DON’T DEMOCRATS KNOW HOW TO PLAY FOOTBALL?
Partisan politics in Washington this season are getting interesting, as a few Democrats are cautiously beginning to challenge their leadership's strategy of total opposition to major Bush initiatives. It is dawning on some Democrats that their all-defense strategy may not pair up well with President Bush's all offense strategy. President Bush plays politics the way my friends and I used to play pick-up football when I was a kid. In the huddle, the quarterback would tell everyone else to go out long. On the snap the quarterback would dance around in the backfield until one of us five or six receivers got open, at which point he would complete the pass. With both sides going long all the time, we often ended up with basketball scores. The Democrats, on the other hand, when on offense, merely receive the snap and fall on the ball. When on defense, they put all their men on the line, trying for a quick sack of the quarterback. If the quarterback is too agile for them, they are vulnerable to be scored upon, given their lack of a pass defense. When two such teams meet, the best score the all-defense Democrats can hope for is a 0-0 tie. The best score the all-offense Republicans can expect is at least a 56-0 win.
ITALIAN MORAL STUPIDITY IN IRAQ
Giuliana Sgrena does not lack a sense of self importance. The 56-year-old journalist for the Italian communist newspaper Il Manifesto thinks she knows so many deep dark secrets the U.S. military tried to shut her up permanently. Sgrena went to Iraq to report on the heroic resistance to the American imperialists. Dutch journalist Harald Doornbos rode in the airplane to Baghdad with her. "Be careful not to get kidnapped," Doornbos warned Sgrena. "You don't understand the situation," she responded, according to Doornbos' account in the Nederlands Dagblatt. "The Iraqis only kidnap American sympathizers. The enemies of the Americans have nothing to fear." She got nabbed on her way back to her hotel. Sgrena told her captors she was on their side, and suggested they kidnap an American soldier instead. But the U.S. government doesn't pay ransoms.
RUSSIA LOSES ANOTHER ONE
A friend of mine whose name you know but is embarrassed to have his name mentioned and I will never forget standing on a street corner in Kishinev, Moldavia. We stood there looking like fools trying to keep our jaws from dropping open and our necks from snapping back and forth - for everywhere we looked, we saw another stunningly beautiful woman walk by. Between the two of us, we had been to just about every country in Europe, and we agreed: the most beautiful women on the European continent were right here. Kishinev left Paris in the dust.That was back in 1990, and the place was still part of the Soviet Union. During World War II, Stalin decided to move the USSR-Romania border westward, from the Dniester River to the Prut River, and called the territory he had seized the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldavia. The smallest of the USSR’s 15 republics (at 13,000 square miles, slightly larger than Maryland), it along with the others declared independence in 1991, changing its name to Moldova and its capital to Chisinau. Except there was this one little problem.
THE UNKNOWN KING OF TERROR and the Coming Lebanon Civil War
Last week, we discussed how there could be a light at the end of the terrorist tunnel. Now let’s talk about how that light could be an oncoming train.One of the most famous quotes of America’s favorite philosopher, Yogi Berra, is: “It’s never over until it’s over.” We’ve all been swept away with democracy seeming to march ineluctably forward in the Middle East, thrilled by the sea of red and white Lebanese flags waved in Beirut’s Martyr’s Square, and confidant that the Cedar Revolution will be victorious over Syrian imperialism. We need to pause now, take a deep breath, and heed Yogi’s words.I have a very bad feeling about Lebanon that this could turn out really ugly. Dispatch after dispatch, story after story, and all you read about is Syria’s getting its troops and spies out of its colony. Congressmen like Darryl Issa (R-CA) write newspaper op-eds entitled “Lebanon: Democracy’s Next Stop.” All without a word about Hezbollah. All without a word about Iran.Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is a puppet of the Mullacracy in Tehran. The people who give the orders to the Syrian troops in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley are Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the Pasdaran. Hezbollah was founded in 1982 among Lebanon’s Shia Moslems with money and weapons from Iran. It is run by the world’s worst terrorist, who is most decidedly not Osama Bin Laden.
RATHER DISTORTED
I write this with a Reidel glass of Rosemount Merlot at the ready, toasting the forced departure of an individual who has infested America’s airwaves for 43 years - ever since he joined CBS News in 1962. I won’t be watching Dan Rather’s final broadcast this evening, just as I haven’t watched CBS News for many years. I’ll merely sip my merlot in gratitude for all those bloggers who exposed Rather’s Memogate and did him in. And my friend Brent Bozell.
CONDI AND ARLEN
The nightmare of a PIAPS Presidency - Hillary - trumps all other considerations for me. Should she be the Democrat nominee, there is only one GOP candidate who could defeat her: Condi. For others - like my friends Rod Martin and Joe Farah - what trumps all considerations of being for Condi is that she is, however “mildly” or “reluctantly,” pro-abortion. I believe they would agree to choose Condi over Hillary any day if that were the only choice. Where we disagree is that they think some other GOP candidate, and one who is staunchly pro-life, could also beat Hillary. I have deep doubts. I think Condi is the only one who could do so. But who knows? She’s very untested as a candidate. 2008 is a long way off. What’s important is to make it unimportant what Condi’s or any other candidates’ position on abortion is. The goal should be to have new pro-life Supreme Court Justices in place by the end of GW’s second term, giving the Court a pro-life majority that the next occupant of the White House can do nothing about, and will overturn Roe v. Wade. Which brings us to Arlen Specter.
THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TERRORIST TUNNEL
The War on Terrorism - more precisely the War on Moslem Terrorism - may have been won on March 1st, 2005. That was the day US intel folks announced they had intercepted messages from Osama Bin Laden to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, begging Zarqawi to launch terrorist attacks inside America itself. The media went into a tizzy, bombarding Homeland Security officials with demands as to how they were going to protect us from this latest threat. And maybe there is a threat. Far more likely it’s an announcement of surrender. Osama’s message was in Arabic. Let’s translate its real meaning into plain English: “Dear Abu. I’m afraid I must announce to the world that, as a pitiful schmuck hiding in a mountain cave, I am powerless to organize or conduct any more terrorist attacks on the Great Satan of America. Can you do anything? I know you’re being hunted down in every mud-hole in Iraq right now, and it might be a little difficult for you to make your way undetected to the US, create your own terrorist network since mine obviously no longer functions, and start your own terrorist war there - but do your best, OK? I am depending on you, since our Islamofascist brothers can no longer depend on me. Yours, Osama.” This is why Osama’s plea to Zarqawi should be a cause for celebration - as it proclaims his Al Qaeda no longer has the capacity to attack America any longer.
A YOUNGER BRAIN
One difference between younger and older folks is that the former feel “endless possibilities of the future,” while the latter feel the future closing in on them. Time seems repetitive - like being caught in Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. This is a significant drain on one’s mental energy. An openness to the future, on the other hand, creates a youthful mental energy. Such a feeling of endless possibilities requires new neuronal connections in the brain. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks because the dog’s brain has become static, and has lost the capacity to grow new neurons and to establish new connections between neurons old and new. Now there may be a clever way with quite sophisticated nutrients to regrow new neurons and neuronal connections, literally youthening your brain.
FIREFOX
[I have a fondness for Firefox if only for the name: I was Clint Eastwood’s arctic location advisor for his 1982 movie “Firefox,” during which time we had a number of adventures together. I’m glad to see the Wizard finally discussing the Firefox web browser, as I have been bugging him about it for about a year now� ---JW] Many people with Windows use two mediocre programs - Internet Explorer and Outlook Express - for the most important aspects of their computing experience: browsing the Internet and managing email. For email, Microsoft Office provides a better way. Microsoft Office includes Outlook, which is a robust email application. It includes tasks, scheduling and many other features of a Personal Information Manager. But what about a better way than Internet Explorer? You’ve probably heard of that better way by now. There have been widespread reports in the mainstream media about Firefox - a new and worthy challenger to Internet Explorer. Mozilla Firefox 1.0.1 is the dream Internet browser you've been looking for. Featuring a host of small technical improvements, including tabbed browsing, built-in and customizable search bars, and a built-in RSS reader, Firefox browser is the one that should finally put a dent in Internet Explorer's unrivalled market dominance.
ALL BUT WON
It will be some months before the news media recognize it, and a few months more before they acknowledge it, but the war in Iraq is all but won. The situation is roughly analogous to the battle of Iwo Jima, which took place 60 years ago this month. It took 35 days before the island was declared secure, but the outcome was clear after day five, with the capture of Mt. Suribachi. Proof of this was provided by Sen. Hillary Clinton. Iraq is functioning quite well, she said in a press conference in Baghdad Feb. 19. The recent rash of suicide attacks is a sign the insurgency is failing, she said. When politicians like her start flocking to Iraq to bask in the light of its success, then you know that the corner has been turned.