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August 31, 2006

Deep thoughts

Joe Sherlock asks the question that needs to be asked.

If e-mail spam really works, how come you don't see guys walking down the street with a fake Rolex, a giant erection and a newly-financed mortgage? And with all that Nigerian reward money, why would you need any mortgage at all? And wouldn't you buy a real Rolex?

But would they be walking down the street? Or would they be pole-vaulting?

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 30, 2006

Tuesday, 6:14 p.m., in my backyard


Casio EX-S600, 1/500, f2.6, underexposed 1.67 stops, no flash.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:32 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

August 29, 2006

The disaster that never ends

As the press subjects us to a deluge of stories marking the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, every so often we get a reminder that -- contrary to the ravings of the Moonbats and Spike Lee -- it was the pathetic leadership of New Orleans that was (and still is) responsible for the terrible toll on the "Chocolate City."*

Remember how hundreds of buses sat in flooded parking lots, because New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin didn't order them used to evacuate the residents -- black and white -- who were trapped in the city before the hurricane hit?

The incompetence isn't limited to the mayor. Let's say you're the New Orleans City Council president. And let's say that you've got an opportunity to appear on one of the top-rated national weekly news shows to discuss the terrible time your city is having recovering from the disaster.

And let's also say that this is an opportunity for you to tell the national audience what New Orleans is doing in case Hurricane Ernesto makes a turn to the West.

So, what do you do with this opportunity?

Well, take a look at what host Chris Wallace said on Fox News Sunday.

We promised you an interview with New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas, but he apparently overslept this morning. Not only did he not make it to our studio for this interview, but we also understand that he missed a briefing on Hurricane Ernesto this morning.

Folks, I was watching when Wallace said this, and I have to tell you, I had quite a chuckle at the feckless incompetence of the so-called New Orleans leadership.

As GOP Bloggers said, "At some level, voters deserve what they get. The price of Katrina was higher than anybody should pay, but voters have to think clearly about the people they put into positions of power and trust."

Now that's democracy in action.

*"Chocolate City" was Mayor Nagin's ludicrous description of N'awlins, not mine.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 28, 2006

Irony, thy name is Indonesia

Apparently, if one pretends to be something other than a Jew, doors that are otherwise closed may be opened.

Former [Israeli member of Parliament] and Haaretz journalist Yossi Sarid has declined an official offer from the Norwegian government to grant him citizenship so he can attend an international conference on freedom of expression and tolerance in Bali, Indonesia. His invitation was rescinded because he is Israeli.

Three months ago, Sarid was invited by the Norwegian foreign ministry to attend the Global Inter-Media Dialog in Bali, which is being co-sponsored by the prime minister of Norway and the president of Indonesia. Sarid was among 60 journalists invited to take part in the conference, whose stated goal is "bridging gaps between different religions, cultures and peoples."

However, three weeks ago the Norwegian embassy in Israel informed Sarid that Indonesia refuses to grant him a visa "in the existing circumstances." According to Sarid, the Norwegian foreign ministry assured him that a solution would be found since Norway considers it "a matter of principle."

On Friday the Norwegians offered their solution: Sarid could travel to Indonesia on a Norwegian passport.On Saturday, Sarid rejected the offer in a letter addressed to the Indonesian president and Norwegian prime minister.

"I almost fell out of my chair with astonishment," wrote Sarid in reference to the offer. "The more thought I gave to the offer, the angrier I became? I have no other country and I have no other nationality. No self-respecting person in the world, no person who respects his nationality, would accept such a twisted offer."

Honestly, in my lifetime I've never seen such undisguised anti-semitism. And the complacency of the liberal Jewish intelligentsia reminds me of nothing so much as the Germans who believed that their assimilation was so complete, Western Civilization's culture so advanced, that the rantings of the Austrian paperhanger could be safely dismissed as mere campaign claptrap.

Well, we all know how that turned out.

Kudos to Mr. Sarid for having the courage to tell the Norwegians and the Indonesians what they can do with their "solution."

He called on the other journalists to cancel their participation in the conference; wanna make another bet? Did anyone else refuse to attend?

I didn't thinks so.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Movie director, Jew hater

Another Hollywood denizen opens his mouth and gives voice to the anti-semite within.

British director Ken Loach has expressed support for a boycott on Israeli cultural institutions, giving the Palestinian figures behind the drive a significant boost.

Loach, who won the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival three months ago for his film about the Irish war of independence, The Wind the Shakes the Barley, has announced his support for the appeal to boycott Israeli institutions and even said that he urges others to do the same.

"Palestinians are driven to call for this boycott after forty years of the occupation of their land, destruction of their homes and the kidnapping and murder of their civilians," said Loach in a statement.

"They have no immediate hope that this oppression will end. As British citizens we have to acknowledge our own responsibility. We must condemn the British and U.S. governments for supporting and arming Israel."

Loach, who directed such well-regarded films as Kes, Riff-Raff, and Carla's Song, also attacked his own government.

"We must also oppose the terrorist activities of the British and U.S. governments in pursuing their illegal wars and occupations," he said.

"It is impossible to ignore the appeals of Palestinian comrades," he concluded, adding that, "I would decline any invitation to the Haifa Film Festival or other such occasions."

Loach had received an invitation from the Haifa Film Festival in recent weeks. The director

The statement by Loach indicates that he is joining the ranks of international film festivals that have cancelled the participation of Israeli filmmakers, in the wake of IDF recent activity in Lebanon and Gaza.

The Lussas Documentary Film Festival in France was scheduled to devote a category this year to Israeli documentary cinema, but cancelled screenings of several of the films, following the outbreak of the fighting.

Shameful. Ignorant, hateful and apalling.

How dare those Jews Israelis defend themselves.

Here's the best part. Loach is an unrepentant Socialist/Communist.

Would you care to join me in a small wager? Want to bet on whether he's ever condemned the millions of innocent Russians killed by Stalin? The Cambodians slaughtered in the Killing Fields by the Communist Khmer Rouge? The millions of Chinese murdered in the "People's" Republic of China?

Save your money.

Loach's moral outrage is saved for the perfidious and eternal Jew.

And still he finds employment, his rank anti-semitism a badge of honor.

It's 1938 all over again.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 23, 2006

A classic gets an update

51028-1--24-lr-.jpg

Land Rover announced the changes to the venerable Defender, perhaps my favorite same-as-it-ever-was SUV.

Look at the lines, nearly the same now as they were twenty years ago -- the very picture of utilitarian purpose, of form following function.


Discovery 4 door.jpg


I particularly appreciate the 90-degree angle where the roof meets the rear of the truck, the antithesis of modern, aero design. More "stylish" SUVs have a forward rake of the back end, creating a downward slope of the roofline as it passes beyond the rear doors, supposedly helping the truck cut more efficiently through the air, but also cutting into the available storage capacity of the vehicle.

It's what I liked about my old truck, a Dodge Raider, which was actually a re-badged Mitsubishi Montero (I used to say the only thing Dodge made on the truck was a small profit). Derided by the critics as a passe design, suffering from its boring boxiness, I loved it because it simply made no concessions to style -- and consequently had something of a timeless air about it. It never looked old or out of date.

The Defender has that same quality. Having avoided the latest trends in automotive design, it simply remains ageless in its form and function.

And now the Brits are offering it in a hi-tech, fuel-sipping diesel version. Praise be!

Now, if we can only get them to import it to the Colonies, my Land Rover lust can be satiated.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:35 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 21, 2006

Semper Fi, Mac!

Joe Rosenthal has died, finally rejoining the brave men he helped turn into eternal symbols of American heroism and bravery. You see, Rosenthal took what may be the most famous photograph ever: the raising of the American flag over Mount Suribachi, on the bloody Pacific island known as Iwo Jima.

Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his immortal image of World War II servicemen raising an American flag over battle-scarred Iwo Jima, died Sunday. He was 94.

[...]

Rosenthal's iconic photo, shot on Feb. 23, 1945, became the model for the Iwo Jima Memorial near Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The memorial, dedicated in 1954 and known officially as the Marine Corps War Memorial, commemorates the Marines who died taking the Pacific island in World War II.

The photo was listed in 1999 at No. 68 on a New York University survey of 100 examples of the best journalism of the century.

It shows the second raising of the flag that day on Mount Suribachi on the Japanese island. The first flag had been deemed too small.

"What I see behind the photo is what it took to get up to those heights — the kind of devotion to their country that those young men had, and the sacrifices they made," Rosenthal once said. "I take some gratification in being a little part of what the U.S. stands for."

He liked to call himself "a guy who was up in the big leagues for a cup of coffee at one time."

[...]

The small island of Iwo Jima was a strategic piece of land 750 miles south of Tokyo, and the United States wanted it to support long-range B-29 bombers and a possible invasion of Japan.

On Feb. 19, 1945, 30,000 Marines landed on the southeast coast. Mount Suribachi, at 546 feet the highest point on the island, took four days for the troops to scale. In all, more than 6,800 U.S. servicemen died in the five-week battle for the island, and the 21,000-man Japanese defense force was virtually wiped out.

Ten years after the flag-raising, Rosenthal wrote that he almost didn't go up to the summit when he learned a flag had already been raised. He decided to up anyway, and found servicemen preparing to put up the second, larger flag.

"Out of the corner of my eye, I had seen the men start the flag up. I swung my camera and shot the scene. That is how the picture was taken, and when you take a picture like that, you don't come away saying you got a great shot. You don't know."

"Millions of Americans saw this picture five or six days before I did, and when I first heard about it, I had no idea what picture was meant."

He recalled that days later, when a colleague congratulated him on the picture, he thought he meant another, posed shot he had taken later that day, of Marines waving and cheering at the base of the flag.

He added that if he had posed the flag-raising picture, as some skeptics have suggested over the years, "I would, of course, have ruined it" by choosing fewer men and making sure their faces could be seen.

Standing near Rosenthal was Marine Sgt. Bill Genaust, the motion picture cameraman who filmed the same flag-raising. He was killed in combat just days later. A frame of Genaust's film is nearly identical to the Rosenthal photo.

The AP photo quickly became the subject of posters, war-bond drives and a U.S. postage stamp.

Rosenthal left the AP later in 1945 to join the San Francisco Chronicle, where he worked as a photographer for 35 years before retiring.

"He was short in stature but that was about it. He had a lot of nerve," said John O'Hara, a retired photographer who worked with Rosenthal at the San Francisco Chronicle.

O'Hara said Rosenthal took special pride in a certificate naming him an honorary Marine and remained spry and alert well into his 90s.

Rosenthal's famous picture kept him busy for years, and he continued to get requests for prints decades after the shutter clicked. He said he was always flattered by the tumult surrounding the shot, but added, "I'd rather just lie down and listen to a ball game."

[...]

Rosenthal was born in 1911 in Washington, D.C.

He took up photography as a hobby. As the Depression got under way, Rosenthal moved to San Francisco, living with a brother until he found a job with the Newspaper Enterprise Association in 1930.

In 1932, Rosenthal joined the old San Francisco News as a combination reporter and photographer.

"They just told me to take this big box and point the end with the glass toward the subject and press the shutter and `We'll tell you what you did wrong,"' he said.

After a short time with ACME Newspictures in San Francisco in 1936, Rosenthal became San Francisco bureau chief of The New York Times-Wide World Photos.

Rosenthal began working for the AP in San Francisco when the news cooperative bought Wide World Photos. After a stint in the Merchant Marine, he returned to the AP and was sent to cover battle areas in 1944.

His first assignment was in New Guinea, and he also covered the invasion of Guam before making his famous photo on Iwo Jima.

Rest in peace, Joe. Give my regards to Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley, John Bradley, Harlon Block, Michael Strank and Rene Gagnon.

Semper Fi, Mac!

There are more photos of both flag raisings and additional info here.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Day By Day


Posted by Mike Lief at 07:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Redhot diesel love

From the files detailing my affection for diesels that blow away the General Motors-induced perception of them as low performance soot makers, comes the latest news about the new breed of insanely fast -- and record setting -- engines.

The JCB-sponsored, twin-engined Dieselmax streamliner set a new Bonneville Speed Week record for diesel-powered vehicles, with a two-run average speed of 317 mph.

Under the Southern California Timing Association (the Bonneville Speed Week sanctioning body) rules, breaking a record requires an average of two runs, which must be completed within 24 hours. The Dieselmax sped through the measured mile on Thursday at 308 mph, and then again Friday at 325 mph, for a record-setting 317 mph average.

The SCTA Speed Week is followed at the salt flats by the FIA-sanctioned speed trials, where the JCB team hopes to set an international land speed record. The more demanding FIA rules require two runs in the span of only an hour. The Dieselmax will be fitted with specially-prepared 750 hp JCB444-LSR "record" engines for the attempt

Fast, efficient, mature technology, and all without the smug attitude and batteries of hybrids. More diesels, please!

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 20, 2006

Another legal academic reacts to the NSA decision


Con-Law Prof. Ann Althouse takes the Jimmah Carter-appointed judge to the woodshed for her decision in the ACLU vs. NSA appeal.

I'm truly shocked. It's like the feeling you have when you're grading blue books and you realize this one's going to have to get an F.

I finally had the time today to read the whole opinion in ACLU v. NSA... I mean, that was the whole opinion, right? I kept shuffling the pages around and looking under the table to see if there were some pages I missed...

What the hell? Was there no law clerk who had enough nerve to say, Judge, it can't go out like this? How do you ever get to the level of arrogance that keeps you from seeing when an opinion is this patently deficient? Where do you acquire the vaulting imagination that allows you think an opinion in this form will even help the side you're rushing to hand a victory to? I can see slipping into abject carelessness in a low profile case, but this is such a conspicuous case. I simply cannot fathom how a judge with any sense at all, with any assistance from law clerks who were not cowed into ridiculous submission, would file a case in this form.

I'm not talking about the normal way judges write result-oriented decisions, which is to layer in the scholarly and neutral-looking verbiage in the hope that most people will swallow it and the critics will seems like sore losers. This opinion -- beginning midway through the text -- does not even look like a rough draft. It seems as if the judge ran out of time and handed in something that was less than an outline. Much less.

[...]

At this point, with many issues left to discuss -- including the rest of the standing doctrine and all of the questions of statutory and constitutional law relating to TSP -- the writing falls headlong off a cliff. I have never seen anything like this. There are many sections left to the opinion, but each contains little more than preliminary verbiage -- quotes from old cases and zingers about how the Framers opposed King George III -- with tagged on conclusions about how "obviously" the Fourth Amendment/First Amendment/Separation of Powers is violated.

[...]

That's not analysis. That's a petulant refusal to take the task of judging seriously. Where is the discussion of hardship and public interest? The judge is so hot to hold the President to what she sees as his constitutional obligations. You'd think she'd take a little more care to give the appearance of adhering to hers.

Ah, yes, arrogant, partisan judges, making it up as they go. My favorite pet peeve, one that got under my skin during the first semester of law school -- and continues to raise my blood pressure in the many years since.

What I love about Althouse's analysis is that it reveals the world-weary cynicism that even center-left members of academia manifest when it comes to the judiciary. Althouse isn't shocked that the Carter appointee is a partisan, Bush-hating hack; she's surprised only that the judge didn't do a better job of hiding her betrayal of the supposed impartial role of the appellate courts.

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 19, 2006

Bloody Iwo

Did you ever wonder what the Battle of Iwo Jima looked like from the perspective of the Japanese defenders?

The Japanese movie trailer for Flags of Our Fathers is now online; the American version is on hold until next month.

The movie, directed by Clint Eastwood, is based on the book by the son of one of the men who raised the American flag in the iconic photo.

The book was a very moving read; I'm afraid to see what Hollywood has done with it.

Based on the Japanese preview, it looks like it emphasizes the universal nature of war and the toll it takes on the troops, an unfortunate piece of post-modern moral equivalence.

The Japanese were not merely fighting for God and country, motivated by a sense of honor and patriotism in the Western sense. Rather, they exceeded the racial animus of the Nazis, viewing not just different races -- but all peoples who were not Japanese as subhuman.

The fascist regime inculcated a value system that held that nothing was more virtuous than dying in defense of the Emperor; that an enemy who died bravely was to be honored, but one who surrendered was to be held in the greatest contempt.


tnn_a4_150-large.jpg


Both of the Officers in "The Contest to Cut Down 100 People" – (Right) 2nd Lt. Tsuyochi [sic] Noda, (Left) 2nd. Toshiaki Mukai – Photo by Correspondent (Shin[ju]) Satō in Changzhou (Tokyo Nichi-Nichi Shimbun, Dec. 13, 1937


The Japanese rape of Nanking featured samurai sword beheading contests of Chinese POWs and civilians; competitions wherein Japanese soldiers tossed Chinese babies in the air and caught them on their bayonets, spitting them like roasted chickens; and the wholesale rape and subsequent slaughter of women and girls. If you can stomache it, there are six pages of photos from the Rape of Nanking here, featuring bayonet practice on live prisoners, children hacked to pieces and other scenes of staggerring depravity.


LeonardGSiffleet.jpg


A photograph found on the body of a dead Japanese soldier shows Sergeant Leonard G. Sifflee about to be decapitated by his Japanese captor on October 23, 1943.


American and British POWs stood a good chance of surviving captivity if held by the otherwise monstrous Nazi regime, while the POWs in the "care" of the Japanese suffered an unbelievably high mortality rate. According to one source, the mortality rate for POWs held by the Germans was 1.2 percent; for those held in the Pacific Theater of Operations, an astonishing 37 percent.

The behavior of the Japanese Army during the war was entirely consistent with the values and ethics of Japanese society during the 1930s and 1940s, and the Geneva Conventions-defying executions of Allied airmen and soldiers -- photographed and featured in enemy publications -- helps explain the undying hatred many U.S. and U.K. vets held for their former enemies, a depth of enmity little seen between the former combatants in the European Theater of Operations (Soviets excepted).

It's a lot to draw from a brief movie trailer, but I'm troubled by the handsome young Japanese soldiers and their brave leaders portrayed in the clip.

Folks, there was an objectively good side in the war. And an incontestably evil side, too. And if you have to ask which was which, then we're doomed.

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:20 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

August 15, 2006

Life aboard a submarine

Midships hatch sm.jpg


When I first reported aboard the USS Blueback and peered down the midships hatch into my new home, I had not yet been promoted to petty officer -- and was a non-qual to boot -- which meant I was lower than whale shit in the enlisted hierarchy.

Actually, a sailor who hadn't earned his submarine dolphins wasn't just a non-qual; he was known, with contempt, as a "non-qual puke," until his fellow submariners tacked the pins on following the successful completion of the months-long learning process, culminating in an examination by a board of senior enlisteds who grilled the candidate on his knowledge of the boat from stem to stern -- or torpedo tube to aft maneuvering room.

The theory was that all crewmen must be able in an emergency to operate equipment unrelated to their rating, in order to save the sub. So a cook had to know how to start the diesel engines, and a radioman must be able to secure flooding in the torpedo room and begin pumping it dry.

One question that I remember from my qual board was, "You're a molecule of air that's just been sucked through the snorkel's head-valve and into the boat. Trace your path through the submarine until you're exhausted overboard after being used in the main engines."

And, no, I don't remember the answer.

The junior guys were constantly crawling around the outboard spaces and below the deckplates with piping tabs in hand, tracing major hydraulic, air and electrical systems, memorizing the location of valves and procedures required to isolate different subsystems, before collapsing into their rack for a little shut-eye before going back on watch.

If the senior enlisteds spotted a non-qual trying to unobtrusively hide in the back of the crew's mess to see a few minutes of the night's movie, there'd be a call for "all non-qual pukes to get the hell out and hit the books!"


Rack time on a sub 1.jpg


Needless to say, non-quals didn't enjoy the best living conditions, either. My first year aboard ship was spent living in the torpedo room, sleeping in the open on the top level above the MK-48 shipkillers. Sheets of plywood were laid over the upper torpedo stowage racks, with aluminum racks and matresses on top.


Rack time on a sub 2.jpg

Although it was often noisy and rarely dark, it had the advantage of being well ventilated and cool, with ventilation ducts overhead -- the better to keep away the funk of the guys bunking in close proximity.


Life in the topedo rm.jpg


And, although we didn't enjoy the privacy of the guys who were in the midships berthing area, with their coffin-sized bunks, at least we had plenty of headroom, enough to sit up and read while the torpedos mates were maintaining the weapons down below. As a bonus, we could hang our gear from the pipes and valves overhead, too.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:59 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Pity the poor victim criminal

Patterico points out yet another L.A. Times article skillfully eliciting sympathy for the victims of terrorism.

Gotcha!

Actually, the Times has produced an article highlighting how hard it is to be a leftist moonbat murderess being oppressed by The Man in his inhumane prison system. The article claims that Olson became "invisible" when she became a guest of the California Department of Corrections.

According to Patterico, the Times, in its eagerness to show Sara Jane Olson to be a reformed, repentant person, omits relevant information from the history of her case.

Here is what the story doesn’t tell you: this vaunted “taking of responsibility” is not quite all it’s cracked up to be. From Wikipedia:

Immediately after entering the plea, however, Olson told reporters that she was innocent and that her plea bargain was a lie forced on her by the climate after the September 11, 2001 attacks. “It became clear to me that the incident would have a remarkable effect on the outcome of this trial … the effect was probably going to be negative,” she said. “That’s really what governed this decision, not the truth or honesty, but what was probably in my best interests and the interests of my family.”

Angered by Olson’s announcement that she had lied in court, Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler ordered another hearing on November 6, at which he asked her several times if she was indeed guilty of the charges. Olson, rolling her eyes and sighing theatrically, replied “I want to make it clear, Your Honor, that I did not make that bomb. I did not possess that bomb. I did not plant that bomb. But under the concept of aiding and abetting, I plead guilty.”

Then, on November 13, Olson filed a motion requesting to withdraw her guilty plea because “I realize I cannot plead guilty when I know I am not.” She acknowledged that she did not misunderstand the judge when he read the charges against her. Rather, she said “Cowardice prevented me from doing what I knew I should: Throw caution aside and move forward to trial. … I am not second-guessing my decision as much as I have found the courage to take what I know is the honest course. Please, Judge Fidler, grant my request to go to trial.”

On December 3, 2001, Fidler offered to let Olson testify under oath about her role in the case. She refused. He then wondered “I took those pleas twice … were you lying to me then or are you lying to me now?” — and denied her request to withdraw her plea.

And from an earlier linked article:

“I did not have anything to do with those bombs. If I did harm, I did not mean to, and I want to apologize. I am truly grateful for all that I’ve had in my life.”

Amazing, the way she took responsibility, isn’t it? The remorse just oozes out of her, huh?

The paper doesn’t tell us about that.

Nor does it have a hint of the perspective of the families of any of the victims of Olson and her confederates. Where is the family of Myrna Opsahl, killed in a bank robbery that Olson helped plan and carry out? Marcus Foster, a school superintendent in Oakland, was also killed by SLA nutcases. But, like Opsahl, we do not hear from his family members. Apparently, they “turned invisible.”

Do you still subscribe to the L.A. Times? Why?

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 14, 2006

Fake but real

If you've been paying attention lately, Charles Johnson broke the story of Al Reuters doctoring photos to make the perfidious Joooos Israelis look particularly savage, with numerous instances of software being used to manipulate images, as well as terrorists manipulating willing photographers and journalists, using corpses as widow -- er, window dressing.

Well, these folks have decided to use good ol' Yankee ingenuity to make the whole process much easier. Make sure to scroll down through the comments for examples from readers about how to best implement their innovation.

Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:51 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

We're not in Kansas anymore

The Wizard of Oz is one of my mother's favorite movies, and I remember watching it on TV when I was a kid, waiting for the moment when the flying monkeys would scare the bejabbers out of my little sister, as I smugly chuckled at her childish fear.

Of course, late at night, I might have cast a panic-stricken glance at the closet for the soon-to-emerge Wicked WItch of the West and her aerial simian henchmen had a momentary twinge, thinking about the silly villains and cheesy special effects.

But mom was right about Judy Garland; "Over the Rainbow" was a great song, and the teenage actress sang her heart out.

Judy lived a miserable life, filled with drugs and failed marriages, finally taking her last standing ovation by the time she was 47 -- although she looked a good twenty years older.

Her sordid personal life is captured in a passage from an essay by Mark Steyn, saluting ... well, illustrating the rather curious career of Australian entertainer Peter Allen.

Judy had spotted him when he and his partner (in every sense) were performing as the Allen Brothers in the Starlight Room at the Hong Kong Hilton in 1964.

After bringing them to London as her opening act, she took young Peter from Tenterfield under her wing. The fetching Aussie hunk found himself (more or less simultaneously) Judy’s pianist, her husband’s lover, and her daughter’s husband.

Back in the mid-Forties, Miss Garland had come home one day and found her then husband, Vincente Minnelli, in bed with another man. There followed her first suicide attempt. Two decades later, Liza Minnelli could top that: she caught Peter Allen, her new husband, in bed with his boyfriend on their wedding night.

Peter had been recommended to Judy by her fourth husband, Mark Herron. And Judy in turn pressed him on Liza. And Herron and Allen carried on a sexual relationship during their respective marriages to Judy and Liza.

One is all for being broad-minded and tolerant about these things and Peter Allen was certainly a good-looking lad in those days, but, how heartless does a guy have to be to screw his stepdaughter’s husband?

The boy from Oz, like the girl from Kansas, was lost in a strange world of deficient creatures: miring Liza Minnelli in her own pathologies as a toxic inheritance, Judy has no brain; blithely rogering his step-daughter’s husband, Judy’s spouse Mark Herron has no heart; and, unable to resist her mother’s scheming, Liza has no courage.

Ewwww.

I used to think Woody Allen having an affair with and marrying his stepdaughter was the ultimate in cringe-inducing Hollywood depravity, but the Judy-Liza-Peter connection is right up there in the pantheon of entertainment whack-a-doodle weirdness.

Did I say, "Ewwwwww"?

Almost forgot. Did you notice that the two horndog Allens are named Woody and Peter?

Wonder if it's a Tinsel Town type of onomatopoeia . . . .

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Website woes

I've been working on a couple of posts, but there's a glitch in the software used by my webhost, making it impossible for me to upload files.

Which means I'm shelving those entries in favor of others that don't feature photos.

I hate it when that happens.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 11, 2006

It's always Bushitler's fault

A colleague just e-mailed me about the reaction of the Far-left wing of the Democratic Party to the just-revealed plot to down numerous airliners using liquid-based explosives.

Bottom line: Blame Bush -- and his crony, Joe Lieberbush.

Bush just invoked a Code Red terrorist emergency, our first ever.

And isn't it queer that the emergency is declared within a day of Republican party leader Ken Mehlman launching an all-out offensive against Democrats following Joe Lieberman's loss in Connecticut, an offensive in which Mehlman, the White House and Republican operatives are claiming that Democrats no longer care about national security or the war on terror.

And just at that moment we get our FIRST ever red alert. Beam me up, Scotty.

Do I sound as if I don't believe this alert? Why, yes, that would be correct. I just don't believe it.

[...]

Bottom line: Joe Lieberbush lost. The message is spreading across the land that incumbents who embrace the president are in serious trouble. And the Republicans needed to divert attention, to stop this meme in its tracks, and lo' and behold we have our first terror alert that I can recall since the last election, and it's our first ever Red Alert! What a coincidence!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the voice of America's ultra-liberal left.

Or, as I prefer to think of them, Moonbats on Parade.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:14 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Advice from a hero long gone

If you've ever read Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers, or watched the compelling HBO series based upon the book, the heroic exploits of the self-effacing men of Easy Company are not soon forgotten.

And if you haven't either read or watched it, then hie thee to the nearest book store -- or NetFlix -- and fix this.

One participant in the pre-dawn jump into Normandy was Lt. Thomas Meehan, of Butte, Montana, whom we briefly glimpse in the first two episodes of the mini-series. As the men of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division's Easy Company struggle to reunite with their comrades in the chaos of June 6, 1944, an oft-asked question is, "Where's Lt. Meehan?" their commanding officer.

1LTThomasMeehan.jpg

It is soon revealed that Thomas Meehan's plane was shot down, killing him, his first sergeant, and the rest of the men aboard; he never set foot on French soil.

Despite his rather brief role in the story of the men of Easy Company, Lt. Thomas Meehan has something profound to tell us today.

According to Ambrose, the young officer penned a letter to his wife the week before he boarded the aircraft to meet his fate.

We’re fortunate in being Americans…. The American is the offspring of the logical European who hated oppression and loved freedom beyond life. But for each of us who wants to live in happiness and give happiness, there’s another different sort of person wanting to take it away.

We know how to win wars. We must learn now to win peace. Here is the dove, and here is the bayonet. If we ever have a son, I don’t want him to go through this again, but I want him powerful enough that no one will be fool enough to touch him. He and America should be strong as hell and kind as Christ.

We never seem to retain the lessons of the past; it was a mere 67 years ago that the world last learned the bloody lesson of the butcher's bill that comes with appeasement, paid with the lives of men who suffer for the foolishness of our peace-addled do-gooder politicians.

America -- and the West -- must be strong, implacable, unstoppable and merciless in war; and generous and kind when the enemy admits defeat, but not unless and until our foe knows, concedes and admits that he is well and truly defeated.

Until then, unimaginable destruction.

Or, in the words of Lt. Thomas Meehan, "America should be strong as hell and kind as Christ."

And we need more men like Meehan.

His last words to his wife, handed to someone on the ground as he boarded his C-47 transport on the night of June 5, are brave and true.

Dearest Anne:

In a few hours I'm going to take the best company of men in the world into France. We'll give the bastards hell.

Strangely I'm not particularly scared, but in my heart is a terrific longing to hold you in my arms.

I love you Sweetheart - forever.

Your Tom

May he -- and all our brave young heroes -- rest in peace, their sacrifice, and the lessons learned therefrom, never forgotten.

UPDATE

I just read Tom Meehan's final letter to his wife again, and I found myself wiping away tears at the courage and love for his wife so simply put, in the hours before his death. I wonder whatever happened to Mrs. Meehan, and if she knew how much her husband's death would mean to strangers in the years to come.

I'm grateful that she chose to share her husband's final words, despite the achingly private nature of the sentiments he expressed.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:07 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Do you watch NBC news?

Then perhaps you'd be interested in what anchor Brian Williams had to say about the terrorists who were planning on blowing up a bunch of jetliners.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: But, here we have maybe 24 people who have lived in London and England and the free world for all these years that become citizens, subjects of the Crown, and yet, after having gotten to know us, they want to kill themselves to hurt us. Isn’t that an even deeper conundrum here than the chemicals being used in these attacks.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: And that, Chris, that last aspect, the willingness to take one’s own life. I always tell people there are guys on our team like that, too. They’re called Army Rangers and Navy Seals and the Special Forces folks and the first responders on 9/11 who went into those buildings knowing, by the way, they weren’t going to come out. So we have players like that on our team.

That's right, folks. According to the anchor of a Big-Three news broadcast, the brave men who serve in the U.S. military's special forces units are just like sucide bombing terrorists.

Can we question his patriotism? How 'bout his intelligence?

Are you still getting your news from the MSM?

You can watch the video for yourself, if you've got the stomach for it.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 09, 2006

It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing

I like pop music -- and by that I mean the generic rock & roll -- as much as the next guy, but it doesn't compare to the standards of the early-to-mid 20th Century.

The well-constructed lyrics, meshing with the tune to tell a story, the melody and the words lingering in my mind, symbolize all that's right with music.

Rock, with its pounding beat and often indecipherable words lost in a morass of feedback, well, it's good for driving across long stretches of the interstate, but it feels like a guilty pleasure.

I was reading an interview with the polymath Mark Steyn, and apart from his trenchant political analysis, he's also a music historian and critic, with an encyclopedic knowledge of the best of American song-writing for stage, screen and Sinatra.

In the midst of a discussion about the strengths of various songwriters, Steyn offered his theory as to why rock is often so ... unimpressive.

Mark Steyn: No, I think it's basically that after The Beatles came along, every record company was looking for groups that wrote their own songs. Something tells you that if you take a record in 1938, the singer, the conductor, the arranger, the composer, the lyricist, all were doing their speciality, what they were good at. You take a record that's made in 1998 and the same guy is basically singing, writing, arranging. Is it likely that he's as good at all those things? It's like if you were having some work done on your house and the guy who is re-shingling your roof or plastering your basement says, 'Don't worry, I can also handle the plumbing,' that's generally not a good way to go. There's a lot to be said for specialisation.

A brilliantly simple analogy that sums up the problem. Think about it. Sinatra never wrote a single tune, but he owned those songs, working with lyricists like Dorothy Fields and arrangers like Nelson Riddle to make music, dammit, the kind I can listen to for the rest of my life, music that seems to reach down into the soul, the right phrase, the perfect phrasing raising goose-bumps and making the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Never heard a rock & roll song that could do that.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:03 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

August 08, 2006

The antidote to Che love

Andy Garcia's The Lost City hit the shelves today, after receiving a limited release in theaters -- and lukewarm praise from the nation's movie critics. But after reading several articles, including Kathryn Jean Lopez' (excerpted below), I'm going to pick up a copy and watch it this weekend.

It seems apropos, given the possibility that Castro may finally join his late, unlamented homicidal friend -- Che Guevara -- in the Hell that awaits those who bring such misery to their countrymen.

The Lost City is an intensely personal project for Garcia. An ode to his homeland, Cuba, it’s full of the passion Hispanic culture is known for—as he portrays family life, the social scene, and, of course, the politics of a troubled island.

The film is set in late-1950s Cuba, right on the eve of la revolución, and Garcia, who directed and stars, crashes straight into the myth of Che Guevara—¡Gracias a Dios! The Lost City has something for everyone: contagious music, a love story, family drama—and familiar faces in Bill Murray, playing to type, and Dustin Hoffman, playing a mobster. But it’s a love story unlike anything Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks or any chick-flick might bring you—here the love between a man and woman can’t escape the brutality of sacrifice and tyranny, and is but one love, where democracy is a deep and abiding one.

[...]

Movie reviewers—a club of which I most definitely am not a member—have taken issue with The Lost City: It is, they point out, too long. But viva The Lost City anyway—it more than makes up for its flaws in its myth-busting cultural contributions.

Here in the U.S., where Che Guevara T-shirts are a staple at most soccer-mom shopping malls and on college campuses, it’s a countercultural revolution of a movie ... It provides a much-needed respite of moral clarity in between Robert Redford’s Oscar-winning Motorcycle Diaries (which portrayed a young Guevara—doctor and freedom fighter—as a secular saint) and the upcoming Steven Soderbergh Che-fest starring Benicio Del Toro (both Soderbergh and Del Toro are Oscar winners).

Che—a Communist responsible for Castro’s gulags—was a monster. But nothing I could tell you about him could do him the kind of justice that Garcia’s film does. You see some of Guevara’s brutality, but Garcia’s most powerful scene may be the one where Fico himself faces Che. When Fico is forced to confront the executioner on prison grounds on behalf of a friend, the viewer feels not only Garcia’s anger and disgust (he himself, as a child, fled this tyrant’s thuggery), but the pain and hatred of an entire people whose lives were irrevocably changed by the Castro-Guevara nightmare. This is Garcia’s moment: You watch a race of overwhelming emotions in the character, and you have the palpable sense it’s not all acting.

There is another haunting scene as you take the heart-wrenching walk with Fico when he embarks on his journey out of Cuba to Lady Liberty’s arms, you might as well be watching home movies from the Garcia family’s own exit; the emotion is that raw.

Garcia’s movie has clearly touched a nerve already: It has been banned in several South American countries. No surprise, given that “Viva Che” is a natural mantra for the likes of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. And we can’t forget, of course, about Fidel Castro, in power since 1959, with doctors threatening he could live to be 140—60 more years.

Garcia has said in response to the controversy about his movie: “Some people think Castro is a savior, that he looks out for kids and the poor. It's a bunch of hogwash. In the 45 years since Castro has been in power, Cuba has been in the top three countries for human rights abuses for 43 of those years. People turn a blind eye to his atrocities.” Not Andy Garcia though.

One of the most reliable predictors of a voter's party affiliation is whether or not he belongs to a religious congregation and regularly attends services; it will surprise no one that Republicans overwhelmingly fit that profile.

I suspect that reactions to this movie will closely approximate that correlation; conservatives will find it to be a moving portrayal of the dark night into which Cuba descended almost half a century ago, and leftists will deride it as a revolting piece of right-wing propaganda.

The comments at MetaCritic seem to fit that pattern.

The Chicago Tribune's critic said:

Throbbing with music, seething with anger and romance, "The Lost City" is a film that breaks your heart, bewilders, alienates and ravishes you by turns.

How can you not want to see a movie that does all that?

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Unpleasant truths

Ben Stein offers some unpleasant truths about Israel's enemies, and the disproportionate toll being inflicted on the Jewish populace.

When the Israelis capture Arabs in their wars, the captured Arabs are well fed, well housed, and eventually returned to their homes. When the Arabs (specifically the Syrians) have captured Israelis, they castrate them, cut off their male organs, decapitate the Israelis, and stuff their male organs in their mouths and leave the bodies on the field. Sometimes they also defecate on the bodies.

Israel has a population of about six million Jews. If a rocket hits a group of Israelis who are lying in the sun and kills 12 of them, that is the equivalent of the United States losing 600 men in one rocket attack. If nine Israeli civilians are killed in a rocket attack on a Haifa repair shop, that is the equivalent of the USA losing 540 civilians in one swoop.

The Israelis aren't fighting for land; they're fighting for their survival.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 05, 2006

Day By Day


It makes more sense when you've viewed the greatest music video of all time, starring the greatest actor of the 21st Century.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bush = Hitler

David Kopel notes that a number of celebrities have endorsed an ad saying that the actions of Pres. Bush remind them of Adolf Hitler.

I thing it's worthwhile to note who they are.

James Abourezk, Aris Anagnos, Anti-Flag, Edward Asner [Lou Grant], Russell Banks, Ed Begley Jr. [St. Elsewhere], Harry Belafonte [Come Mr. Tallyman, Tally Me Bananas], St. Clair Bourne, Gabriel Byrne, Margaret Cho ["comedian"], Ward Churchill [9/11 victims are "little Eichmanns"], Kate Clinton, US Rep. John Conyers Jr., John Densmore, Jesse Díaz Jr., Ariel Dorfman, Tom Duane, Michael Eric Dyson, Steve Earle, Niles Eldredge, Daniel Ellsberg, Eve Ensler ["Vagina Monologues"], Lawrence Ferlinghetti, [Hanoi] Jane Fonda, Michael Franti, reg e. gaines, Martin Garbus, Wavy Gravy, André Gregory, Paul Haggis, Sam Hamill, Suheir Hammad, Kathleen Hanna, Stephen Hays, Merle Hoffman, Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Mumia Abu-Jamal [cop-killer on death row], Bill T. Jones, Rickie Lee Jones, Sarah Jones, Brig. Gen. (ret) Janis Karpinski, Casey Kasem, Ron Kovic, Jonathan Kozol, Jessica Lange, Lewis Lapham, Mark Leno, Rabbi Michael Lerner [Editor of Tikkun, and it's a shonda for a rabbi to compare the president of the United States to Adolf Hitler. Shameful!], George Lois, US Rep. Cynthia McKinney, Mark Crispin Miller, Tom Morello, US Rep. Major Owens, Ozomatli, Grace Paley, Harvey Pekar, Sean Penn, Jeremy Pikser, Harold Pinter, Frances Fox Piven, Sister Helen Prejean, Michael Ratner, Boots Riley, Mark Ruffalo, US Rep. Bobby Rush, Susan Sarandon, James Schamus, Richard Serra, Rev. Al Sharpton, Cindy Sheehan, Martin Sheen, Gary Soto, Nancy Spero, Gloria Steinem, Lynne Stewart, Serj Tankian, Jonathan Tasini, Sunsara Taylor, Studs Terkel, Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, Naomi Wallace, Lt. Ehren Watada, US Rep. Maxine Waters, Cornel West, Saul Williams, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Ann Wright, Howard Zinn.

Disgusting, appalling and shameful. They disgrace themselves by endorsing this slander, and they demean the victims of Hitler's Holocaust by their shameless, partisan attack.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

And you thought the hatred stayed in the Middle East

My cousin says to me, "I'm in the supermarket the other day, and my cell phone rings--"

"Let me guess," I said, "It played 'Hatikvah,' " the Israeli national anthem.

"How'd you know that?" she asked.

"Please," I answered, "I know you."

"As a matter of fact, it did. There was what must have been an arab in the store, and when he heard it, he went, 'Pfttt! Pfttt!' and spit twice at the floor while glaring at me."

"Did he spit on you?" I asked.

"No, just near me. I didn't react at all; didn't want to give him the satisfaction. But I didn't answer the call, 'cause I wanted him to hear the entire anthem."

This is in the San Francisco area, folks. My cousin is the most inoffensive of people, but she is dedicated to the survival of Israel, and she -- and I -- have family in the Jewish state. Incidents like these help bring home the truth that they hate Jews, and will not be satisfied until Israel has been obliterated from the face of the Middle East.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 04, 2006

"Never again!" only if they succeed

See the faces of those who are fighting and dying to defend the only democracy in the Middle East -- and to prevent a second Holocaust.

Posted by Mike Lief at 03:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Why won't they listen?

Hugh Hewitt interviewed Martin Peretz on his radioshow, and Hewitt highlighted the willful blindness amongst the media and those opposed to the war to the clearly-stated threats from our enemies.

HH: Tell me, on Monday, Ahmadinejead compared the Jews to cattle, and threatened that America and England would be held accountable, and talked of his nuclear technology. Yesterday, the Ayatollah Khamenei talked about justice for America and Israel and England, and the clear value of jihad. And today, or yesterday, Ahmadinejead in Malaysia said the solution is the elimination of the Zionist regime. Is anyone paying attention, Martin Peretz, outside of a couple of writers at the New Republic, the Weekly Standard, and a few conservative op-eds around the country?

MP: Well, I think people have gone into a defensive mode by thinking to themselves, and persuading themselves that he's not really serious. And forgive me the analogy, but that's what people said about Hitler. And Hitler was dead serious, and the president of Iran is also dead serious. And he can make many countries' lives miserable. The Russians, for example, have in their territories, Muslim populations. There's nothing that can prevent, unless we act now and act decisively, the Russians included, there is nothing that will prevent Muslim fanatics and Muslim separatists from lobbing rockets and missiles into other people's neighborhoods, cities, region, just as Hezbollah is doing now.

What's really interesting is the exchange they have about Peretz' long-time role as an active backer of the Democratic Party, and his concern over the rise of anti-Israel sentiment amongst the left -- as well as what Hewitt calls the cut-and-run wing of the party.

HH: Well, that's okay. But in our limited time, but you're very pro-Democratic Party. And if the Democrats triumphed, we just concluded what will happen. Doesn't that make you an accomplice, ultimately, to a disastrous policy for Israel if they get what they want?

MP: Well, I...my whole...I'm not sure who I'm for in two and a half years. We don't know who the candidates will be.

HH: Do you want the Democrats to win majorities in the House or the Senate, Martin Peretz?

MP: I'm...I'm appalled by some of the people who would become head of Congressional committees.

HH: Is that a no?

MP: Uh, but I'm also appalled by some of the shenanigans...

HH: But is that...I've got five seconds. Is that a no, Martin Peretz?

MP: It's a cowardly refusal to answer.

HH: (laughing) Okay. We'll carry it on, later. Martin Peretz, thanks.

Amazing how much is said by refusing to say anything at all.

Posted by Mike Lief at 03:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Lions and tigers and marlins, oh my!

I always knew fishing seemed deceptively safe, anglers lulled by the heat of the sun and the sound of the water lapping at the sides of the boat, all the while those damned fish were planning and scheming, waiting to take their revenge.

When he saw a companion on his boat hook a giant fish during a sea angling contest, Ian Card was delighted.

Next second, the scene of triumph turned to horror - as the 14ft blue marlin leapt out of the water across the vessel and speared Mr Card through the chest with its spiked bill.

The impact of the 800lb fish knocked him overboard into the Atlantic off Bermuda. Then, with a thrash of its tail and with the 32-year-old still impaled and bleeding profusely, it dragged him underwater.

Terribly injured, he somehow stayed conscious as he struggled to pull himself free of the marlin's 3ft razor-sharp spike before he drowned. Finally, he wrenched himself away and was rescued by his companions on the boat - who included his 58-year-old father Alan.

Yesterday, he told how his son surfaced with blood pumping from his wound. 'He put his hand up to his chest and his fingers disappeared,' he said. 'He had a wound about as big as your fist.'

[...]

But doctors told him that if the marlin's spike had struck a fraction of an inch higher, it would have severed an artery and killed him.

[...]

'It was airborne going across the full width of the boat and Ian just happened to be in the way. All in one motion, the fish flew across the cockpit, impaled him with its bill and took him out of the boat.

'He landed in the water about 15ft away and the marlin was on top of him.

'He was underwater and he had his arms wrapped round the fish and the fish was pushing him under. I lost sight of him for a few seconds. That's a sight I'll never forget. I knew there was no good going to come out of it.' But Mr Card eventually surfaced 50ft behind the boat. ...

Family friend Dennis Benevides radioed emergency services and stuffed a towel into the wound to staunch the flow of blood as the vessel sped for the shore.

Incidence of persons impaled by marlins leaping over the back of the couch: Zero.

Looks like I'm safe.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:02 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 03, 2006

LazerTag leads the way to combat competence

Interesting article on how the latest generation of Army officers have become more effective combat leaders as a result of using an industrial-strength version of LazerTag during maneuvers. It also apparently has made it much easier to teach the GIs the importance of finding and using cover.

The post is titled, "Why Lieutenants Aren't As Dumb As They Used To Be," a comment on the age-old lament of grizzeled grunts burdened with teaching their newbie 1st Looeys how to fight without getting too many of the troops killed during the learning process.

Posted by Mike Lief at 05:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Mistakes a lawyer wouldn't make

Or let his client make, either. Via The Legal Reader comes word of an inmate who decided to handle his own appeal, proving once again the truth of the aphorism, "the lawyer douchebag who represents himself has a fool for a client."


Notice of appeal.jpg


A similar motion, entitled appropriately, "Motion to Kiss My Ass," was the subject of an appeal a few years back; you can read the court's decision here.

Posted by Mike Lief at 04:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The distinguished Moonbat Senator

I never get tired of how fantastically pompous John Kerry proves himself to be, over and over again.

Martin Peretz notes a superb example, then guts the windbag.

Continuing his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, John F. Kerry addressed (by telephone) a conference convened by that racist hustler and prevaricator Al Sharpton.

[...]

The [New York] Times alluded to Kerry's well-known verbosity. So it wasn't surprising that he also went off and said, "Not in one phrase uttered and reported by the Lord Jesus Christ, can you find anything that suggests that there is a virtue in cutting children from Medicare." I'd actually go Kerry one further: I doubt that Jesus ever mentioned Medicare at all.

[...]

In any case, as it turns out, Kerry is not only a Roman Catholic but also an ecumenicist. Once again I rely on the Times: Kerry asserted that "the Koran, the Torah, the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles had influenced a social conscience that he exercised in politics."

My God, what bullshit politicians feel obliged to utter! Or maybe the bullshit is already second nature, or even first. But since Kerry raised it, let me ask: What hadith of the Prophet influenced him the most, and why?

Beautiful. Hoist by his own petard. Which is most apropos, given that petard is merely one consonant away from retard, a word tailor-made -- like a bespoke suit -- for the French-speaking senator, who also happened to serve in Vietnam.

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

U.N.-wanted, U.N.-loved and U.N.-needed

Martin Peretz, the leftist publisher of The New Republic, has been blogging on his magazine's website. Despite his lefty street cred, he's moved to the right -- or at least to the side of profound skepticism -- when it comes to the United Nations.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has demanded that the United Kingdom and the United States be kicked off the U.N. Security Council.

I want the U.N. to go to Lagos, where no one would go. Fini! The end of the bullshit, and no more Kofi Annan.

The United Nations survives only because of big city New York, where hosts and hostesses still imagine it's a catch to have an ambassador from a foreign country to dinner. Provincial New Yorkers.

Peretz notes in a later post that the U.N. has been not only ineffective in its role as a "peacekeeping" force in Lebanon, but has actually made the situation worse.

Everybody is for putting an armed force with "robust" instructions into Lebanon. But nobody really wants to send troops that might--just might--be willing and able to disarm Hezbollah. So what is the deus ex machina?

The United Nations, of course. Not even NATO or European powers. And not even a new U.N. force. But UNIFIL, the "interim" force that has been in Lebanon since 1978.

Not only has it failed to achieve any of its purposes, this is a U.N. operation with almost 2,500 personnel--nearly 2,000 of them armed--that has exacerbated the situation on the ground.

There is no record of it having even alerted the secretary-general that southern Lebanon had become over the last six years an armed Hezbollah front deep into the country. As for fulfilling its purposes according to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, it accomplished less than zilch.

I couldn't agree more; whatever promise the U.N. once had -- and I remember my semester there fondly -- the organization has been fatally compromised through the membership of brutal, repressive regimes with full voting rights, kleptocracies and thugocracies outnumbering Western democracies by a ratio of at least 10-1.

U.N. peacekeepers don't keep the peace; they're more likely to step aside and allow the slaughter of unarmed civilians, intervening only to cherry-pick the women and children they'd like to rape, as the Armani-clad U.N. functionaries in the Secretariat park their bribes in off-shore accounts.

The sooner the U.N. is kicked out of the U.S., the better off we'll be. In twenty years I've yet to hear a single argument -- not just an unconvincing one, but any argument -- why the U.N. ought to remain in Turtle Bay.

Buh-Bye.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Book news!

We're less than a month from the publication of my next book, The Devil's Advocates, and American Heritage Magazine sent me the proofs of the chapter they've adapted for the next issue.

The title spread, above, looks great, and they did a nice job integrating photos throughout the article. I'm pleased as can be with the result, and am hoping it'll move readers to seek out what Paul Harvey calls, "The rest of the story!"

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 02, 2006

Vanquishing Alzheimer's?

Australian scientists may have found a cure for Alzheimer's.

The revolutionary drug stops the buildup of a protein called amyloid.

Many scientists accept amyloid is a major cause of Alzheimer's as the protein is thought to cause the brain to "rust".

[...]

Early clinical testing has confirmed the drug is fast-acting. Levels of amyloid dropped by 60 per cent within 24 hours of a single dose.

It found also that PBT2 suppresses the impairment of memory function.

Wow. First thing that popped into my head: What a shame Ronald Reagan didn't live long enough for this.

We've seen too many promising cures for a smorgasbord of diseases turn out to be bogus, so I'm not getting my hopes up, but this could put the screws to the most terrifying of illnesses, the one that steals our memories, our lives, the essence of who we are.

Via Clayton Cramer.

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Where to go?

I've had many discussions with friends about where we'd like to live, when we finally manage to escape the nuthouse formally known as California.

Oh, sure, the weather is moderate (although I'd call it mind-numbingly boring and changeless, a lot like death, too) and I'm sure there are other positive attributes, but the primary attraction is the proximity to family and friends.

On the other hand, the cost of living is very high, with real estate values ranging from ludicrous to insane, a state income tax in the neighborhood of 10 percent, and an unending series of seriously stupid laws coming from the politicians in a Tourette's-like explosion of spastic knee-jerk legislating.

Living in a comfortable but too-small house that's cheek-by-jowl with the neighbors got me thinking about how nice it would be to live on a couple of acres, far enough away to get the paper from the driveway without worrying about the nosey birdlady across the street calling the cops on me for indecent exposure -- it was a bathing suit, you guano-covered loon -- or having to listen to the neighbor's gangsta rap while trying to get some shut-eye.

A quick perusal of properties available in other states soon revealed that the million-dollar tract home near us would cost around $200-$300K in the rest of the U.S. Can you say, "Reality check"?

So, aside from the cost of real estate, it'd be nice to live in a state where my urge to stand up and salute when the Star Spangled Banner plays isn't viewed as a semi-fascist response; where flying the American flag is considered cooler than burning it; and where the U.S. military is viewed unambiguously as the good guys.

Also, four seasons would be nice, as they help mark the passage of time in a way made impossible by summer running into sorta-summer and kinda-summer, then almost-summer and then back-to-summer in our seaside paradise.

I miss fireflies in the summer, oppressive, sultry summer days relieved by the sudden violence of afternoon thunderstorms; crisp fall afternoons, kids jumping into huge piles of fallen leaves, breath ghosting in the moonlight as trick-or-treaters shiver on an October night; the thrill of opening my eyes in the morning and knowing that the unnatural brightness of the light streaming in through the windows can only mean one thing: a new snowfall, blanketing the world in a pristine blanket of powdered sugar; and the sense of renewal and promise as the first shoots of green appear on the trees, marking winter's departure and the arrival of spring.

Kim du Toit listed the process of elimination he used to winnow down the number of states that were possible candidates for good living.

If we were going to move, where would we move to?

[...]

Here are the problems we face, in considering a move. Places like Idaho or Montana would suit me okay, but, sooner or later, Tech Support would load up the Suburban with ammo and go and shoot up a town, just out of boredom. She jokes that she refuses to live anywhere that doesn’t have a Nordstrom’s within an easy half-hour’s drive—we have three around Plano which qualify—but it’s not Nordstrom’s per se she’s talking about: it’s the other kinds of shopping which cluster around Nordstrom’s because of the area’s demographics. We want to see more Sur La Table outlets than Rent-A-Centers, if you get my drift, and more Greek restaurants (there are five within 5 miles of our house) than Taco Bells (only three of those).

In short, we’re kinda cultural snobs (and not really social ones).

We’re not interested in Serious Culture—the Joffrey Ballet is not on our list of Things To Do On A Saturday Night—but we like classy joints, and don’t want to have to drive a hundred miles to find one.

What distresses me, in looking around at places all over the country, is the Blanding of America. Instead of a Mom ‘n Pop restaurant, there are six chain restaurants instead; instead of a couple of interesting bookstores, it’s all Barnes & Noble/Borders. Wherever I look, I could be just about anywhere in the United States.

That’s why I like smaller towns, as a whole, but unfortunately, just as smaller towns can’t support a Gap store, they also can’t support a Nordstrom’s. Or a decent-sized airport, which is another requirement because of Tech Support’s work.

And then you have Wal-Mart, which has stomped underfoot most of Retail America.

But the real problem is that when I do find a place that’s just a little more interesting than average, it’s politically part of the Blue Archipelago. Austin TX is an excellent example of this, as are Raleigh NC, Augusta ME, Asheville NC and Missoula MT.

So let me do the easy part, and list first the states which I will categorically never live in:

New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois, Hawaii and California.

Next comes the states which are politically okay, but they fail the “heat” test (I can stay in Texas for that):

Oklahoma, Arkansas, Nevada, Louisiana, Arizona (except maybe around the northern part), New Mexico (ditto), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia.

States with "not enough winter" are:

Missouri, Tennessee (except maybe the extreme eastern part), South Carolina, North Carolina.

"Too boring" are:

Kansas, Nebraska, both Dakotas (except maybe S. Dakota around Mt. Rushmore), Iowa. We have “flat” right here in Texas.

"A little too liberal" are

Oregon, Wisconsin, Michigan (that gun registration thing), Washington, Minnesota, Delaware, Maine (I know that the liberalism is confined to the coasts and large cities/college towns in these states—but unfortunately, these states are dominated by said areas, politically).

“Too remote” and “not enough happening” are:

Utah, Alaska, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Vermont, W. Virginia.

“Prone to natural disasters” delivers a double whammy to several states: earthquakes (CA, western WA, western OR); tornadoes (KS, OK, eastern CO); hurricanes (FL, coastal GA, -SC, -NC).

What’s left?

Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Colorado, Virginia.

Actual towns/locations which come close, except for some unfortunate circumstances: Ojai CA (it’s in CA, duh); Carson City NV (remote); Petoskey MI (remote); Jackson Hole WY (except for the “Hollywood” influence); Flagstaff AZ (remote), and Bozeman, MT (remote), Fort Collins CO (little too pink).

Some which come agonizingly close: Camden ME, Portsmouth NH; Traverse City MI; Hannibal MO.

The last-named has a definite inside track for us. Both Tech Support and I can see ourselves living our golden years in a little house close to town/van down by the river, and reading Mark Twain to each other when we’re not shooting our .22 rifles off the back porch or spoiling our grandchildren.

We don’t ask for much…

The comments section of Kim's post had links to a couple of sites that quiz you about your likes and dislikes, finally presenting you with a list of candidates.

I took the tests at Find Your Spot and Best Places, and found the results to be interesting enough to get me looking at property online in areas I hadn't previously considered.

Bottom line: we could spend between $800,000 to more than $1 million for a bigger house on a little more land in our neighborhood, or get a 3,200 square foot lakeside house on a few acres for $325,000.

The choice seems simple to me.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:17 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

August 01, 2006

A dispassionate report on the Maximum Leader

A friend sent me this article by the Associated Press, noting that it was a piece of "left-wing pap." I decided to insert a few clarifying clauses throughout, in the interest of accuracy.

Fidel Castro, [the dictator who has governed Cuba for more than 45 years with an iron hand since he] who took control of Cuba in 1959, rebuffed repeated U.S. attempts to oust him and survived communism's demise almost everywhere else, temporarily relinquished his presidential powers to his brother Raul on Monday night because of surgery.

The Cuban leader said he had suffered gastrointestinal bleeding, [denying it was related to the half-century of torture and executions carried out at his order, the destruction of the Cuban economy, the wide-spread discrimination against homosexuals and AIDS sufferers and the late night visitations by the ghosts of his victims, claiming instead that his illness was] apparently due to stress from recent public appearances in Argentina and Cuba, according to a letter read live on television by his secretary, Carlos Valenciaga.

Castro said he was temporarily relinquishing the presidency to his younger brother and successor Raul, the defense minister, but said the move was of "a provisional character." There was no immediate appearance or statement by Raul Castro.

It was the first time in his decades-long tenure that Castro has given up power, [having avoided bourgeois trappings of democracy like term limits, competing political parties and free elections,] though he has been sidelined briefly in the recent past with occasional health problems.

The elder Castro asked that [syncophantic] celebrations scheduled for his 80th birthday on Aug. 13 be postponed until Dec. 2, the 50th anniversary of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces.

Castro said he would also temporarily delegate his duties as first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba to [his brother] Raul, who turned 75 in June and who has been taking on a more public profile in recent weeks[, as the dictator implements his plans for a feudal, 21st-Century version of a dynastic transition, keeping the reins of power firmly in the hands of a trusted blood relative].

In power since the triumph of the Cuban revolution [Is it really appropriate for the use of the word triumph? The AP really gives away the game here, as the sentence works without the word, and seems to clearly indicate that this piece was authored by the Ministry of Propaganda. -- Mike] on Jan. 1, 1959, Castro has been the world's longest-ruling head of government. Only Britain's Queen Elizabeth, crowned in 1952, has been head of state longer.

The "maximum leader's" ironclad rule has ensured Cuba remains among the world's five remaining communist countries. The others are all in Asia: China, Vietnam, Laos and North Korea. [How did this paragraph slip by the censors? -- Mike]

In Old Havana, waiters at a popular cafe were momentarily stunned as they watched the news. But they quickly got back to work and put on brave faces[, well aware that members of the Secret Police were closely monitoring their conversations with the Yankee reporters].

"He'll get better, without a doubt," said Agustin Lopez, 40. "There are really good doctors here, and he's extremely strong. ]It's not as if he's been eating the same lousy food as the rest of us for fifty damn years! Look at me! I'm only 40 and I look like an old man! Hey! Take your filthy hands off me! Help! Cuba Libre! Cuba Libre!"

In the nearby Plaza Vieja, Cuban musicians continued to play for customers -- primarily foreign tourists -- sitting at outdoor cafes, [as Cubans have neither the money nor the leisure time to indulge in decadent Capitalist pastimes like watching the poor caper and prance like trained monkeys for their perverted entertainment]. Signs on the plaza's colonial buildings put up during a recent Cuban holiday said, "Live on Fidel, for 80 more years [of equality and social justice; all Cubans are equally miserable, poor and fearful of your Secret Police]."

"We're really sad, and pretty shocked," said Ines Cesar, a retired 58- year-old metal worker who had gathered with neighbors to discuss the news. "But everyone's relaxed too: I think he'll be fine." [She glanced at her government handlers. "Was that okay, Comrade?" The stern-faced escort nodded curtly.]

When asked about how she felt having Raul Castro at the helm of the nation, Cesar paused and [seemed to struggle for a moment, then sighed and] said one word: "normal."

Over nearly five decades, hundreds of thousands of Cubans have [inexplicably] fled Castro's [Socialist Paradise, where everyone has free universal healthcare, free education up to and including graduate school, the opportunity to drive classic American cars of the 1950s, and live the Communist dream], rule many of them settling just across the Florida Straits in Miami.

The announcement drew cheering in the streets in Miami. People waved Cuban flags on Little Havana's Calle Ocho, shouting "Cuba, Cuba, Cuba," hoping that the end is near for the man most of them consider to be a ruthless dictator[, although not this reporter, or any other fair-minded fellow traveller who sees how the Cuban people have prospered when freed from the shackles of Capitalist oppression]. There were hugs, cheers and dancing as drivers honked their horns. Many of them fled the communist island or have parents and grandparents who did.

White House spokesman Peter Watkins said: "We are monitoring the situation. We can't speculate on Castro's health, but we continue to work for the day of Cuba's freedom." The State Department declined to comment Monday night.

Castro rose to power after an armed revolution he led drove out [the democratically-elected] then- President Fulgencio Batista.

The United States was the first country to recognize Castro, but his radical economic reforms and rapid trials [and executions] of Batista supporters quickly unsettled U.S. leaders.

Washington eventually slapped a trade embargo on the island and severed diplomatic ties. Castro seized American property and businesses and turned to the Soviet Union for military and economic assistance.

On April 16, 1961, Castro declared his revolution to be socialist. The following day, he humiliated the United States [and crushed the hopes of freedom-loving Cuban exiles] by capturing more than 1,100 exile soldiers in the Bay of Pigs invasion.

The world neared nuclear conflict on Oct. 22, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy announced there were Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. After a tense week of diplomacy, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev removed them.

Meanwhile, Cuban revolutionaries opened 10,000 new schools, erased illiteracy, and built a universal health care system[, all while crushing freedom and the hopes and dreams of millions of Cubans who found themselves worse off then they had been during the administration of Pres. Batista]. Castro backed revolutionary movements in Latin America and Africa[, spreading death and destruction as he sent his soldiers abroad to support communist insurgents around the world].

But former liberties were whittled away as labor unions lost the right to strike, independent newspapers were shut down and religious institutions were harassed. [Whoa! Where'd this line come from? -- Mike]

Castro continually resisted U.S. demands for multiparty elections and an open economy despite American laws tightening the embargo in 1992 and 1996.

He characterized a U.S. plan for American aid in a post-Castro era as a thinly disguised attempt at regime change and insisted his socialist system would survive long after his death.

Fidel Castro Ruz was born in eastern Cuba, where his Spanish immigrant father ran a prosperous plantation. His official birthday is Aug. 13, although some say he was born a year later.

Talk of Castro's mortality was long taboo on the island, [where any discussion of the tyrannical dictator put the participants at risk of a midnight visit to the Cuban Gulag, and a brief stay in front of a firing squad,] but that ended June 23, 2001, when he fainted during a[n interminable, eight-hour] speech in the sun. Although Castro quickly returned to the stage, many Cubans understood for the first time that their leader would one day die [, because, in the opinion of the Associated Press, those peons think their leaders are immortal, despite the years of much-vaunted free Cuban education].

Castro shattered a kneecap and broke an arm when he fell after a speech on Oct. 20, 2004, but typically laughed off rumors about his health, most recently a 2005 report that he had Parkinson's disease.

"They have tried to kill me off so many times [because they know they'll never be free, never have a say in the future of Cuba, until they bury me and my Communist regime]," Castro said in a November 2005 speech about the Parkinson's report, adding he felt "better than ever."

But the Cuban president also said he would not insist on remaining in power if he ever became too [dead] sick to lead: "I'll call the (Communist) Party and tell them I don't feel I'm in condition ... that please, someone take over the command [, as there is not and never has been a process in place for the Cuban People to have a say in who runs this place . . . because it's MINE, damn you!]"
___

Associated Press writer Vanessa Arrington in Havana [typed up the press release provided by the Ministry of Propaganda] contributed to this report.

As journalism, that was some fine propaganda.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack