that bad. So, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, most of us knew, without question that we needed to go kick him out. Sure, because of the strategic value of the oil fields, doing so was in the best interest of our economy. But even more, it was just the right thing to do. Saddam was in the wrong and he had to be stopped. Comparisons to Hitler abounded and the phrase "Never Again" was on a lot of people's lips. If we just stand by, he'll eventually march across the whole middle east. And then, who knows what he'll do. No, we decided; we've got to nip this in the bud.

And we did. And then we were feeling really good about this whole intervention thing because it had worked pretty well, all things concerned. So when Bush 41 ordered troops to Somalia to protect civilians from the warlords shortly before the end of his Presidency, most people I knew weren't exactly happy about it, but there weren't very many complaints. After all, it seemed like the right thing to do and this involvement thing seemed to be working.

And that feeling lasted right up until the day that two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down and we saw images of United States soldiers being dragged through the street. At which point we gave the rest of the world a big #$*(&@#(*&*(#&@#(*&$(A*@#&$*(@&#(*$&#*% that! If you didn't want our help, you could have just said so. And we withdrew and did our best to keep our heads down for a while.

When brutal ethnic cleansing started up in the former Yugoslavia, we ignored it for as long as we could. Only reluctantly did we decide to stop it. And when we finally did move, we were reluctant to bring much force to bear. That reluctance has meant that we never have really fixed the problem. When similar slaughter happened in Rwanda, we pretty much did ignore it. Our desire to leave the rest of the world alone if they'd only leave us alone was so great that without our European allies screaming for help like they did in Bosnia, we just couldn't muster enough care about the rest of the world to overcome our isolationist tendencies.

We desired so much to be left alone that when the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993, we shrugged. Our barracks were bombed in Saudi Arabia and we shrugged. Embassies in Africa were bombed, and we shrugged again. Suicide bombers attacked the USS COle, and again we shrugged.

And we kept right on shrugging until those planes brought down the World Trade Center. Finally, after nearly a decade of us doing our best to ignore the rest of the world, the rest of the world had managed to screw itself up so badly that we just couldn't ignore it any more. So now, we've woken up again. We've decided, once again, to try to fix one of the world's biggest problems and people like Pat Tillman are fighting and losing their lives to do just that.

And the rest of the world looks at us and sneers. We're being heavy handed, they claim. We want to impose a Pax Americana, they claim. We have imperialist ambitions they tell anyone who will listen.

They fail to understand this fundamental truth: we dont' want to do any of this. What we want is to be left alone and to leave the rest of the world alone. For the average American, the only contact desired with the outside world is to sell them cool stuff and buy their cool stuff. (That's a paraphrase of something else John Hawkins said somewhere.)

The problem is that every time we try to do that SOMETHING BLOWS UP IN OUR BACKYARD. If the rest of the world wants America to leave them alone, all they have to do is fix their own problems for once. If we thought we could disengage ourselves from the rest of the world without having to fear that we'd wake up one day to find Chicago missing, we'd probably do just that.

I am so very, very tired of reading stories about Pat Tillman, Brad Shuder, and so many others. All I want is to be able to call every man and woman in our military back home and tell them that they've done enough, and they're not going to have to die for us any more. I'm so sick of the blood and the worrying and the waiting and the flow of coffins from places I can't pronounce.

I just want to bring them all home and let the world fix it's own problems. They claim they can do this better than us any way. It's uncharitable, since I know they can't, but a huge part of me just wants to say, "Fine! Do it yourselves then." And to be honest, the reason I don't say that isn't because of some great fear for the rest of the world. It's because I'd very much like to not wake up one day and find out that San Diego became a giant crater over night.

So, since we can't afford to disentangle ourselves in the war, all I can do is thank the men like Pat Tillman who gave their all to defend us.

¹ If you haven't read this whole essay stop whatever you're doing and go read it now. It excellently describes the frustration a lot of Americans feel.

Update: Thanks to Mark Butterworth for pointing out that the link to Hawkin's essay was missing. That's been corrected.

Tell me again why we need a draft

One of the things that really bothers me about people who claim we need a draft is that they don't even feel the need to explain why they don't think we can enlarge the military through recruitment. (Of course some support a draft not for security reasons, but for social planning. That argument is misguided, but at least it doesn't rest on the idea that we can't recruit all the soldiers we need.) The reason that this bothers me so much is that the premise they don't feel the need to prove doesn't appear to be true:

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) - Despite the shrapnel wounds Staff Sgt. William Pinkley suffered during his tour in Iraq, the 26-year-old is joining other soldiers who are re-enlisting at rates that exceed the retention goals set by the Pentagon.

As of March 31 - halfway through the Army's fiscal year - 28,406 soldiers had signed on for another tour of duty, topping the six-month goal of 28,377. The Army's goal is to re-enlist 56,100 soldiers by the end of September.

Pinkley re-enlisted for three more years, citing the camaraderie and the challenge of a new assignment.

"To come out and work with you guys every day, it's a good feeling," Pinkley, 26, told his 101st Airborne Division buddies during the ceremony earlier this month. His wife, Kimberly, watched with a smile, their toddler in her arms.

"It's a very positive retention picture at this point," said Lt. Col. Franklin Childress, an Army public affairs officer. The Army had nearly a half-million active-duty soldiers.

Now it's true that this trend could change, but for now there's simply no reason to assume that we need a draft to maintain our force strength. For that matter, based on the numbers I've been seeing, there's every reason to believe we could increase our force strength (which I believe a very good idea) strictly through recruitment.

On the list of things that I don't understand

... is the question of why George Bush has endorsed Arlen Specter, the supposedly Republican Senator from Pennsylvania. Deacon at Powerline lays out the case for voting Specter out.

We owe a great debt

I don't really have a category to cover this. Two years ago Pat Tillman turned down more than $3 million from the Arizona Cardinals so that he could join the army with his brother. That was an incredible sacrifice. Today, he gave up a lot more.

Pat Tillman was apparently killed in Afghanistan yesterday. He was a true hero and patriot.

Update: Michael Goldfarb has some timely remarks.

Another Update: I've been cruising around the blogosphere and I've seen a lot more tributes to Tillman. I'm not going to try linking them all because at the moment they're really not at all hard to find. The reason I bring it up is because I'm amazed at how much this has affected me. I've broken down and cried like a baby 3 or 4 times in the last hour while reading about him. The level of self-sacrifice required for anyone to give up a large part of their lives, especially if they have lucrative opportunities, for the opportunity to risk their lives for their country is something that never fails to move me.

Since 9/11 several hundred of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines have lost their lives in combat. Each and every one of them died for you and me. And what's more, they chose this life. We must never forget that.

Tim Layden describes what kind of person Pat Tillman was. (Link via Jeff Taylor.)

Prayer request

I found out yesterday that my great-uncle, Albert Mayfield, has had what they're calling a "mild" mild heart attack. He's been having heart and breathing troubles for quite some time. I saw him last month during when I went home for my cousin's wedding and he told me he can hardly ever sleep any more. My grandmother wrote me yesterday that he looks and acts just like my grandfather did in the months leading up to the heart attack that took his life.

Albert is the youngest brother of my mom's father and the only one of my great-uncles that I know well. He is one of the kindest men I've ever known. When I was in high school he almost single handedly built added an upstairs bedroom to our house so both my sisters could have their own rooms. And he was always doing stuff like that for people. (When he wasn't adding new rooms to his own house.) I can't remember a time when he wasn't there helping anyone in our family who needed help.

I'm afraid that he won't be with us much longer. But when I see how much he's hurting, I'm even more afraid that he will be.

Any way, any prayers on his behalf would be greatly appreciated.

How awful

This is hard to even imagine:

April 23 (Bloomberg) -- As many as 3,000 people were killed or injured after two trains carrying fuel shipments collided and exploded in North Korea, Yonhap new agency reported. The U.S. offered to send humanitarian aid.

The isolationist communist country cut international telephone lines after the explosion to prevent the news from getting out, South Korea's Yonhap said, citing unidentified Chinese sources it didn't identify. There's been no mention of the disaster on North Korea's Central News Agency.

A cargo train carrying oil and liquid petroleum gas crashed into a second train at about 2 p.m. yesterday, Korean time, destroying the station at the city of Ryonchon, about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from the Chinese border city of Dandong.

The collision occurred nine hours after a train carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Il home from talks with Chinese leaders in Beijing passed through Ryonchon, Yonhap said.

There are three things about this story. The first is that thousands of people have lost their lives. That is a great tragedy and while it's doubtful that very many people in North Korea are reading the internet, I want to express my condolences.

The second is that the North Korean government is apparently trying to pretend the whole thing didn't happen. They're also apparently ignoring offers for help. This is also tragic and who knows how many lives will be lost from this eyes closed approach.

Third, this explosion happened at a train station "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il had passed through shortly before. It's hard not to wonder if this "accident" was aimed at him.

I agree with Nancy Pelosi

There, I said it. But only on this one issue:

The House on Thursday took up legislation that would require the holding of special elections within 45 days of the speaker confirming that a terrorist attack or other catastrophic event had left at least 100 seats vacant in the 435-seat body.

The bill, said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., was "one part of a comprehensive strategy of preparing for the unthinkable."

But House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the measure was inadequate. At present, she said, "we are prepared to pray very hard that nothing happens."

Supporters, led by Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., say the legislation's approach would assure the House's rapid recovery while preserving a heritage in which every member of the House is an elected representative.

But critics argue that this could leave Congress in a political vacuum for weeks at a time of terrible crisis. Democrats say the GOP leadership has denied them the chance to discuss other alternatives, including constitutional amendments that would allow for temporary appointments before elections could be held.

In this case, the Democrats are right. Currently, as I understand it, special elections to fill House Seats are to be held within 90 days of the seat being vacated. This bill cuts that number in half, which is a good thing. However, in a catastrophic case, say one in which more than 200 members of the House had been killed or wounded, the House would be in danger of being unable to meet quorum. If that were to happen, everything would grind to a halt. We would not¹ be even be able to declare war.

What we need is a Constitutional amendment which would allow state governors to write temporary writs of election in cases in which more than 50 seats are simultaneously vacant.

¹This post did not have the "not" in that sentence originally. My helpful editor pointed that out. My editor also pointed out that the President could begin hostilities without Congressional approval for a limited amount of time under the War Powers Act. And while that's true, War Declarations are important for morale as well as legal purposes. Also, it's possible that we wouldn't have sufficient funds authorized for major action with Congressional approval.

Has anyone noticed

... that Chuck Hagel is starting to sound like Charlie Rangel. At least where the horrible idea of a draft is concerned. I was going to address this issue, but it's inconceivable that I could address this issue anywhere near as well as Donald Sensing did. Just read what he said.

I'll only add that I believe we need a bigger military. I suspect that we need at least two full armored divisions plus a lot of other land forces. And I'm generally of the opinion that you can never have too many airplanes and ships. However, there is simply no reason to use a draft to expand the military unless you've already tried and failed to recruit sufficient volunteers.

I think that Sensing is quite right when he say that advocates of the draft are not primarily, if at all, actually worried about national security.

So what exactly does Karl Rove believe in?

Over the last few years I've heard lots of people from both sides of the aisle accuse Karl Rove of all manner of horrible things and attributed to him all sorts of crass motives. It occurs to me that there's one motive I've never heard Rove accused of: ideology.

Which make me wonder, does Rove even have any deeply held political beliefs or ideas? I've never heard of him expounding on an any and I don't recall anyone ever claiming to know what they are. So, can anyone give me an example, any example, of a political decision that Karl Rove has made based on his own ideological considerations?

For the last few days ...

... Type Pad has been randomly putting stuff in bold. Sometimes my blogroll is in bold; sometimes it's not. Sometimes blockquotes are in bold; sometimes they're not.

I've been searching high and low for an open blockquote tag somewhere, but I can't find it. Any advice would be appreciated.

On media negativity

Yesterday I mentioned the fatal car crash involving former Congressman Wes Watkins. In my search yesterday, I found several stories mentioning the crash, including one on the New York Times (via AP). Many of those stories mentioned that the DA had suggested that it was "likely" that he would file a misdemeanor negligent homicide charge against Watkins.

What I didn't see in any of those stories was the fact that the DA had yet to even interview those involved when he made those comments. Further, I heard this morning that the DA announced he would not file charges after all. (The right choice as far as I can tell from all the information available to me. This was a tragic accident, but an accident was all that it was.) In my search today, just two days after the crash and the day the DA reversed course, I can't find a single new story.

I bring this up not because I think there's any sort of conspiracy to mistreat Watkins, but because I believe this incident is indicative of a broader problem. It seems like in almost any story, the media will rush to report the worst possible version of events as soon as possible. And then they forget about the story. The result is that all the average person hears is the bad news reported almost immediately. If, a few days or weeks later evidence comes to light that shows that things weren't nearly so bad, the chances the press will update the public is slim.

On a more somber subject, in my previous post, using inferences from media reports, I stated that the deceased couple had two children. However, from what I hear around town, they actually had 5 children, 3 of whom were adopted. So they're are 5 orphans from this family, 3 of them apparently for the second time. A lot of lives have been dramatically changed for the worse. Neither Watkins, the other drivers in this bizarre crash, nor especially these children will ever be the same again. Keep them in your prayers.

Hey, does anyone else ...

... have a friend who sends so many forwards that your tempted to put him on your block list?

I mention this cause i've gotten about 8 of those silly forwards in the past 10 minutes from the same high school friend. They're coming so fast and furious that I'd be shocked if he's actually reading them before forwarding them.

Jonah Goldberg asks this ...

... this campaign's million dollar question:

Again: Why is it fair game to question conservatives' love or loyalty to children or to their fellow man, but beyond the pale to question liberals' love of country?

You've got me, but that is the game the liberals try to play.

And while we're at it, let's take a look at this:

In February, when Ed Gillespie, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, listed the number of defense programs Kerry opposed — the MX missile, the B-1 bomber, the Tomahawk missile, the Apache helicopter, the Patriot missile, the Harrier jet, and the F-15 fighter aircraft -Kerry's campaign manager immediately replied, "Today, RNC chair Ed Gillespie made another desperate attack on the patriotism of John Kerry."

I didn't bring this paragraph up to talk about the patriotism point again. I want to talk about judgment. Just look at that list; if John Kerry had had his way, we wouldn't have a military.

An excellent question

Often the best way to determine if something is a good idea is to ask, "What if everyone did it? That's pretty close to the question Eugene Volokh is asking about habeas petitions for those at Guatanamo:

Let's say that we weren't dealing with several hundred detainees, but with tens or hundreds of thousands, as was the case during World War II. If one of them has the right to petition for habeas corpus, then all the others would, too (since the habeas claims, such as "I'm not really an enemy soldier," would involve different facts for each person). Courts would have an obligation to consider each petition. Presumably the government would have an obligation to respond to the factual allegations (unless the factual allegations are clearly insufficient). Since each case would focus so closely on the factual claims, it wouldn't be enough for government lawyers to submit boilerplate responses -- they'd have to also interview soldiers (some of whom might still be out in the field) who can testify to the circumstances of the person's capture.

As usual, Eugene has hit the nail on the head. There's simply no way that it's practical to allow such a thing. And if it's not right for a hundred thousand, it's not right for a few hundred either.

Actually, you could take this even further. Say we were to allow such a thing. Wouldn't it then be possible that an enemy nation might attempt to recruit people for the specific purpose of getting caught and over burdening our system?

Slow news day?

I've tried really hard today to find ANYTHING to write about. Haven't found anything yet that does anything for me. Oh well.

Heavy heart

My former Congressman, Wes Watkins was involved in a traffic accident yesterday. Two people died and several were injured.

Two children are now orphans. Pray for that family.

Pray for Watkins too. I know him and he's a good friend of my boss. He's a good man and this has got to be tearing him up.

I've heard a more detailed account of the accident than has appeared in any news report I've seen and the wreck was a series of rather improbable collisions from what I've heard.

Cosmetic changes

If you're re-reading any of the last several posts you may notice some small grammatical changes. My editor has been hard at work again. Thanks editor.

A new adventure

I agree with Josh Chafetz that OpinionDuel.com is a good idea. It's a joint venture by National Review and The New Republic. The site is going to offer writers from both magazines an opportunity to debate the issues in a common forum.

However, at present there doesn't appear to be anyway to link to specific writings. Of course, so far each magazine has only posted one item, so maybe that will change. Hopefully it will, because otherwise the utility of the site will be next to nothing.

An excellent point

Joe Carter reminds us that at least part of the violence in Iraq is due to the fact that Saddam released the entire criminal population of Iraq just before the invasion. How much of the violence occurring there is from ordinary criminal activity from these convicts and how much of it is due to actual insurgency is hard to tell. All the more so because, as Joe notes, no one in the media or in government appears to have addressed this issue. At least not publicly.

Why not

I've seen this several places, so when I saw Jack Rich doing it, I figured I might as well too:

1. Grab the nearest book. 2. Open the book to page 23. 3. Find the fifth sentence. 4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

As it happens, the nearest book to me at the moment is the Jewish Publication Society's The Jewish Study Bible. Page 23 is in the middle of Genesis 7. The fifth full sentence is verse 12:

The rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

The nearest nonreligious text is Star Wars, The New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force. Page 23, sentence 5 reads:

C-3PO summoned as much indignation as his protocol programming allowed.

I'm assuming the manual for my new wireless router doesn't count as a book.

Updating the blogroll

You may have noticed that I've trimmed the blogroll down some. Doesn't mean I have any problems with any of the blogs I removed. It's just that the blogs I took off no longer post about things that interest me. In some cases that's cause they changed; in other cases I've changed. And in a couple of cases the blog simply disappeared without warning. (Or at least I didn't see the warning.)

Anyway, my blogrolls are predominatly about what I want to read. I realize that some people put together blog lists in order to highlight people they think need more attention, but I doubt that I have enough traffic to make a difference. I use my blogroll to be easily able to find what I want to read. If I no longer want to read it, it's probably time to take it off.

Qatar is getting better

Steven Stalinsky says that the Arab world would do well to follow Qatar's example. He's got a point; Qatar certainly isn't perfect, but they've shown a desire to reform and have taken steps toward representative government without someone holding a gun to their head. That's rare enough in the Arab world to deserve praise.

Ouch

Michael Ledeen explains who the terrorists and Baathists think we are and what we're doing that feeds those perceptions.

Ahh, good old Reuters

..., the "news service":

GAZA (Reuters) - "It was Bush."

The verdict was near unanimous amid the tears and rage on Palestinian streets after Israel killed Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi in an air strike Saturday that many Arabs felt President Bush (news - web sites) must have approved.

"Bush has Rantissi's blood on his hands," said Khamis Saadi, among tens of thousands who swept into Gaza's shabby streets.

"All doors to hell should be opened against the Israelis and against the Americans," he cried.

U.S. officials denied giving a green light to Israel.

Rantissi was a mass murderer. He didn't commit the murders by his own hand, but he ordered the deaths of who knows how many innocents. It wouldn't bother me in the slightest to find out that Sharon had asked Bush, "Mind if we kill Rantissi?' and tha Bush had answered, "Go for it."

Sadly, I don't believe that's what happened. While the President has been supportive of Israel, he has shown a striking inability to understand that the Israelis have been fighting the same fight for 50 years that we've been fighting for the last 2 1/2. If we spotted Osama driving through the hills of Pakistan or Afghanistan, I have little doubt that Bush would order an attack. But I seriously doubt he would have approved this.

Not to fear, the Bush hating Palestinians have another theory:

But Palestinians, fuming over unprecedented concessions Bush gave Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) last week for a Gaza pullout plan, felt Rantissi's killing was just another action in the same vein.

Sharon's Palestinian counterpart, Ahmed Qurie, called it "a direct result of American encouragement and the complete bias of the American administration toward the Israeli government."

The United States has always been a target of Palestinian and Arab ire because of its close relations with Israel.

But Bush's statement that Israel could expect to keep chunks of the West Bank seized in the 1967 Middle East war and ruled out a return of refugees to what is now Israel was felt by many Palestinians as a death blow for dreams of a real state.

"Bush freed the hands of Sharon to do whatever he liked with the Palestinian people, to kill their leaders and to confiscate their land," said one mourner in Gaza called Hammad.

By this logic, several EU ministers and presidents are "directly responsible" for the explosion of pizza parlors in Israel.

Meanwhile, no one has the guts to call Arafat a mass murderer. I will. Arafat is not a freedom fighter. He is a petty thug. A thief who's squirreled away millions, if not billions of dollars intended as humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people. And he is a murderer.

And taking out Hamas leaders is all well and good, but avoids the most fundamental problem. I hate to say something like this, but I've said it before and I'll probably say it again: There can be no peace as long as Arafat lives.

Random Rambling

Hmm, I still can't work up any remorse over Rantissi's death.

***

A few weeks ago my VCR stopped playing. It claims it's playing, but all you can see is static. In fact, if you hit fast forward while playing, you see really fast static. This has been a bit of a problem. That's because I really like Law & Order: Criminal Intent. (Which is basically a cross between Law & Order and Columbo, except that Columbo didn't have an attractive female partner. Additionally, a friend of mine has got me watching Alias now. Unfortunately both these shows usually occupy the same time slot. I haven't worried about it too much cause most of the Criminal Intent shows the last few weeks have been reruns.

However, due to the President's press conference the other evening, 24 has now been pushed to Sunday at 8 Central as well. Clearly, without a VCR I'm going to seriously miss something as both the Alias and 24 are new. I don't know if Criminal Intent is new or not, but considering NBC's penchant for filling roughly 1/4 of all of primetime with various Law & Order series, I'm relatively confident I'll get to see it eventually. 24 and Alias are different stories.

Consequently, I'm probably going to go buy a new VCR today. I've seen RCA models with commercial skip online for as little as $65. (Even less refurbished.) I don't know if I can do that well at a store, but since I need it today, I may not have much choice. Unless I can't find one for any where near that price, I'll probably just break down and buy one.

***

Because of my health problems, I haven't been able to play one of my favorite games, disc golf, for a couple of years. Today I decided to go out and practice my driving. Now, granted, we have a pretty high wind today (Well, high for Stillwater anyway. I grew up in the Texas Panhandle. In Amarillo the trees pretty much all lean to the northwest from the constant wind [I'm not kidding.] and umbrellas are useless cause it usually rains horizontally.), but that doesn't even begin to account for how unbelievably bad I was. My form was HORRIBLE. I was actually feeling almost OK about my drives when I was going fairly much with the wind, but when I turned around and went the other way it was obvious that my form was pretty much nonexistent. YIKES!

Hopefully I'll have more opportunity to practice. Maybe I'll even find time and partners so I can play. (You can play by yourself, but unless you've got other people to engage in mutual razzing with it's just not as fun.)

***

Hope everyone's having a great day.

Update: Couldn't find an RCA, but I got a 4 head Sanyo with commercial skip for $60. Not bad.

Good question

So I was watching the Avs-Stars game and one of the announcers asked, "Why do "slim chance" and "fat chance" mean the same thing?

The answer, as far as I know, is that "slim chance" is meant to be straight up while "fat chance" is meant to be sarcastic.

Yeah, I'm sure y'all cared.

I know that I shouldn't take joy in death

... but somehow I can't even find any shame in the fact that my first response to thiswas "Woo-hoo":

An Israeli missile strike killed Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantissi (search) on Saturday in a strike on his car, hospital officials said. Rantisi’s son Mohammed and a bodyguard also were killed in the attack, the officials said.

For those of you that don't know, Rantissi is also known as "The Pediatrician of Death." He is personally responsible for the planning of numerous terrorist attacks. I shan't mourn his passing in the slightest.

On another note, this marks the second time in a matter of weeks that the Israeli's have taken out the current top man of Hamas. The last time Hamas threatened retribution so great it would seem like a natural disaster, but I haven't noticed any real increase in the number of attacks. I'm sure Hamas will make similar threats this time. But so what? Hamas is already committed, as a matter of principle, to the complete eradication of the nation of Israel. It's not actually possible to make them more dangerous by making them angrier. And some how I doubt that Hamas is like a Hydra. If they cut off the head enough times, eventually this body will die.

Faster please.

Update: David Bernstein says, "It's nice when cosmic justice and individual preferences can both be satisfied."

This refers to Rantissi's statement that he would prefer to die "by Apache." As David says, it's a win-win.

Woohoo! Tax day is gone

Another tax season is behind me. (Although, contrary to popular belief, I still have plenty of taxes to do.) So how did I spend this morning? Getting a colonoscopy of course! Wasn't that fun? [Ed: That was sarcasm in case you didn't know.]

But this afternoon I'm supposed to be watching Braveheart with a friend. I expect that to be more relaxing. Tomorrow I'm going to try to do something about the mess certain parts of my house have become over the last couple of months.

After that, my life should begin to calm down. Blogging will return to normal as soon as I figure out what, exactly, normal is anyway.

Free at last, free at last ...

... (I think you probably remember how the quote goes)

Woohoo! Tax season is over for me! Fortunately, the Stillwater Post Office doesn't do any of that staying open late on tax day nonsense. That means we don't have to sit around our office waiting for those last few stragglers. The extensions are filed and I'm out of another tax season.

Yay!

And while I'm thinking about it, I want to say thanks to Stephen for his words of encouragement.

Remind me again why I'm a tax accountant?

Most of the time, I like taxes. But when I'm working a 14 hour day on the 14th, it's really hard to remember why.

Oh well, almost there!

Wow, the country/state must be doing really well

The lead story on the news broadcast I just switched off of was that kids were getting left behind at bus stops. If that's the best they can come up with, I assume the world must now be nearing perfection. (Unless, of course, you happen to be a kid who isn't getting left behind.)

I don't usually post about sports

But a friend of mine is really jazzed, so I thought I'd mention it:

DALLAS (AP) -- Two games and 2{ periods into their first-round matchup, the Colorado Avalanche seemed to be toying with the Dallas Stars.

Then things turned serious for Colorado. And the Avalanche couldn't respond.

Philippe Boucher scored the tying goal with 4:27 left in regulation, then Steve Ott won it with a breakaway goal off a neutral-zone steal 2:11 into overtime, giving Dallas a 4-3 victory Monday night that revives the Stars' chances in the series.

I'm not really in to hockey, but being a native Texan, I always like it when Texas teams win in overtime.

Happy, happy, joy-joy

Susanna has an idea for how to deal with PETA's obscene behavior:

PETA's headquarters are in Norfolk, VA. I wonder if we could get a permit to have a street fair outside it? One that features all kinds of barbeque, meat tasting booths, leather and bone crafts, and a contest where the biggest pig wins a prize from a meat company - and is taken off to become the next ham on your plate.

The rest is just as funny. I would LOVE to attend that fair.