Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Toast Fail

Is there no one on his staff that can teach him some manners?

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Separated at Birth

So despite the numerology and intense study of Biblical scripture, mixed in with a good dose of old fashioned hucksterism, Harold Camping's vision of the world ending over the weekend did not come to pass.  Some wags on the left are enjoying the lack of rapture and trying to equate decent church-going folks with well...a nut. But they are looking in the wrong place for parallels.
Harold Camping predicting doom.

No, the real parallel is not in the pulpits of the faithful who dutifully attend church, temple, mosque and synagogue.  Many of those folks attend services because they know that at least their world will end.  We have a few decades on this little blue orb to do our best...having faith in an afterlife at least makes that experience somewhat more pleasant.  At the very least, they are living out Pascal's Wager - there may be no way of proving God exists, but if you live your life accordingly, you have nothing to lose.

Al Gore bloviating.
No, the real profits of doom and the answer to the separated at birth question comes in the form of good ol' Al Gore.  Here's the real profit of doom who, ironically, profits greatly from the forecast of doom.  How many of his and his faithful's predictions are demonstrably false?  The irony of comparing the two is that you really cannot disprove religion - but you can use "facts" to disprove the rantings of the Global Warmers, err. "Climate Changers," who blame every natural disaster from earthquakes to hurricanes and tornadoes on man's incessant desire for fuel.

Got a species going extinct?  (As millions have...) Blame it on man and the global warmings.  Just got whacked with a tsunami - pity you didn't stop driving your SUV last year.  The ice caps are melting - no their growing...either way, it's your fault.  The snow mass on the Rockies is receding, no wait, it's at a record...either way, you done it.  You get the point.

We have called for stewardship on these pages many times before.  We are all for good water quality, clean air and healthy foods.  But unlike the cultist climate changers, we remain humble in nature's face acknowledging that there's a whole lot we cannot do even as we strive to do what we can.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Friday, May 6, 2011

Sticky Note Activism

Moonbattery has some great suggestions for the sticky note campaign!

Get your sticky-notes and sharpies and join in on this grassroots movement!  Some additional suggestions:

Know Hope, NOBAMA.

Hope Returns in 2012- NOBAMA!

Just say "NOBAMA!"

Hope doesnt' get you a job.

Get creative and have some fun!

Monday, May 2, 2011

He Didn't Screw It Up

Lord knows we have been harsh on President Obama in these pages.  But when he has done something right, we acknowledge it.  Killing Osama Bin Ladin is a really big deal (insert your language here, Mr. Biden), and congratulations to Obama for being the one on watch when it happened.  Despite the numerous "I's" and "me's" in his hour-late address last night, he deserves credit for being the C-in-C when this one went down.  The opportunities to have screwed this up were numerous - consider:

  • He could have done a Jimmy Carter and tried to "diversify" the operation by involving everyone - the Air Force, the Marines, the Army, the Coast Guard, the IRS.  Not only would this have compromised operational security, it would have most likely lead to the kind of catastrophe we witnessed at Desert One in Iran.
  • Obama, we are told, chose not to turn Osama into aerosol particles with a B-2 strike.  Without a long-form proof of death, the Arab world and the Taliban in particular would have run amok with rumors that OBL wasn't in the compound that got vaporized.
  • He could have insisted on Osama being taken alive so he could be turned over to the Eric Holder Justice Department and we could have had the entertainment of a trial on U.S. soil.  Frankly, I'm disturbed by reports coming out of the White House that they wanted him alive...be careful of what you wish for!  My guess is that even if those had been the orders, one of those Navy SEAL's, God bless them!, would have double-tapped OBL's brain anyway.
  • He could have told the Pakistanis we were coming.  Anyone with half a brain knows the ISI (Pakistan's Intelligence outfit) and the Paki army are riddled with Islamists...OBL would have been tipped off long before we got there.  Needless to say, there have to be some very nervous folks in the Pakistani establishment right now - heaven knows what we will find in the seized computers and other goodies we brought out of the compound.
I am sure I am probably missing a number of other ways Obama could have botched this thing, but he didn't.  It was an uncharacteristically gutsy call and he should be commended for making it.  He shouldn't have made such a gaudy "me, me, me" speech last night and he owed some thanks to his predecessor, the much maligned W who can now finally declare "Mission Accomplished." 

The real heroes in this though are the folks that day in and day out get the job done: our military.  As a retired Navy man, I am particularly proud to know that our SEAL's were the leading edge of the sword for this operation.  It is of great comfort to know that the last person Osama saw was a young American sailor and the last thing that went through his head was a US made 9-MM round. As a former Intel guy, I am also proud of the painstaking human intelligence that went into bringing this one to ground.  Big kudos to the CIA for a lot of hard, thankless work.  A big shout out goes to the boys at Guantanamo too - that was where the first strand that eventually led to OBL originated. We don't know if it was during one of the "surf's up" water boarding sessions, but a start is a start.

[Sidebar: How about the ultimate water board Osama got this morning in the Arabian Sea?]

A few afterthoughts:

  • For those on the left rejoicing that this ensures Osama's   Obama's (sorry, hard to avoid the typo) re-election - and those of you on the right despairing of the same, some advice from Jimmy Buffet: "breath in, breath out, move on."  We are a loooooong way away from the election with many rivers to cross.  Obama's re-election will hinge on whether unemployment gets below 9%.  As this event fades, people will remember it was the SEAL's and CIA that got OBL, not Obama.
  • This could be our ticket out of Afghanistan.  The original mission was to decapitate the Taliban and get Obama (dangit!) Osama.  We could use the savings and build schools over here where we don't blow them up regularly!  This could be a moment to declare victory and get out of that hell-hole.  Let it return to the thuggery of the past without U.S. Marines and Army soldiers in the middle.
  • Spec Ops guys rock the house, but we need to remember they are only one arrow in the quiver.  I am very much in favor of a leaner, more lethal military and the success of yesterday's raid is Exhibit A.  But those guys are only able to get there because of the larger network of assets available to them.  Let's not use this as an excuse to gut the military.
  • The war on terror is not over.  Al Qaida is designed to be cancerous and pop up in unexpected places.  They work on their own timetables and have probably anticipated that the day would come where OBL would either die of natural causes and old age or be finked out by someone in the Pakistani government.  They probably didn't anticipate that we would figure it out on our own, so that's a nice message to send.  Nevertheless, this will not end until the Islamic world deals with the crazies that the Shiites and Wahabists have created.  To paraphrase Golda Meir, peace will come when the Moslems are more concerned about having their children grow up to be productive members of society and not proud of them for blowing themselves up.  This is a  big step in a very long walk, but it is only a step.
At the end of the day, this was a good one for the good guys.