They've got a meathook with your name on it, Saddam. Sic Semper Tyrannus.
Saddam Hussein "nervous" during handover
Deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was "visibly nervous" when he was handed over to Iraqi authorities on Wednesday according to the head of the special tribunal that will read him his charges on Thursday.
"It was a surreal experience," Salam Chalabi said, noting that the handover took place early Wednesday.
"We first saw Saddam Hussein and he had lost weight. He was not the towering figure that one used to see on TV before.
"He was nervous, very nervous, because he did not know what was happening. The whole process took maybe three or four minutes."
Saddam was wearing Arab dress and no longer had the beard he was seen with after his capture in December 2003, Mr Chalabi said, adding that his hair was "a bit long" and "black, not grey".
The former dictator is being held at a US base at Baghdad's international airport, according to humanitarian groups.
Saddam and the 11 other members of his former regime are to be read a charge sheet before the special tribunal on Thursday, according to an Iraqi official.
Maybe he'll try the Chin Gigante trick and feign senility.
UPDATE:
Chemical Ali was shaking upon being turned over to Iraqi control.
Did he think he'd never have to answer for gassing an entire town? I'm waiting for the defendant who'll be the Goerring character, defiant to the end. Evidently it's not ol' Ali.
Here's Duane playing on the railroad tracks. Bet he ran with scissors too.
Wail on, Skydog!
This was an interesting article to come home to this evening:
As you may already know, one of America's two political parties is extremely religious. Sixty-one percent of this party's voters say they pray daily or more often. An astounding 92 percent of them believe in life after death. And there's a hard-core subgroup in this party of super-religious Christian zealots. Very conservative on gay marriage, half of the members of this subgroup believe Bush uses too little religious rhetoric, and 51 percent of them believe God gave Israel to the Jews and that its existence fulfills the prophecy about the second coming of Jesus.
Liberals could read these statistics and sneer about "those silly Republicans" were it not for the fact that it's the Democrats who hold these beliefs. And the abovementioned ultrareligious subgroup is not the so-called "Religious Right" but rather the so-called "African-Americans."
It degenerates from there as it goes on to talk about John Kerry's religion problem, but that first part was pretty good. I give it a Paul Harvey thumbs up.
Here, Mr. Cheney, try one of these for inspiration.
Well, this is interesting. After all this time, Iraqis finally get to express opinions publicly. Now they're a regular bunch of Chatty Cathys over there:
While Radio Dijla has been credited with filling a void in the lives of Iraqis, al-Rikabi and others at the station argue their real accomplishment is helping to train Iraqis for democracy starting with the staff.
''The biggest challenge I had when we first started was getting the announcers to see that there are more than one source to the story,'' he said. ''Under the previous government, the radio, the television, the newspapers were like one big commercial selling one product. That product was Saddam Hussein. They said, wrote or broadcast what the government told them to.''
The radio also had to contend with a public unaccustomed to open debate.
''When we first started, people used to call in and give their opinions. But they always ended it with, 'Don't you think so, too?', or 'How do you feel?''' he said. ''Now, callers aren't worried about whether you agree.''
The pic of this note from Condi to President Bush made me hoot and holler. I understand that John Kerry received a note from Terry McAuliffe at the very same time.
This is the note received by President Bush from National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in Istanbul, Turkey, Monday, June 28, 2004, while attending the NATO summit confirming Iraqi's sovereignty. The President then wrote, Let Freedom Reign!
From Sarmad of Road of a Nation:
Great moments ,great time ,here in Iraq , The transfer of power to Iraq sovereignty has been completed 2 days in advance ,this was ,a great news for the Iraqis .
From this moment we started to celebrate ,and people ,all over here conciliation each other ,this is a great moments ,I resaved calls from all over the world greeting me for this happy moments .
Thank you Mr. . primmer ,for being great president for Iraq all this time, Thank you for great job you did for Iraq ,we will never forget you , you will be always in our minds and harts.
Thank you united state of America for your great Job you done here .
Thank you coalitions forces for you brave work and supporting good.
Thank you all Brave mans ,who lost there life here ,your bloods will be the river of hope for us .
Thank you all good friends out there ,thank you for being with us all the way , minute by minute ,day by day ,living our sadness and happiness ,standing beside us ,encouraging us
Supporting us ,worry about us ,we always felt that you are there beside us ,with us .
Thank you all brave Iraqis who stand out there to fight for better future and freedom.
I will go now to celebrate with all people for this happy moments ,it has been long time since we celebrate.
From Sam of Hammorabi:
The handover is a surprise for the enemies of the free and democratic Iraq. The terrorist may have been planned a major attack on the 30 July 2004. The earlier handover may have been aborted such an action.
Good luck for Iraq and the civilized people the friends of Iraq.
God bless Iraq and America and their friends and allies.
Smooth move! My congratulations to all Iraqis!
IRAQ POWER HANDOVER 'TODAY'
The handover of power in Iraq is to be brought forward to today.
A formal announcement will be made later today, Tony Blair said.
The informal announcement was made by Iraq's foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari.
The handover of power to an interim Iraqi government was supposed to take place on June 30.
Mr Zebari said the deteriorating security situation in the country was one of the reasons why the date had been brought forward.
"We will challenge these elements in Iraq, the anti-democratic elements, by even bringing the handover of sovereignty before June 30 as a sign we are ready for it," he said.
(Via FR.)
UPDATE:
More here.
The Bush administration was pleased with the decision to move up the transfer date and was confident in the new government, a senior administration official said. The president marked the transfer with a whispered comment and a handshake with Blair, his closest ally in the war, as they gathered with world leaders around a table at a NATO summit in Istanbul.
Stealing a glance at his watch to make sure the transfer had occurred, Bush put his hand over his mouth to guard his remarks, leaned toward Blair and then reached out to shake hands. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, a row behind the president, beamed.
Sneaks! Good job, guys.
There's very strange and conflicting information regarding the Marine the terrorists are claiming they've kidnapped. Blogs of War has pics, including one of a Marine Corps ID badge in the name of Wassef Ali Hassoun, and other info.
This article from the Irish Independent made my night. I am so proud of my President.
Bill Clinton's eight years of dithering led to unmitigated disasters that could well have been avoided had he possessed even a smidgen of the current president's honour and grit.
It has taken George Bush less than four years to clean up his predecessor's mess and restore the moral balance.
(Via Lucianne.)
Honey-talking Bill lacks George's guts and honour
MOST of the crazies who called for George Bush's arrest this week believe we were safer when Bill Clinton was bedding interns in the Oval Office.These political adolescents think the ex-president possessed qualities of leadership that are lost on his simple-minded successor. But those who seriously study the record will know it is actually George Bush who fits the description of a truly great leader.
Glancing through the ego-soaked pages of Clinton's new memoir - My Life, you would never guess that he abandoned reason and scruple by making statesmen out of people like Yasser Arafat and Gerry Adams, thereby destroying any hope for long-term peace in either Northern Ireland or the Middle East.
Bill Clinton, during his time in office, quite simply squandered America's moral authority that Ronald Reagan restored in the wake of Watergate and Vietnam.
He did so by vetoing intervention to stop the Rwandan genocide, refusing to stand up to Slobodan Milosevic until he had wasted most of Bosnia and Kosovo, and by abandoning countless innocent Somalis once the going got a little tough. Under his nose, Kim Jong Il restarted his nuclear programme, Saddam bored holes in the sanctions and expelled the arms inspectors from Iraq, while Al-Qaeda used the protection of the Taliban to take control of Afghanistan.
In response, Clinton bombed Iraq for the duration of his impeachment trial without United Nation approval. If it's war crimes the anti-war loons are concerned with they need first prosecute their darling Bill.
In contrast, George W Bush has rid the world of Saddam Hussein's regime and the vile Taliban - killers of 2.5 million innocent Muslims between them, thereby depriving Al-Qaeda of its sole state sponsor.
Thanks to the President's moral courage, Iraq has now the most ethnically diverse government and most liberal constitution in the Middle East.
The 400 towns that Saddam destroyed have now been rebuilt and all of the country's schools, hospitals, and universities have been refurbished and reopened.
Libya has been disarmed, North Korea and the Iranians are being forced to follow suit, and a worldwide underground nuclear network has been exposed and shut down.
Bill Clinton liked to honey up his speeches with talk of combating Aids, but as Bob Geldof rightly insists, it is actually George Bush who has done more to alleviate Africa's misery than any American president in history.
That combined with the fact that he has rejoined UNESCO and paid all of America's outstanding debts to the United Nations, makes George Bush's period in office one of the noblest on record.
Bill Clinton's eight years of dithering led to unmitigated disasters that could well have been avoided had he possessed even a smidgen of the current president's honour and grit.
It has taken George Bush less than four years to clean up his predecessor's mess and restore the moral balance.
And that is why calls for his arrest are as contemptible as they are stupid.
I have a great fondness for Florida 60's garage bands. That I'm only interested in Florida bands is all that keeps me wrapped up in cotton now that Son of Nixon has dragged the pelt of John Kerry across the trail of my happy memories.
Slick Willie's visit to Vegas has perturbed a local editorialist:
Like one of those science fiction movies in which the telepathic alien tries to hypnotize our brave crew into believing they're safe at home when in fact they're still trapped on his alien world, the psychodrama which was America's encounter with William Jefferson Clinton just goes on and on ... and on.
One would never guess Bill Clinton -- in Las Vegas today for a fund-raiser -- has been retired from public life for years. He's been getting more face time on TV of late than even the current president of the United States -- let alone some hapless second-string Democrat from Massachusetts who's rumored to be running his own campaign for the nation's highest office.
The latest installment of Mr. Clinton's endless unburdening has been fueled by the release of his doorstop of an autobiography, which seems to resemble nothing so much as 30 years worth of transcribed day planners, only with all the hot Saturday night dates carefully excised.
And what is the recurring theme of Mr. Clinton's sanitized mea culpa?
Like a wrestler pretending to take a fall only so he can overbalance his opponent, the former president accepts "full responsibility for what he did" (thus claiming full credit for the first step required by all 12-step programs and pop psychology regimes -- applause, please) ... but then quickly adds that it's really all the fault of Kenneth Starr and the vast right-wing conspiracy.
Someone should write a self-help book for America on her dysfunctional relationship with Willie. The man is a rake.
UPDATE:
It's Clinthog Day!
I feel like Bill Murray in the movie "Groundhog Day." Murray was a self-centered television weatherman, who was trapped in time in Punxsutawney. Every morning he woke, it was the exact same morning. He woke every day to Sonny and Cher singing "Babe, I got you, babe ..."
And we wake to our own Clinton purgatory every morning. I fear the residue of the Clinton years will never dry. I worry that the sticky, humid cloud that settled over us will never lift. I tremble at the thought that no matter what we do, no matter how much time passes, it will be Clinthog Day every day.
But that's enough talk of Clinton's sticky residue. Next up: Bill Clinton as the metaphorical never-drying wet spot.
A bum houseless urban camper is using his 15 minutes of fame to get treatment for his dog.
That he uses this little bit of collateral for another's benefit is lovely.
My sister is well-pleased with Mr. Cheney's cursing, while I think it was unprofessional. She says in some situations only certain words are capable of expressing your sentiments and that saying some skanky insult that is minus the vulgarity is just as bad as saying the vulgarity. Be gracious or go ahead and employ good Anglo-Saxonisms.
I still think it's unprofessional. I'd rather Cheney caned the guy or called him out. A duel would have been fine too. Telling someone to eff off is just too coarse and common.
It just makes me so sad for a Lee County boy to perish in war. I want all our fellows to kick butt and come home safe. Captain Daniel Eggers was killed in Afghanistan and has been buried in Arlington. I'm so sorry for his family for their loss and for America that we have lost someone so upright and brave. Thank you for your sacrifice, Daniel.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
Capt. Daniel Eggers — Company C, 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, N.C. — had it all going for him.
The 28-year-old Cape Coral High School graduate, who conquered The Citadel and went on to join the Green Berets, had a lovely wife, two rambunctious sons and a brilliant future ahead of him.
Eggers’ dreams of advancement in the Army ended May 29 when his vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.
His widow, Rebecca; the couple’s sons, William and John; and Eggers’ parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters gathered at a solemn funeral Tuesday morning with at least 70 other relatives and friends in a clearing at Arlington National Cemetery.
Also read more from those who knew him. Bill of INDC Journal is taking up a collection for his children. Please give generously.
UPDATE:
The Citadel has a memorial page and more information on donations for his children.
Members of the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry carry the casket of Capt. Daniel W. Eggers during funeral services at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Tuesday, June 22, 2004. Eggers was killed May 29, in Kandahar, Afghanistan when his vehicle hit a land mine.
Family members of Army Capt. Daniel W. Eggers attend his funeral services at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., on Tuesday, June 22, 2004. Eggers was killed May 29, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, when his vehicle hit a land mine. Standing are his wife, Rebecca, from left, son John, 6, parents Margaret, William, and son William, 3.
Army Brig. Gen. Gary Jones presents a medal to Margaret Eggers, mother of Capt. Daniel W. Eggers, during his funeral services at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Tuesday June 22, 2004. Eggers was killed May 29, in Kandahar, Afghanistan when his vehicle hit a land mine. Eggers' son John, 6, watches.
Members of the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry escort the cassion of Capt. Daniel W. Eggers to graveside services at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Tuesday, June 22, 2004. Eggers was killed May 29, in Kandahar, Afghanistan when his vehicle hit a land mine.
--
“He loved the Army so much,” said Margaret Eggers, fighting to hold back tears. “This is very fitting.”
Six dark horses slowly pulled a black wooden caisson and its flag-draped casket down Eisenhower Drive then wheeled right on to York Drive.
A soft breeze kicked up and the sun ducked behind some clouds as an Army chaplain recited a verse from the Bible. The roar of an airplane landing at nearby Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport faded, then gave way to the sound of chirping birds.
The sun came out again, warming the air as Eggers’ family and friends said their silent goodbyes.
At 10 a.m., the seven-member firing party fired three shots into the air and a bugler standing behind tidy rows of white marble headstones blew taps.
The ceremonial unit of the U.S. Army Band — known as “Pershing’s Own” — struck up the familiar strains of “America the Beautiful” as the casket team carefully folded the American flag into a tight blue triangle.
Rebecca Eggers, an Army captain stationed at Fort Bragg, dabbed tears from her face before accepting the flag from Lt. Gen. Philip Kesinger Jr., commanding general of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
When the presentations and condolences had ended, a bagpiper from the Citadel stepped from behind a fir tree and played “Amazing Grace.”
Eggers was buried next to a small, freshly planted holly tree in a section of Arlington National Cemetery where many of the U.S. casualties from Afghanistan and Iraq have come home to rest.
Just two plots away is the grave of Sgt. 1st Class Robert Mogensen of Leesville, La., who was killed with Eggers and two other soldiers as they returned to their base near Kandahar.
“This is tough, but you deal with it,” said Col. Rich Dixon, who traveled from Fort Leavenworth, Kan., to attend the funeral.
Dixon met Eggers at Fort Stewart, Ga., and immediately recognized something special in the young man.
“I made him my logistics officer as a 1st lieutenant and that tells you he was a top officer because those boots are usually filled by a captain,” Dixon said. “He was extremely competent and capable.”
Dixon and others joined the Eggers family after the funeral for a reception at Fort Myer, a military installation next to the cemetery.
Close friends occasionally chuckled while recalling Eggers’ well-known sense of humor.
Eggers was able to mimic a particular history professor at The Citadel, said Chris Price, a classmate who now lives in Annapolis, Md.
“He was always willing to make people laugh,” Price said.
On one occasion before a major history exam, Eggers, knowing the history professor was a fan of the Confederacy, wrote on the blackboard, “Gen. Sherman, Fire Marshall,” recalled Josh Blocker, a classmate now stationed at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C.
But when it came to his career, Eggers was serious and motivated, according to Capt. James Alden, also with the 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg.
Alden met Eggers when the two were at Fort Stewart, the Army’s premiere East Coast tank-training site.
As a quartermaster in charge of supplies, Alden was a notch below Eggers in the Army’s pecking order, but Alden said Eggers never acted arrogant.
“Dan had the knack of always treating everybody with respect,” Alden said. “He would treat a private the same as he would treat a colonel.”
Eventually the two men found themselves together for a month-long stint at the Army’s National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif.
It was there that Alden witnessed Eggers’ skill at learning foreign languages and his drive to succeed.
“Dan had a sergeant in his section who could speak French, German, Russian, Spanish and a couple of other languages,” Alden said. “He would tell this sergeant, ‘Today, when we see each other we’re only going to speak French.’ And the next day they would speak German.”
Before their stint in California was over, Eggers could converse in those languages, Alden said.
A graduate of West Point, Alden said it was Eggers who inspired him to enter the Army Special Forces training to become a Green Beret.
“He was always looking to improve himself and he made me want to be a better person,” Alden said.
Rebecca Eggers spent much of the reception standing near the entrance to the small reception room cradling her infant nephew in her arms and chatting quietly with the soldiers who were part of her husband’s life. Her two sons played nearby.
Keeping their father’s memory alive will be important, she said.
“I spend a lot of time reminding them their daddy taught them certain things so they remember,” she said.
Zell's my baby. I love him to pieces. He'll be addressing the Republican Convention this summer and I can't wait to hear him. Now that he's retiring, he'll have lots of time to gather the grandkids around the campfire and tell them the scary tale of how the South used to be Democrat until she was driven out of the Party by left-wing nutjobs.
Georgia Sen. Zell Miller, the highest profile Democrat to endorse President Bush for re-election, will speak at the Republican National Convention later this summer, a congressional aide said Friday.
According to the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Miller will give his address on Wednesday night of the convention in New York. The Bush-Cheney campaign was expected to make an official announcement later in the day. The convention will be held Aug. 30-Sept. 2.
The speech by Miller, a former two-term governor, comes 12 years after he delivered the keynote address for Bill Clinton at the 1992 Democratic National Convention, also held in New York.
Note to Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis: It's not selling your soul for a mess of potage; it's selling your birthright. It's not surprising he can't even get a standard Biblical allusion right. Cultural illiterate.
TacJammer relays a photo-message from the Afghani population of Fremont, California.
A whole pack of them doing this would be pretty scary.
This is one talented dog.
(Via Pisces Peach.)
The murder of their compatriot is prompting displays of the famous South Korean pundonor and machismo.
An unexpected reaction was Wednesday's wave of anti-Muslim and anti-Iraqi sentiment.
"An innocent son of our nation was murdered," said one of the many messages that flooded the Web site of the Defense Ministry. "If you allow me to volunteer for Iraq, I will fight terrorists to avenge his death."
Other messages urged military strikes against terrorists. The portion of respondents to polls run by the Yahoo and Daum Web sites who said the beheading had prompted them to now back sending more troops increased by 23 percent on Yahoo and 24 percent on the Daum site on Wednesday.
At a rally in Seoul, conservative protesters said the government should send combat troops to Iraq, instead of military doctors and engineers.
"We want revenge for Kim's killing," the conservative protesters shouted, burning portraits of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of the Islamic terrorists who beheaded Kim and dumped his body and head on a road.
After callers threatened to blow up Seoul's main mosque, riot police officers were posted outside the building.
Why would this be unexpected? Your countryman getting murdered by terrorists should make you mad as hell.
Last night I saw the new ad for Dubya by the Club for Growth. This is the one called "Leadership". It had John Kerry doing his hippy Vietnam protester thing and testifying before Congress in his best plummy George Plimpton accent that "We cannot fight Communism all over the world and I think we would have learned that lesson by now." The next image is President Reagan doing his "Tear down this wall" speech. Hee! Then Dubya with the bullhorn at Ground Zero doing his awesome off the cuff "They're gonna hear all of us pretty soon" quip. Yes, this is leadership. Thanks as always goes to the man in the arena and not the guy who spends his life pissing in better men's cornflakes.
Go have a look at the commercial if you haven't already. It's way cool.
A woman gets in a fight with her husband and shoots him dead. 31 years later the woman gets in a fight with her husband and shoots him dead. The first one was a freebie, kind of like how every dog gets one free bite. This second one, well, it's starting to look like a pattern.
Back in 1972 one of my neighbor's daughters killed a boyfriend in a domestic dispute. I tried to puzzle it out from the newspaper article- right, wrong? I looked to my mother for a clue about how to feel about this. She didn't have a problem with it. There are good reasons for killing the person you live with, but I was thinking about that case the other day and wondering how much effect the times have on punishment of crime. 1972 was a big year in the women's movement. So far during my life there hasn't been a climate of opinion where it would be acceptable for Mr. Cracker to kill me in an argument, and for that I'm glad.
These kids rock. A highschool chapter of Protest Warrior strikes a blow against the leftist establishment.
(Via Ace.)
=
Here's Duane with his two red tops.
Wail on, Skydog!
Go, Ralph! Stick to your guns, boy.
The shouting heard through the thick walls and solemn faces on the black lawmakers who left the meeting gave it away before Ralph Nader even said a word.
He isn't abandoning his independent candidacy for president, despite pleas from the Congressional Black Caucus that he should.
Matt's hoping Santa will make a special stop at the Drudge house tonight. This severed head thing's turned out to be a real goldmine for young Matthew.
Poor guy. I hope S. Korea redoubles its troops. No kowtowing to these bastards. It gets you nothing.
Kim's body was found west of Baghdad by U.S. personnel at 5:20 p.m. Iraq time, South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Shin Bong-kil told Yonhap.
The South Korean embassy in Baghdad confirmed the body was Kim's by studying an e-mailed photograph, Shin said.
"It breaks our heart that we have to announce this unfortunate news," he added.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, coalition deputy operations chief, said the body of an Asian male was found west of Baghdad on Tuesday evening.
"It appears that the body had been thrown from a vehicle," Kimmitt said in a statement. "The man had been beheaded, and the head was recovered with the body."
This is why Al Gore invented the Internet: The full text of Flannery O'Connor's short story "Good Country People" is online, in a very readable format too. Re-live Hulga and Manley the Bible salesman's meeting in the barn loft in all its glory. There'll be a quiz later.
The earliest reference to Crackers in Florida can be found in the documents of the Governor of Spanish West Florida. In 1709, the Governor wrote,"These Crackers are nomadic, like Arabs, distinguished from savages only by their color and language." The earliest Crackers arrived in Florida before the Seminoles and are the State's most native group, since the early aboriginal people had died out as a result of diseases introduced by the early Spanish.
Allahu Akhbar, y'all. Now get off our land.
Glenn Garvin of the Miami Herald did a bang-up commentary on the Clinton 60 Minutes interview:
'Slick Willie' slippery as ever about himselfIt would have been a revealing moment, if we hadn't seen it before so many times. Bill Clinton, asked about his last-minute pardon of a rogue oil trader accused of cheating the government out of $48 million in taxes, said it was a mistake -- but only because he ''took a lot of grief'' about it. ``Nobody's yet made a case to me that it was the wrong decision.''
What matters is not whether the trader's a thief, or whether the U.S. government owes him an apology for wrongly indicting him, or any of the right and wrong of it. All that matters is Bill Clinton.
It is precisely that self-regard -- and the lawyerly evasions and wounded complaints that accompanied it -- that has caused Clinton so much trouble over the years. But as his hourlong interview with Dan Rather on 60 Minutes Sunday night showed, he still doesn't get it. After all, he didn't inhale.
Clinton's political success has always been based on his easy intimacy, his ability to make you feel that even though he's speaking to 300 million Americans and half the rest of the world on television, the only one he's really talking to is you.That side of Clinton was abundantly on display in his interview with Rather. He quietly, gravely described how he sat on the side of the bed to tell his wife he had cheated on her. He hilariously demonstrated how he traded judo grips while practicing how to keep Yasser Arafat from kissing him at a public ceremony. He was contrite about his ''terrible moral error'' and appealingly introspective as he explained (but, he noted, didn't excuse) his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky: ``I did something for the worst possible reason -- just because I could.''
But Clinton has never understood that it's precisely those intimate links he establishes with perfect strangers that cause them to be so enraged when he's caught cutting corners. Regardless of whether you thought his cigar games with Lewinsky (and his lies about them to a grand jury, which Clinton conveniently omitted from his discussion Sunday) rose to the level of an impeachable offense, or even a matter of public concern, it was infuriating to watch him on television boldly declare: ''I did not have sexual relations with that woman,'' then admit a few months later that he had.
Clinton did not understand that the nature of the relationship he forged with Americans elevated presidential lies into personal betrayals. And he still doesn't. He said Sunday night that what wounds him most is the nickname ''Slick Willie.'' But what can you expect when the whole country watches you squirming in front of a grand jury, saying things like ``It depends upon what the meaning of the word is is.''
He danced his trademark sidestep throughout the 60 Minutes interview, on matters both personal and political. He said he and his wife Hillary rebuilt their marriage after his affair with Lewinsky through marital counseling, but failed to mention that they also went through lengthy counseling after his earlier infidelities while governor of Arkansas. He implicitly criticized President Bush for failing to do enough to catch Osama bin Laden while not acknowledging that his own efforts were ineffectual, if not half-hearted. He said Bush shouldn't have invaded Iraq but overlooked the fact that the official policy of his own administration from 1998 onward was regime change.
Clinton even claimed that his nemesis, independent counsel Kenneth Starr, after spending $70 million to investigate the Whitewater scandal, ''issued his report and there were hundreds and hundreds of references to sex, and two to Whitewater.'' In fact, the independent counsel's office issued a 2,000-page report on Whitewater that concluded while there was evidence of wrongdoing, there was not enough to ensure a conviction.
Dan Rather let that slip by, as he did most of Clinton's tiptoeing half-truths. It would be unfair to say that Rather pitched nothing but softballs, but in none of the six interviews he has had with Clinton over the past dozen years has Rather ever shown the combativeness he did in confrontations with Richard Nixon.
To see how Clinton reacts under that kind of cross-examination, we'll have to wait for an interview on the BBC this week, where British journalist David Dimbleby asks Clinton just how genuine his contrition over the Lewinsky affair really is. Clinton's response, reportedly, is anything but vintage Slick Willie.
Sanity's Edge gives a terrific description of a not-so-special Father's Day. He needs to set his expectations a little lower - that way he won't be so disappointed. He should think "Oh boy! Today I get a card!"
That this day has the highest amount of collect calls should tell you something.
IRAN DETAINS ROYAL NAVY VESSELS
Iran has reportedly seized three Royal Navy vessels that entered its territorial waters and arrested eight British sailors.
Arab-language satellite news channel Al-Alam said the seacraft had been detained near the Iraqi border.
Iranian naval sources told the offcial station: "The Iranian navy has confiscated three British boats that entered Iranian territorial waters... arresting the crew of eight people.
"On the boats they found weapons and maps."
The confrontation was said to have taken place in the Shatt al Arab stretch of water between Iraq and Iran.
Sky News' Foreign Editor Tim Marshall said: "Iran is making a point to Britain probably, and that point is 'back off'."
It looks more to me like they're trying to pick a fight.
A coward dies a thousand deaths, a brave man dies but once.
Don't crawl.
Part One of the Dallas Morning News' series on the international shell game the Catholic church has been playing with pedophiliac priests.
About a dozen children circle around the Rev. Frank Klep after Mass on one sun-kissed Sunday. They chirp his name, trying to catch his eye as he begins handing out foil-wrapped candy. He calls them by name, too, beams and hugs some of them.
Few, if any, locals are aware that the friendly priest is a convicted child molester who has admitted abusing one boy and is wanted on more charges back in Australia. In 1998, his religious order placed him here in the South Pacific. Australian police can't touch him now because their country has no extradition treaty with Samoa.
Neither he nor the church feels an obligation to tell anyone about all that.
"I'd prefer to just leave it," Father Klep said recently. "If I felt I was still at risk to their children, then I'd think differently. But I don't think I am at risk anymore."
His order, the Salesians of Don Bosco, has long moved priests accused of sexual abuse from country to country away from law enforcement and victims. Indeed, it is how many others in the Catholic Church have dealt with the problem, an 18-month, worldwide Dallas Morning News investigation has found.
A taxidermied Walter Duranty greets visitors in the lobby.
Op-Ed columnists hang out at the water cooler.
Maureen Dowd snags a scoop.
At the staff meeting, Sulzberger passes the toy moose to Thomas Friedman.
Paul Krugman wonders where Bush was during the Great Chicago Fire.
Sometimes David Brooks wonders whether he fits in.
Later they re-enact the naked Iraqi prisoner pyramid.
Did you know there is a "Brunswick Nine"? I didn't either.
These jailed G-8 protesters are on a hunger strike: No food between supper and breakfast.
Outside the jail, people were singing "Let My People Go" (to the International House of Pancakes for a Rootie-Tootie Fresh and Fruity).
As their bodies grow weaker, their spirit grows strong, so it's all good.
So, it's official: There are lots of jobs here in Broward. Unemployment here is at its lowest since May 2001. Will this county thank Dubya in November? Nope. Half the people voting are retired anyways.
-"I liked Carter, too."
-"How could you like Carter? He was a terrible president."
-"I like what he did after he was in office. Going around the world helping people."
-"Oh, he just does that because he's like...what's his face. Jesse Jackson."
-"Jesse Jackson. That's low. Wow."
"It takes more than one bullet to kill a Bull Moose!"
-Teddy Roosevelt, after being shot in the chest by an assassin.
The Library of Congress has online audio and video of Teddy Roosevelt. He didn't sound the way I thought he would, after a lifetime of hearing impersonators shout "Bully!" I loved the video of him rip-snorting around with the Rough Riders.
Teddy is my very favorite president. He was truly one of a kind.
He wasn't Mark Twain's favorite. Twain's description still makes me laugh, though, probably because there's no such thing as an uninteresting Twain quote:
"Mr. Roosevelt is the Tom Sawyer of the political world of the twentieth century; always showing off; always hunting for a chance to show off; in his frenzied imagination the Great Republic is a vast Barnum circus with him for a clown and the whole world for audience; he would go to Halifax for half a chance to show off and he would go to hell for a whole one."
-Mark Twain, in "Eruption".
Speaking of show-offs, Mark Twain attended his only daughter's wedding wearing a college cap and gown. It just couldn't be someone else's day. I love him, but I'm glad he wasn't my dad.
Go, Teddy!
John Kerry continues to fraudulently draw a paycheck. He's doesn't go to work, but he still gets paid. Honest Abe he ain't.
Foxnews is saying the Saudis have killed Muqrin, the guy who killed Paul Johnson.
Al Arabiya television said it had unconfirmed reports that the top al Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, was killed Friday.
The television, which is majority owned by Saudis, did not give any details. Muqrin's group had earlier beheaded American engineer Paul Johnson in Riyadh. Shortly afterwards, Saudi forces killed three militants in a shootout in the capital.
I loved the interview with President Bush. He's not very nuanced, is he?
"The murder of Paul shows the evil nature of the enemy we face," Bush said as he prepared to board Air Force One. "These are barbaric people. There's no justification whatsoever for his murder. And yet they killed him in cold blood.
"And it should remind us that we must pursue these people and bring them to justice before they hurt other Americans," the president said. "See, they're trying to intimidate America. They're trying to shake our will. They're trying to get us to retreat from the world. America will not retreat. America will not be intimidated by these kinds of extremist thugs. May God bless Paul Johnson."
And from Cheney:
"They have no shame, not a shred of decency, and no mercy. America will hunt down the killers, one by one, and destroy them."
Drudge is such an asshole. I bet he could hardly sleep last night in anticipation of the deadline for Paul Johnson's life. This must be like Christmas morning for him. He got to show the severed head without any warning to the reader.
Yellow-journalist jerk.
Fox is reporting that Paul Johnson has been murdered.
I am so sorry for him and his family. Saudi Arabia has a lot to answer for.
Tim Blair reports they're having a big party for Teddy Kennedy at the Democratic Convention on July 26th in celebration of his long career. Party-goers will drink like fishes, get drunk to the gills, and drown Teddy in their good wishes. Kennedy's career has had its ups and downs, but he's always managed to keep his head above water.
I get a sinking feeling though that some party-poopers will carp about it being the anniversary of that time he let Mary Jo Kopechne drown.
Back when Larry King was trying to break into showbiz,
He had a bit part on the original Star Trek.
"Here, you little bastard, drink this soup."
-Calamity Jane, to a boy in the pest-house during the 1878 smallpox epidemic in Deadwood.
She was rough; a slattern and a drunk, but always pitched in when hands were needed. The boy survived the smallpox and presided over Jane's burial in 1903. She's buried next to Wild Bill Hickok and I don't think Bill would be too thrilled about that.
I'd read the NYT if it had things like this as the front page headline. The stuff they usually serve up is just too dry. The Fort Myers News Press knows what I like.
Homeless man vows to keep puppies safe
The fate of newborn puppies hangs in the balance as a homeless man tries to save their den from being bulldozed into rubble today or Friday.
“She will stay and die with those puppies. I am sure of that,” Walter F. Frazier, 70, said of the stray dog that made a den under his shack and gave birth to at least four pups Monday.
The little bum encampment Frazier lives in is being cleared for new construction. Frazier says he'd lift up the shack and get the puppies out if he could. The article quotes a less-than-helpful Animal Control spokesman and a saddened business-neighbor. Then:
In the meantime, the heavy, noisy equipment is getting closer and closer to the puppies.
It quotes the construction guy who doesn't want to hurt an animal but has to do his job, and ends with Frazier vowing to climb on the roof to prevent the shack coming down on the mama dog and her puppies and begging people to step forward and help the doggies.
*sniff sniff* Good stuff. Y'all don't worry, the Humane Society will beat feet over there and this will have a happy ending. That's how come you can enjoy the drama, because you know this will end happily. I bet the reporter had a lot of fun writing that, getting to use all his verbal powers, and must have been pleased the story was featured so prominently.
UPDATE:
They've rescued the mama dog and her eight puppies. The puppies are having to be bottle-fed as the mama is too weak. People are being invited to put in their dibs for adoption.
Good job to Mr. Frazier for his protecting these defenseless animals and to the Fort Myers News Press for reporting on it and getting things set to rights.
UPDATE II
Snoozing rescued puppies.
John Kerry launches intensive search for VP, chooses English actress Vivien Leigh.
It beats "The Sugar Mama of Mozambique".
UPDATE:
And her cookies are better too.
She drew his attention instantly, he recalled: "a vivacious and attractive girl, smaller than average, saucy in the look about her face and in her whole attitude."
Is this "When John Met Teresa"? No. We're not talking sauce from a can.
Extra hint: Saucy's parents told her not to marry this fellow because he'd never amount to anything.
Give up? Meet the original saucy one.
Here's Duane rockin' out. Wail on, Skydog!
He misses 87% of the votes and he's still drawing a salary? I've missed 100%. That Senate should cut me a check too, since they don't mind handing them out to folks who aren't there.
A Hofstra University Law School student wants to see Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry return most of his Senate salary for the past two years to cover the days he has been absent campaigning.
Law student Jonathan M. Stein, 28, filed a complaint against Mr. Kerry of Massachusetts for cashing the pay checks and Senate Secretary Emily J. Reynolds for not deducting pay for his absences.
"I learned about the issue by accident," Mr. Stein said.
"Mrs. Reynolds has knowingly and willfully" violated section 2 paragraph 39 of the U.S. Code by giving Mr. Kerry his salary without deducting daily wages for each day that he has been absent from the Senate, Mr. Stein said.
Mr. Kerry began his day in New Jersey facing questions from reporters about Massachusetts Republican Gov. Mitt Romney's request that the senator resign his seat so the governor could appoint someone with the time to fill it.
"It's not fair, it's not right, and the public is not being well-served," said Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey.
She said Mr. Kerry has missed 64 percent of roll call votes last year and 87 percent this year.
Mr. Kerry refused to resign, saying: "I believe I am serving the citizens of Massachusetts and the country in the proposal I've laid out about health care for all Americans, which George Bush has not, to balance the budget, to be fiscally responsible."
Mr. Country Store is in fine form. He wraps up all the Kerry news in one capped, bleached, botoxed, poor job-attendanced, terrorist-supporting package.
A fellow Cracker has turned down $4.5 million from the State of Florida for his land. They're trying to implement a big environmental plan for the Everglades and Jesse Hardy is the hold-out. I would take the money and buy land somewhere else. Hardy is a tad more extreme, though, and he purely hates environmentalists. He also thinks the state is cutting too wide a swath in considering his land part of the Glades.
"The Everglades is thataway," he said, hitching a thumb in the direction of Everglades National Park, whose closest entrance is about 40 miles east of the South Blocks. "It's coming down to the point where people hate these environmentalists. Nothing satisfies them."
I like the NYT reporter's description of the folk from the area, which is one county south of mine:
This, after all, is backcountry Collier County, only miles from those mansions but much more distant in spirit, peopled with leatheryskinned hunters, all-terrain-vehicle riders and loners who relish their privacy.
The state says if they went ahead with their plans with him still there, his land would become swampy and unusable. It's all relative.
"There's not going to be any great flood like Noah and the ark," he said.
I found his website, which some of y'all may find interesting. He's gotten a lot of press with his fight.
It always makes me smile that my church makes so many people livid. That lets me know the train's still on the right track.
Reading this article on John Kerry in the NYT reminds me of the Teddy Roosevelt quote on "The Man in the Arena."
"It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly...who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
The author states that if John Kerry wants to persuade voters he is presidential, he should put the country's interests ahead of his own and put his career-long experience at criticizing others to good use on those "allies" who have refused to help us.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Go Negative on the Allies
By PETER D. FEAVER
For months, Senator John Kerry has been among the loudest in the chorus criticizing President Bush for not persuading our allies to shoulder more of the Iraq burden. But now it is time for Mr. Kerry to start admonishing the allies. The problem today is not the administration's reluctance to woo allies, but rather the allies' reluctance to be wooed.
In the past few weeks, Mr. Bush has, with the help of the United Nations, identified Iraqi leadership that appears to have sufficient domestic and international legitimacy to assume sovereignty after June 30. The next phase of the transfer of power has won unanimous endorsement from the Security Council. The Group of 8 summit meeting last week, however, showed that our on-again allies were reluctant to move beyond lip service to much real aid, either in the form of troops or Iraqi debt relief.
For instance, Senator Kerry says NATO should assume a greater role in Iraq. This prospect is blocked by a stubborn president, but not the one named in Mr. Kerry's critique. Rather it is President Jacques Chirac of France who rejects a NATO role.
Mr. Kerry also said that the allies would find it difficult to contribute without greater cover from the United Nations. We now have it. Why can't Mr. Kerry find it in his heart to express a modicum of disappointment with, say, the Germans, who for months have vowed not to provide troops even with United Nations endorsement, even if NATO authorizes them to do so?
In fact, there are a couple of good reasons that the senator's foreign policy pronouncements are long on critique of Mr. Bush and short on everything else.
For starters, Mr. Kerry must bridge a very fractious constituency. Polling I did as part of a research project with my Duke University colleagues confirms that unlike Mr. Bush, Mr. Kerry is "off message" with his base on Iraq. Ask Kerry supporters their Iraq views and they respond with positions sometimes diametrically opposed to those of their candidate; by contrast, Bush supporters largely echo the president. Apparently, the only thing that unites Kerry supporters, leaners, and undecideds is hostility to perceived mistakes by President Bush. So the candidate is left with a strategy that largely consists of criticism of his opponent, sometimes fair, sometimes unfair, but always biting.
Beyond the polling problem, Mr. Kerry has a style problem. The assessment of his political record has always been that he is more of a critic than a problem solver. His most important senatorial contributions in foreign policy have been investigations that have criticized conventional wisdom. While these have at times been vital examinations, he still cannot point to any Nunn-Lugar-Kerry or Goldwater-Nichols-Kerry legislation that comes up with a solution instead of just identifying a foreign policy problem.
Mr. Kerry and his team may also be wary of meddling in actual foreign policy, of acting as if he were already in the White House. He's wise to avoid such freelancing, although he skirted dangerously close in the late May speech in which he threw down the gauntlet, challenging Mr. Bush to get more international support for Iraq. By saying, in effect, that if Mr. Bush fails here, then he should not be re-elected, Mr. Kerry opened himself up to the charge that he was making a not very thinly veiled appeal to the allies to continue shirking.
Mr. Kerry could have inoculated himself against this criticism if he had even hinted at his displeasure that the European allies had not stepped up. He can still do so, with a few well-chosen paragraphs repeated over time, taking a stance that would also help his campaign. And since his campaign has already assured us that those leaders respect Mr. Kerry more than they do Mr. Bush, his admonition just might help — or at least clarify that the problem with getting aid from the allies runs deeper than "inadequate Bush diplomacy."
Of course, there is a deeper conflict of interest here that Mr. Kerry must overcome. The president's political fortunes improve if the situation in Iraq improves, putting Mr. Kerry in the awkward position of having as much to gain from Iraqi failure as Mr. Bush has from Iraqi success.
One way to persuade voters that he is presidential is for Mr. Kerry to put the country's interests ahead of his own, narrowly construed. Turning his considerable critical attention, however briefly, onto the failings of others (besides President Bush's) would be a great place to start.
Thanks, Betsy.
Take a virtual tour of Betsy Ross's house.
(Via Sassy.)
Chelsea's had some nice work done. She's looking good.
I guess Amy reclaims her old honors.
I wonder how much Solzhenitsyn paid to send his kids to this school and if the headmaster ever thinks about the children he punished for political beliefs?
IGNAT SOLZHENITSYN understands why so many people have warm thoughts of Ronald Reagan, but one of his earliest memories is on the frigid side.
In 1980, Ignat was an 8-year-old transplanted to Vermont by his father, the famous chronicler of Siberia's gulags. As Ignat tells the story, on the morning after the presidential election he got a taste of American political re-education at the progressive private school he and his brothers attended.
In response to the Reagan victory, the school's flag was lowered to half-staff, and the morning assembly was devoted to what today would be called grief counseling. The headmaster mourned "what America would become once the dark night of fascism descended under the B-movie actor," recalled Mr. Solzhenitsyn, who is now the music director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. "At one point he interrupted himself to inquire if anyone present did not share his gloomy view of the Reagan victory."
The only students to raise their hands were Ignat and his two brothers, Yermolai and Stephan. After a stony silence, he recalled, they were sent outside, without their coats, to meditate on the error of their ways underneath the lowered flag. Vermont in November was hardly Siberia, but there was frost on the ground, and they spent an hour shivering and exercising to stay warm. Still, Ignat said, their political exile was a relief from sitting in the auditorium listening to the party line.
(Via FR.)
Go, Tonga, with your little 44 troops. Y'all have more balls than Spain.
Oh, that crazy crocodile hunting Steve Irwin. He's in trouble for going down to Antarctica and bothering the whales:
He apparently was reported to authorities by people on a passing ship who thought they saw him riding on a whale's back.
I wouldn't be surprised.
This is going to end very, very badly. Reneging on an Elvis impersonation will not go unpunished. The impersonator had to get a writ of protection against Ellie Shadrick after not singing on her birthday.
“Maybe he needs to get one to protect himself from a woman like me,’’ says Shadrick.
Yes, he does. But he's still going to get the crap kicked out of him.
John "Caged Hamster" Kerry might want this under his Christmas tree. Ho, ho, ho!
One of my best commenters is off on a ship defending my right to post drivel. Y'all need to pick up his slack and get chatty. Consider it your patriotic duty.
Hurry back, Chad.
John Edwards is down here in Broward to press the flesh. He could never be Kerry's running-mate. He's too vibrant, charming, and handsome. No way would Lurch want to have this guy standing next to him where people could compare them. He'd come off as JoJo the Dogfaced Boy.
John R. Bradley has a interview with someone who claims to be one of the Khobar terrorists.
Killing infidels made them work up a powerful appetite. They had to stop in the middle of it all and have some breakfast.
(Via The Religious Policeman.)
There's a really interesting and informative site on the Battle of Mogadishu that I've been spending my time in. The interviews with the Rangers are fascinating.
Harry's crowing about being the number one Google for "mirrored ceilings." That's chickenfeed.
He may be the naughty-phrase Google Baron, but I have such a monopoly on mine that the Federal Government might have to come bust it up.
Why, he's at GHW Bush's big birthday bash and all-around wing-ding. Can't say I blame him: it sounds like it was a lot of fun.
Former President George Bush's 80th birthday bash -- part Fourth of July, part charity sweepstakes, part celebration of a life well lived -- drew more than 5,000 of the 41st president's closest friends to Minute Maid Park Saturday night.
Headlining the list of well-wishers at the "41@80" celebration was President George W. Bush who, with First Lady Laura Bush, kicked off the evening by joining his parents on the mid-field stage for a resounding standing ovation from the crowd.
With CNN's Larry King as emcee, the program and concert were feel-good, patriotic embraces of the former president. Performances by Wynonna Judd, Michael Smith, Tommy Tune, Crystal Gayle and comedian Dennis Miller filled the first hour of the evening.
"The Bush clan has done well for themselves," Miller said, "obviously setting their goals higher than appearing on Family Feud together."
Special guests were former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, former British prime minister John Major, former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres, former Mexican president Carlos Salinas, and former vice president Dan Quayle.
An all-star conclusion was planned with the Houston Symphony performing as the stars sang Happy Birthday against a backdrop of fireworks, a gift from Zambelli Fireworks.
UPDATE:
A Freeper gives a first-hand report with pics.
Good job, Sons of Confederate Veterans. Thanks for stepping up and taking care of her in her final years and for giving her such a lovely funeral.
Alberta Martin, the last widow of a Civil War veteran, was buried Saturday in an 1860s-style ceremony complete with war re-enactors after three days of tributes celebrating her life.
Confederate military re-enactors flank the horse-drawn coffin of Alberta Martin, Saturday, June 12, 2004, in Curtis, Ala. Martin, the last widow of a Civil War veteran, died May 31 at the age 97.
Confederate re-enactors with the Alabama Division carry the casket of Alberta Martin into the First Assembly of God in Elba, Ala., Saturday, June 12, 2004. Dr. Ken Chancey, front right, helped to organize the services. Martin, the last widow of a Civil War veteran, died May 31 at age 97. Martin was 21 when she met and married William Jasper Martin, 81, in 1927. He served as a private in the 4th Alabama Infantry Regiment in the Civil War, and died in 1932.
Mourners gather at the First Assembly of God for the funeral of Alberta Martin Saturday, June 12, 2004, in Elba, Ala. Martin, the last widow of a Civil War veteran, died May 31 at the age of 97.
Drew Gaston, a member of the 33rd Alabama Voluntary Infantry re-enactors, stands at attention at the door of the First White House of the Confederacy in Montgomery, Ala., Thursday, June 10, 2004. Gaston was among a group of re-enactors who guarded the body of Alberta Martin, the last widow of a Civil War veteran, who died May 31, 2004, at 97 years old, nearly 140 years after the Civil War ended.
Alabama Gov. Bob Riley pauses to pay his respects to Alberta Martin, the last widow of a Civil War veteran, Thursday, June 10, 2004, at the First White House of the Confederacy in Montgomery, Ala. Martin died May 31 at 97 years old, nearly 140 years after the Civil War ended. Others are, from left, Cameron Napier, regent of the First White House of the Confederacy Association, and Daniel Dean and Andrew Redd, both of the 33rd Alabama Voluntary Infantry re-enactors.
This last week has been wonderful but draining. There have been so many poignant words and images. I need to watch the video of Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone's empty vault to help restore my emotional equilibrium.
My brain has just melted listening to flamboyant boxing promoter Don King stump for Dubya on TV.
Some coherent sentences gleaned from the hebephrenia:
"George Walker Bush - four more years!"
and
"He's tender-hearted but tough-minded."
While I agree with the above sentiments, Don King is still deranged.
-"But Baroness Thatcher, you can't force your way on the plane
and make them take you to the West Coast funeral."
Remember this one?
Cpl. James E. Wright, left, salutes the casket of former President Ronald Reagan in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington on June 10. Wright lost his right hand during the war in Iraq. The officer on the right is unidentified.
What the service really needed was a nekkid girl and a stripper pole.
"One day President Mitterrand in referring to President Reagan said: "Il a vraiment la notion de l'Etat." Rough translation: "He really has a sense of the State about him." The translation does not fully capture the profundity of the observation: what President Mitterrand meant was that there is a vast difference between the job of president and the role of president. "
The camera pans to William Jefferson Clinton.
What a glorious service. Everybody did a magnificent job.
Brian Mulroney made me cry. He made himself cry too. He was just awesome.
What an anemic protest at the G8 Summit. After threatening to smash and burn historic Savannah, only 50 protestors showed up.
Details of the rescue of the Italian and Polish hostages are coming out:
Blinking through the blinding dust kicked up by helicopter rotors, Jerzy Kos saw soldiers bursting through the iron door of the house where he was held captive in Iraq. Then, he recalled Thursday, they reassured him: ''Don't worry, we are Americans.''
The fourth Italian hostage, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, was killed by his captors. Don't forget him. I believe he saved the lives of the other Italians with the brave and defiant manner in which he faced death. He ruined things for the killers and they were afraid the others would behave the same.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pole rescued from captivity in Iraq returns home with tale of his kidnapping
Blinking through the blinding dust kicked up by helicopter rotors, Jerzy Kos saw soldiers bursting through the iron door of the house where he was held captive in Iraq. Then, he recalled Thursday, they reassured him: ''Don't worry, we are Americans.''
The Polish businessman recounted his rescue from Iraqi kidnappers, along with three Italians, after an emotional homecoming at the Warsaw airport that left his voice trembling.
One of the Italians, Umberto Cupertino, gave a similar account on his return home, saying an American soldier cut the bonds on his wrist, said in English, ''You're mine,'' and led him to a helicopter.
Kos, a 64-year-old construction company director, described the rescue as a ''fast and unexpected'' operation.
He and the Italians were imprisoned in a house in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, until Tuesday, when they and their captors heard helicopters approaching. The door was then blown in, kicking up a dust cloud and knocking the hostages to the ground.
''There was lots of dust and you couldn't see through it. When I opened my eyes, I saw American soldiers,'' he said. ''They said, 'Don't worry, we are Americans.' They held our hands and we ran to the helicopter I will remember that for the rest of my life.''
''They did it perfectly,'' Kos said at a news conference.
He did not say what happened to the kidnappers.
''I am very moved to be back in Poland and to be alive,'' Kos said after stepping off his plane, his face pale and voice trembling. ''I am so moved, I can hardly speak.''
After his brief remarks, an official cut off questions, saying that Kos was ill and needed rest. Kos could not be reached for further comment, with a spokesman for his construction company, Jedynka, saying he was seeking medical treatment.
Kos was abducted June 1 by armed attackers along with another employee, Radoslaw Kadri, two female Iraqi workers and three Kurdish guards. Kadri escaped, and the two women were released shortly after being captured.
Kos' company said the abductors were believed to be part of a kidnapping network.
A day after he was taken, Kos was put in a room with the three Italians, who were seized April 12, and they were then all moved together until their release, he said.
''We talked a lot and supported each other as much as we could,'' he said.
Kos said he was once beaten on the head with a gun, but otherwise suffered no physical abuse.
A fourth Italian hostage, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, was killed by his captors.
Maurizio Agliana, one of the freed Italians, said he didn't learn of Quattrocchi's death until their rescue.
''We were not physically mistreated this is the only positive thing to say,'' the private security guard told a news conference a day after he returned to his hometown of Prato, outside Florence. ''We were marked psychologically because it was tough.''
Agliana, who said the Italians were often kept blindfolded and handcuffed, said his captors hinted they might execute them. ''When we were able to say something, we tried to lower the pressure. Sometimes we joked, trying to get through the days, hoping to get home,'' he said.
The hardest day was when they took away Quattrocchi. ''I hoped they would bring him back, did not think they would kill him. That was the last thing I wanted to think,'' Agliana said.
Prosecutors in Rome are conducting an investigation into Quattrocchi's slaying and have questioned the three survivors. Details of the kidnapping and the raid that freed Agliana, Cupertino and Salvatore Stefio remained murky.
However, Cupertino gave some details, telling the ANSA news agency that U.S. troops led the raid.
''We were in the room where they kept us locked up. We heard the propeller of a helicopter, it kicked up dust. Then I heard the noise of the iron door being knocked down. The soldiers who burst in told us, 'USA, go, go, go,''' Cupertino said, according to ANSA.
''One cut the restraint that I had tight around my wrists. He told me in English, 'You're mine.' He took me under his arm and put me on a helicopter.''
Agliana said the kidnappers only gave them full meals when shooting video, which was later released to Arabic broadcasters.
Agliana, a bulky man, joked that he had lost weight. ''In this sense, it did me good, because I used to be even fatter.''
If this lady's actions are any indication, when veterinarians lose their minds, they spray-paint horses. Black Rust-Oleum to be specific. Now you know.
A mentally ill Wellington veterinarian who stole three horses and spray-painted one of them to shield its identity pleaded guilty Thursday to 13 charges, including felony cruelty to animals, grand theft and burglary.
Former Polish Prime Minister Lech Walesa kneels at the coffin of former
President Ronald Reagan as he pays his respects in the Capitol Rotunda in
Washington, Thursday June 10, 2004.
One of my favorite guys. His is the kind of courage that sends Dan Rather into fugue state.
UPDATE:
Walesa writes a tribute to Reagan:
"When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can't be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989."
(Via Jessica's Well.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Solidarity
The Polish people, hungry for justice, preferred "cowboys" over Communists.
BY LECH WALESA
Friday, June 11, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
GDANSK, Poland--When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can't be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989.
Poles fought for their freedom for so many years that they hold in special esteem those who backed them in their struggle. Support was the test of friendship. President Reagan was such a friend. His policy of aiding democratic movements in Central and Eastern Europe in the dark days of the Cold War meant a lot to us. We knew he believed in a few simple principles such as human rights, democracy and civil society. He was someone who was convinced that the citizen is not for the state, but vice-versa, and that freedom is an innate right.
I often wondered why Ronald Reagan did this, taking the risks he did, in supporting us at Solidarity, as well as dissident movements in other countries behind the Iron Curtain, while pushing a defense buildup that pushed the Soviet economy over the brink. Let's remember that it was a time of recession in the U.S. and a time when the American public was more interested in their own domestic affairs. It took a leader with a vision to convince them that there are greater things worth fighting for. Did he seek any profit in such a policy? Though our freedom movements were in line with the foreign policy of the United States, I doubt it.
I distinguish between two kinds of politicians. There are those who view politics as a tactical game, a game in which they do not reveal any individuality, in which they lose their own face. There are, however, leaders for whom politics is a means of defending and furthering values. For them, it is a moral pursuit. They do so because the values they cherish are endangered. They're convinced that there are values worth living for, and even values worth dying for. Otherwise they would consider their life and work pointless. Only such politicians are great politicians and Ronald Reagan was one of them.
The 1980s were a curious time--a time of realization that a new age was upon us. Communism was coming to an end. It had used up its means and possibilities. The ground was set for change. But this change needed the cooperation, or unspoken understanding, of different political players. Now, from the perspective of our time, it is obvious that like the pieces of a global chain of events, Ronald Reagan, John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher and even Mikhail Gorbachev helped bring about this new age in Europe. We at Solidarity like to claim more than a little credit, too, for bringing about the end of the Cold War.
In the Europe of the 1980s, Ronald Reagan presented a vision. For us in Central and Eastern Europe, that meant freedom from the Soviets. Mr. Reagan was no ostrich who hoped that problems might just go away. He thought that problems are there to be faced. This is exactly what he did.
Every time I met President Reagan, at his private estate in California or at the Lenin shipyard here in Gdansk, I was amazed by his modesty and even temper. He didn't fit the stereotype of the world leader that he was. Privately, we were like opposite sides of a magnet: He was always composed; I was a raging tower of emotions eager to act. We were so different yet we never had a problem with understanding one another. I respected his honesty and good humor. It gave me confidence in his policies and his resolve. He supported my struggle, but what unified us, unmistakably, were our similar values and shared goals.
I have often been asked in the United States to sign the poster that many Americans consider very significant. Prepared for the first almost-free parliamentary elections in Poland in 1989, the poster shows Gary Cooper as the lonely sheriff in the American Western, "High Noon." Under the headline "At High Noon" runs the red Solidarity banner and the date--June 4, 1989--of the poll. It was a simple but effective gimmick that, at the time, was misunderstood by the Communists. They, in fact, tried to ridicule the freedom movement in Poland as an invention of the "Wild" West, especially the U.S.
But the poster had the opposite impact: Cowboys in Western clothes had become a powerful symbol for Poles. Cowboys fight for justice, fight against evil, and fight for freedom, both physical and spiritual. Solidarity trounced the Communists in that election, paving the way for a democratic government in Poland. It is always so touching when people bring this poster up to me to autograph it. They have cherished it for so many years and it has become the emblem of the battle that we all fought together.
As I say repeatedly, we owe so much to all those who supported us. Perhaps in the early years, we didn't express enough gratitude. We were so busy introducing all the necessary economic and political reforms in our reborn country. Yet President Ronald Reagan must have realized what remarkable changes he brought to Poland, and indeed the rest of the world. And I hope he felt gratified. He should have.
Mr. Walesa, winner of the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize, was president of Poland from 1990 to 1995.
"I didn't know Rupert Murdoch could run so fast."
Later in the day, shortly before the arrival of Reagan's coffin at Andrews Air Force Base, another reunion of Reagan officials got under way to literal pandemonium over a false alarm on Capitol Hill. At 4:40 p.m., while top Reagan administration officials were sipping cocktails and eating canapes in a Senate reception room, police officers burst in and shouted for everyone to flee the building.
"This is not a drill!" members of the Capitol Police Department screamed. "There is an incoming aircraft! You have one minute!"
Among those chased out of the building were former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr.; former Vice President Dan Quayle; Jeanne Kirkpatrick, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; former Attorney General Edwin A. Meese III; Richard V. Allen, a former national security adviser; Kenneth M. Duberstein, a former White House chief of staff; Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of the News Corp.; Tom Korologos, a Reagan White House aide and longtime Republican lobbyist who recently served as an adviser in Baghdad to L. Paul Bremer, the top American civilian administrator in Iraq; Bob Collacello, a Vanity Fair writer who is working on a biography of Mrs. Reagan; and Margaret D. Tutwiler, a former Reagan White House aide who became the State Department spokeswoman in the first Bush administration and the ambassador to Morocco in the second.
In a scene reminiscent of the evacuation of the White House on Sept. 11, 2001, women took off their heels and men took off their jackets and everybody raced down the steps, hair and handbags flying, pursued by police officers who told them they could not stop in spite of the heat.
By the time the group did stop in a patch of grass between the Senate building and Union Station, everyone was soaked with sweat.
"Some of these people are not 13," observed Tutwiler.
"I didn't know Rupert Murdoch could run so fast," said Collacello.
The cause of the false alarm was a plane flying south of Ronald Reagan National Airport with a radio problem, so that air traffic controllers lost track of it, triggering the panic. But within half an hour, an all-clear was given and the former Reagan officials headed back into the building.
Wouldn't it be cool if whenever you felt like sticking your two cents in on things, you could write to the President about it and he'd write you back? An Iowa lady named Dorothy Ferguson used to do just that. She and President Reagan exchanged several dozen letters over the course of a decade.
"I'd see him on TV, and I'd think, 'I'd like to say this to you.' So then I'd write him another letter, and he'd write me back. It was so cool," Ferguson said.
You can find other letters President Reagan wrote to ordinary citizens in the book "Dear Americans". It's good stuff.
It's so nice that Margaret Thatcher came over. I was unaware that they'd been friends since 1974 or so. She's a frail old lady now and can no longer rip the head off a charging mountain lion like she used to do during those sunny, carefree visits to Rancho del Cielo.
I'm watching the procession, as I'm sure most of you are. It's beautiful. The missing man formation always gives me goosebumps. Sergeant York, the riderless horse, is gorgeous.
What jerks the French are being about the funeral. You'd think they were our enemies...
He'll be all better after a good cry and a nap.
Duane at the Fillmore.
Wail on, Skydog!
Lyudmila Putin didn't get the "casual dress" memo. D'oh!
Putin licks his choppers at the sight of Laura. It's no wonder her Secret Service codename is "Catnip".
Actually, it's not. But it might as well be.
Lyudmila jealously eyeballs her, and Putin gets a comradely handshake.
But no! Putin finds himself hopelessly drawn to her. He wants to whisper an endearment,
but is hampered by the Russian language being made up entirely of curse words.
Lyudmila tries to get in the middle and put the kabosh on things.
Chirac's kissing Laura's hand again. Notice he's got that extra "grab" thing going.
Two things are clear here: Dubya and Tony are pals; Laura and Cherie are not.
Dubya has to kiss big forehead lady, while Chirac ponders wife-swapping.
Now Schoeder is kissing her hand. Schroeder? What the hay? Germans aren't hand kissers.
You can see how little practice he has in this maneuver as he appears to be staring at an age spot or something.
That's why nobody talks about "Teutonic lovers".
Heads of State drooling on his wife is beginning to wear thin on President Bush.
Laura gets Dubya squared away. Good girl.
Laura doesn't mind being moved around like furniture so Dubya can arrange a pic. She's a sport.
Silvio leaves the wife behind so he can make his big move for "his" Laura.
It's nice to see the video where Mrs. Reagan sees all the offerings that were left for her husband. You can see how happy that made her. So, you folks out in California, good job.
Current living Presidents can look at this outpouring of affection and reflect. They can give you a state funeral, but they can't make people willing to wait eight hours to pay you last respects. You've got to get that on your own.
He just wants to be loved. Is that so wrong?
I thought this was really sweet.
Members of the Los Angeles County Fire Department salute along with members of the public as the hearse carrying the body of former President Ronald Reagan head up the 118 Ronald Reagan Freeway in Simi Valley, Calif.
And here's the riderless horse for the funeral procession. His name is Sergeant York.
The Religious Policeman commenting on Imam Saud University's new research program into the causes of terrorism:
I can't think of a better place to study terrorists in their native habitat. After all, if you're going to research Giant Turtles, you've got to go to the Galapagos Islands, right?
This Herald critic can eat alligators and do music reviews at the same time. Ta-dah!
I don't need to tell you that we're living in unsettling times. There's the war in Iraq, the continuing crisis in the Middle East, issues with North Korea, lack of sufficient health care at home, and of course the last two sub-par Star Wars movies. But what's really making me mental down here in South Florida are the vicious alligator attacks you hear about just about every other week on TV. If it's not a sweet, defenseless, elderly lady falling victim to the predator's jaws, it's a young kid who barely escapes meeting his maker because he had the guts to fight off a reptilian monster with his own two fists.
There's nothing I can personally do about the problems in the Middle East, in North Korea, or with health care. And since George Lucas won't take my phone calls, I've decided to single-handedly take care of the alligator menace. How? By eating them. One by one, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. My plan is to consume every single last one of these prehistoric carnivores before they have a chance to do the same to me.
I'm glad Patti finally got her act together. There's nothing sillier than a rebellious middle-aged daughter, and Nancy is going to need all the help she can get.
Someone's put up a neat site on FDR's little dog, Fala. Fala's Secret Service codename was "The Informer."
Somebody tell John Fogerty he can stop hidey-hidey hiding now.
On board the battleship Texas, Rear Admiral C.F. Byrant exhorted gun crews on his ships over the radio: "Get on them, men! Get on them! They're raising hell with the men on the beach, and we can't have any more of that!" The destroyers swept in close to the beach, some coming into waters so shoal that only a few inches separated keel and bottom. All morning they fired, and well into the afternoon. Their sterns occasionally touched the sandy bottom as they came in and turned to deliver their salvos. Their fire was almost the only artillery support most of the troops saw that day, and it filled the gap caused by the loss of many of the DD tanks and the DUK-Ws carrying the Army guns.
It should be remembered that the best combat photographer the media had to offer, Robert Capa, turned around and got back on the boat at Omaha Beach.
The soldiers didn't have that option.
As they reached the sand a heavy mortar bombardment began. Capa felt "a new kind of fear shaking my body from toe to hair, and twisting my face." He attempted to reload his camera, but could not, his hands were trembling so. "I did not think and I didn't decide it," but he stood up and ran toward an incoming landing craft. "I knew that I was running away. I tried to turn but couldn't face the beach."
Griselda Blanco, the Ma Barker of the cocaine cowboys, has finished her prison term and will now be deported back to Colombia. It was Blanco who sent the armored war wagon on an assassination tear inside the Dadeland Mall in 1979. Three of her four deported sons were killed within days of their return to Colombia, so Bon Voyage, Griselda!
In her heyday in the 1970s and '80s, Griselda Blanco was known among fellow Colombian drug smugglers not only as the ''Godmother of Cocaine,'' but as a psychopath who gleefully settled debts with the pull of a trigger.
''If she owed you money she'd kill ya, and if you owed her money she'd kill ya,'' said Nelson Andreu, a retired Miami police homicide detective who helped nail Blanco for ordering three Miami murders.
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Cocaine queen's deportation spells her freedom, risk
Griselda Blanco, the 'Godmother of Cocaine' blamed for drug-related violence in South Florida in the 1980s, is being deported to Colombia after nearly 20 years behind bars.
In her heyday in the 1970s and '80s, Griselda Blanco was known among fellow Colombian drug smugglers not only as the ''Godmother of Cocaine,'' but as a psychopath who gleefully settled debts with the pull of a trigger.
''If she owed you money she'd kill ya, and if you owed her money she'd kill ya,'' said Nelson Andreu, a retired Miami police homicide detective who helped nail Blanco for ordering three Miami murders.
Blanco's enemies list grew quickly, and one account says that after ripping off associates in Medellín, she tried to fool vengeful hit men by mailing a coffin back to Colombia from Miami that was said to contain her body.
Such sleight of hand might have saved Blanco's life then, but what can she rely on now? At 61, having spent most of the past 20 years in U.S. prisons, Blanco is set to be deported back to Colombia as early as today, immigration authorities said.
Colombia's pioneering cocaine traffickers were the world's most dangerous criminals of their time, but even among that lot Blanco was a standout: a woman, a reputed hands-on killer and a mother who brought her sons into the wildly successful trade.
Yet three of her four sons went back to Colombia after serving U.S. prison sentences and got assassinated, Andreu said.
So what fate might be in store for Blanco?
''If I was getting deported to the country where my sons were whacked, I wouldn't feel too comfortable,'' said Bob Palombo, a now-retired federal drug agent who arrested Blanco. ``It was a family affair; she's the one who fostered the behavior all those years, and she was probably hated even more than them.''
Said agent Joe Kilmer of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Miami office: ``She could be in the cocaine business by Tuesday, she could be dead by Tuesday. When you live by the sword, you die by the sword. She's one of the most ruthless people we ever encountered in South Florida.''
Florida corrections officers turned Blanco over to federal immigration authorities Wednesday. Her custody release date is today, but officials would not say what day she would travel, citing standard security procedures.
HER CRIMINAL PAST
Police characterized Blanco as the ''epitome of the cocaine cowboys'' in 1995 when she was indicted for the three Miami slayings, all from 1982. They included the shooting of a 2-year-old boy killed in a car-to-car assassination attempt.
At the time, police estimated she was involved in at least 40 homicides between Miami and New York. She is credited with inventing the ''motorcycle assassin,'' who rode by victims and sprayed them with machine-gun bullets.
At its peak, Blanco's organization shipped as much as 3,400 pounds of cocaine a month by ship and plane.
Blanco was reportedly a big fan of the movie The Godfather, which depicted a lifestyle of organized crime, brutality and family loyalty. She named her fourth son Michael Corleone, apparently after the character played by Al Pacino in the film.
Blanco's weaknesses included shopping and beauty salons. Police linked her to a 1979 submachine gun attack at Dadeland Mall that immortalized the ''cocaine cowboy'' phrase.
Palombo, the retired DEA agent, spent days in 1984 tracking a group of Colombian hit men through Broward County malls as they tried to catch her unawares.
When agents finally arrested the men at the Galleria Mall and searched their attaché cases, they found a MAC-10 semiautomatic assault rifle with a silencer and high-powered 9mm weapons, Palombo said.
Despite her vanity, the long years behind bars have not been kind to Blanco. Florida corrections records list her at five feet two inches and weighing 196 pounds.
Most astonishing is her gray hair, cut extremely short.
Blanco has been in custody since Palombo arrested her on Feb. 17, 1985, in a cocaine trafficking case out of New York. A conviction in that case, and a guilty plea in a Miami-based trafficking case, kept her in federal prison until the end of 1998.
RUTHLESS KILLINGS
She was transferred to the Florida prison system after pleading no contest in Miami in October 1998 to three counts of second-degree murder.
Two involved arranging the killings of drug dealers Alfredo and Grizel Lorenzo in their South Miami house, as their three children watched television in another room.
She also pleaded no contest to the fatal shooting of 2-year-old Johnny Castro. The murder target was his father, Jesus ''Chucho'' Castro, a former enforcer for Blanco's organization, but machine-gun fire struck the toddler twice in the head as he rode in a car with his dad.
Jorge Ayala, one of the hit men who performed the murders and later turned government witness, said in a sworn statement Blanco wanted Castro killed because he kicked her son in the buttocks.
''At first she was real mad 'cause we missed the father,'' Ayala said. ``But when she heard we had gotten the son by accident, she said she was glad, that they were even.''
Palombo said that once prosecutors indicted Blanco for the Miami murders, ''We thought for sure she'd be visiting Old Sparky,'' the nickname for Florida's electric chair.
But a scandal at the Miami-Dade state attorney's office scuttled the case. Blanco wound up getting three concurrent 20-year sentences, of which she had to serve only about one-third because of guidelines in effect at the time of the murders.
Special prosecutors from Orlando took over the case and struck the plea deal after it was revealed that Ayala -- the professional hit man -- had engaged in phone sex with prosecutors' secretaries and sent money and gifts. After an investigation, three secretaries were fired and a veteran prosecutor resigned.
AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
Nathan Diamond, Blanco's defense attorney, declined to say where she planned to go or what she would do after returning to Colombia.
''There are no charges pending against her there, so certainly she would be free to live her life in Colombia,'' he said. He said she had communicated with relatives.
The Colombian embassy in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. embassy in Bogotá both declined comment on Blanco's release.
Palombo, now a consultant to the DEA, said agents never verified Blanco's purported immense wealth, though her sons talked about structuring money-laundering accounts in Panama. Also, the DEA transferred more than $1 million into her offshore accounts during an undercover investigation that was never recovered.
''But after 20 years, how much of that is still around and wasn't chewed up by legal fees or consumed by her sons after their release, I don't know,'' he said.
''Even if she has a ton of money, in a place like Colombia with a price on your head, you can run but you can't hide,'' he said.
Said the DEA's Kilmer: ``What she's got going for her is she never cooperated. What she doesn't have going for her is she gave orders that got a lot of people killed. It's going to depend on how long people's memories last.'
Patrick Henry probably also said "Don't be a murdering dumbass."
You guys are beautiful. Don't change a thing.
Hundreds of protesters in a park across from the White House Saturday chanted, "Bring the troops home," but the president didn't hear them -- he's in Europe.
They called for an end to the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and the immediate withdrawal of American troops.
The protesters heard from Michael Berg, whose son, Nicholas, was beheaded by Islamic militants in Iraq. The Berg family considers the Bush administration at least partly responsible for what happened to him.
A handful of counter-demonstrators traded shouts with the anti-war crowd.
"We feel they're traitors to our country," one said about the anti-war protesters.
After the speeches, the anti-war protesters marched a couple dozen blocks to the Northwest Washington home of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was also was out of town, on a six-day trip to Asia.
Ah, that's nice. The winning jockey Edgar Prado apologizes for winning. "I'm very sorry for Smarty Jones, but this is my job. This is what I get paid for."
Now he's holding up a sign that says "God bless our troops all over the world." Even nicer.
He was a good man who righted the Ship of State.
I'm sorry for him and his family that Alzheimer's destroyed his twilight years.
Fewer than 50 per cent of French people think France has a moral debt to the United States 60 years after the Allied D-day landings, according to an opinion poll published on Saturday.
I know it's not going to happen, but I would like our soldiers' bodies to be repatriated. I don't know why they weren't brought home in the first place.
Lots of neat new non-lethal weapons are being tested, including an invisible beam that tricks you into thinking you're on fire. I read about ten years ago they were developing a type of silly-string to halt people, but I don't know how that turned out.
Test subjects can't see the invisible beam from the Pentagon's new, Star Trek-like weapon, but no one has withstood the pain it produces for more than three seconds.
People who volunteered to stand in front of the directed energy beam say they felt as if they were on fire. When they stepped aside, the pain disappeared instantly.
The long-range column of millimeter-wave energy is known as the "Active Denial System" for its ability to prevent an aggressor from advancing. Senior military officials, who plan to deliver the device for troop evaluation this fall, say years of testing has produced no sign it will lead to health effects beyond perhaps causing skin to temporarily redden.
Hate crime hoaxer Kerri Dunn is going to trial for filing a false police report and insurance fraud. The FBI has still not filed charges against her.
Prosecutors Tuesday called one of those two witnesses to testify at Dunn's preliminary hearing.
Dominique Zepeda testified that she and a friend were sitting in a parked car around 8 p.m. March 9 when Dunn pulled up next to them in a car already sprayed with graffiti.
Zepeda said she saw the professor exit the car and walk toward the front tire.
"I seen her lean forward toward the tire and then we heard air come out,' Zepeda testified.
Zepeda said she watched Dunn repeat the ritual, apparently flattening all four of her own tires, before she and her friend decided they would be best served by getting away from the woman.
But Dunn stopped them as they started to drive off, identified herself by name and as a professor, and asked if they saw what had happened to her car, Zepeda testified.
She said they told Dunn they saw nothing and then quickly departed.
"We didn't know what to do,' Zepeda testified. "We just wanted to get out of there.'
Zepeda said she reported what she saw March 10 after she learned of the attention the incident generated.
Go, Porter Goss!
I would love having someone from Lee County in such a powerful position as head of the CIA. Our plan of world domination continues apace. One day everyone will eat swamp cabbage and take their truck out for a spin in the mud.
Firas of Iraq and Iraqis works on me just like a tonic. I wish he posted more than once a week.
I'd like to read him with my coffee every morning.
Ace is busy posting good stuff today.
Me, I had a nice nap, thanks.
Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary is in the news again. He was the fellow Florida Senator Lee Constantine kept bleating for to no avail after the Senator's DUI arrest.
Now Beary has responded to criticism over taser guns by giving a live demonstration of being hit with one, with himself as the volunteer. In the videotaped press conference, the sheriff takes 50,000 volts and gets up full of piss and vinegar, telling critics to "Get real". What a hoot.
Thank God for heavy flashlights and good samaritans.
It's a puzzlement to me how the "Greatest Generation" was followed by one of the sorriest, most selfish generations I've ever seen. It bothered me when I was a kid in the 60's, and the memory still rankles today.
My mother says that she thanks God for the Depression because there was a war coming and they needed to be toughened up for it. This is from someone who grew up with no electricity or running water in a house made of corrugated tin. I don't think I could ever thank God for grinding poverty.
So after having lived through the Depression and WWII, which completely disrupted their lives, they finally got to settle down to peace and prosperity. They somehow gave birth to a group of people who despised them and begrudged them the comfort that they had earned. There was now a "generation gap" and the older generation's ideals were rejected. Whenever I see a film or read an article that approaches the 50's with sarcasm, it galls me. These were folks who were finally getting to have a life; finally getting to have something nice. Why not? Didn't they earn it?
I know it wasn't everyone. But there were enough of them to have a huge impact on this country and many of their ideas have become accepted wisdom today.
David Gelernter of the WSJ writes today about the hypocrisy of those who scorned the warriors of WWII now praising them. I would like to think they're doing that because they finally grew up and got a clue. It's a shame that the damage has already been done.
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Too Much, Too Late
Baby boomers heap insincere praise on the "greatest generation."
BY DAVID GELERNTER
Friday, June 4, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
My political credo is simple and many people share it: I am against phonies. A cultural establishment that (on the whole) doesn't give a damn about World War II or its veterans thinks it can undo a half-century of indifference verging on contempt by repeating a silly phrase ("the greatest generation") like a magic spell while deploying fulsome praise like carpet bombing.
The campaign is especially intense among members of the 1960s generation who once chose to treat all present and former soldiers like dirt and are willing at long last to risk some friendly words about World War II veterans, now that most are safely underground and guaranteed not to talk back, enjoy their celebrity or start acting like they own the joint. A quick glance at the famous Hemingway B.S. detector shows the needle pegged at Maximum, where it's been all week, from Memorial Day through the D-Day anniversary run-up.
When I was in junior high school long ago, a touring arts program visited schools in New York state. One performance consisted of a celebrated actress reciting Emily Dickinson's poetry onstage for 90 minutes or so. I defy any audience to listen attentively to 90 minutes of Dickinson without showing the strain, and my school definitely wasn't having any.
A few minutes into the show, the auditorium was alive with student chatter, so loud a buzz you could barely hear the performance. Being a poetry-lover, I devoted myself to setting an example of rapt attention for, maybe, five minutes, at which point I threw in the towel and joined the mass murmur.
The actress manfully completed her performance. When it was over we gave her a stupendous ovation. We were glad it was finished and (more important) knew perfectly well that we had behaved like pigs and intended to make up for it by clapping and roaring and shouting. But the performer wasn't having any. She gave us a cold curtsy and left the stage and would not return for a second bow.
I have always admired her for that: a more memorable declaration than anything Dickinson ever wrote. And today's endless ovation for World War II vets doesn't change the fact that this nation has behaved boorishly, with colossal disrespect. If we cared about that war, the men who won it and the ideas it suggests, we would teach our children (at least) four topics:
• The major battles of the war. When I was a child in the 1960s, names like Corregidor and Iwo Jima were still sacred, and pronounced everywhere with respect. Writing in the 1960s about the battle of Midway, Samuel Eliot Morison stepped out of character to plead with his readers: "Threescore young aviators . . . met flaming death that day in reversing the verdict of battle. Think of them, reader, every Fourth of June. They and their comrades who survived changed the whole course of the Pacific War." Today the Battle of Midway has become niche-market nostalgia material, and most children (and many adults) have never heard of it. Thus we honor "the greatest generation." (And if I hear that phrase one more time I will surely puke.)
• The bestiality of the Japanese. The Japanese army saw captive soldiers as cowards, lower than lice. If we forget this we dishonor the thousands who were tortured and murdered, and put ourselves in danger of believing the soul-corroding lie that all cultures are equally bad or good. Some Americans nowadays seem to think America's behavior during the war was worse than Japan's--we did intern many loyal Americans of Japanese descent. That was unforgivable--and unspeakably trivial compared to Japan's unique achievement, mass murder one atrocity at a time.
In "The Other Nuremberg," Arnold Brackman cites (for instance) "the case of Lucas Doctolero, crucified, nails driven through hands, feet and skull"; "the case of a blind woman who was dragged from her home November 17, 1943, stripped naked, and hanged"; "five Filipinos thrown into a latrine and buried alive." In the Japanese-occupied Philippines alone, at least 131,028 civilians and Allied prisoners of war were murdered. The Japanese committed crimes against Allied POWs and Asians that would be hard still, today, for a respectable newspaper even to describe. Mr. Brackman's 1987 book must be read by everyone who cares about World War II and its veterans, or the human race.
• The attitude of American intellectuals. Before Pearl Harbor but long after the character of Hitlerism was clear--after the Nuremberg laws, the Kristallnacht pogrom, the establishment of Dachau and the Gestapo--American intellectuals tended to be dead set? against the U.S. joining Britain's war on Hitler.
Today's students learn (sometimes) about right-wing isolationists like Charles Lindbergh and the America Firsters. They are less likely to read documents like this, which appeared in Partisan Review (the U.S. intelligentsia's No. 1 favorite mag) in fall 1939, signed by John Dewey, William Carlos Williams, Meyer Schapiro and many more of the era's leading lights. "The last war showed only too clearly that we can have no faith in imperialist crusades to bring freedom to any people. Our entry into the war, under the slogan of 'Stop Hitler!' would actually result in the immediate introduction of totalitarianism over here. . . . The American masses can best help [the German people] by fighting at home to keep their own liberties." The intelligentsia acted on its convictions. "By one means or another," Diana Trilling later wrote of this period, "most of the intellectuals of our acquaintance evaded the draft."
Why rake up these Profiles in Disgrace? Because in the Iraq War era they have a painfully familiar ring.
• The veterans' neglected voice. World War II produced an extraordinary literature of first-person soldier narratives--most of them out of print or unknown. Books like George MacDonald Fraser's "Quartered Safe Out Here," Philip Ardery's "Bomber Pilot," James Fahey's "Pacific War Diary." If we were serious about commemorating the war, we would do something serious. The Library of America includes two volumes on "Reporting World War II," but where are the soldiers' memoirs versus the reporters'? If we were serious, we would have every grade school in the nation introduce itself to local veterans and invite them over. We'd use software to record these informal talks and weave them into a National Second World War Narrative in cyberspace. That would be a monument worth having.
Speaking of which: I am privileged to know a gentleman who enlisted in the Army as an aviation cadet in 1942, served in combat as a navigator in a B-24, was shot down and interned in Switzerland, escaped, and flew in the air transport command for the rest of the war. He became a scientist and had a long, distinguished career. Among his friends he is a celebrated raconteur, and his prose is strong and charming. He wrote up his World War II experiences, and no one--no magazine, no book publisher--will take them on. My suggestions have all bombed out.
If you're interested, give me a call. But I'm not holding my breath. The country is too busy toasting the "greatest generation" to pay attention to its actual members.
Gators have a bad habit of barging into kitchens.
Waitress Valerie Fox, 47, was walking to a back counter about 6 p.m. at Cafe Creme, 1068 S.E. Port St. Lucie Blvd., to fill some coffee for customers when she saw the animal behind the table.
"He was standing there and he hissed, and I just freaked out," Fox said.
I bet.
Who is the mysterious Cracker Barrel Philosopher over at Country Store? Rumor has it that he's none other than Hollywood hunk Brad Pitt. Is the giant white space at the top of his blog and the cryptic demand about "ignoring the man behind the curtain" a confirmation of sorts?
We need to go dig Hoover up and put him back in charge.
(Via Protein Wisdom.)
Congrats to David Tidmarsh (who is autochthonous to South Bend, Indiana) for winning the National Spelling Bee.
Better luck next time to the last girl in the Bee, Florida girl Katie Olsen from Gainesville.
In other spelling-related news, it was bomb-threat stewardess Gay Wilson's mis-spelling of "Saddam" that led to her arrest.
Coffindaffer also said that when she asked Wilson to write the contents of the note - "There is a bomb on board this flt to Boston in cargo. Live Sadaam!" - that Wilson spelled "Sadaam" the same incorrect way.
The Religious Policeman makes a good case that the two people shot as siege terrorists by Saudi Security probably weren't connected to it.
What link? They were the same species? They all spoke Arabic? Are we really meant to believe that the same Alkhobar terrorists who apologized to our Elite Forces, and thereby escaped, made it across the entire width of the country, 700 miles as the crow flies, far more by road, going thru at least 6 permanent roadblocks (unless they went more conspicuously, and even more slowly, cross-country) to end up in Taif, one dressed as a woman, who then happened to be spotted by police in an isolated area? Did they interrogate the corpses? Did they, as a commenter has suggested, already have the "Alkhobar Massacre" T-shirts?
I remember being so jealous of the troops that got to stay there, but that place has ended up being nothing but bad luck. It draws more terrorists than a Hamas wake.
Young fool Jason Grisham decided to climb an electrical tower. He survived, but was not looking his best after receiving a good zapping.
Grisham "appeared to have extensive burn marks on his chest and his pants appeared to have exploded," police said.
69,000 volts and the guy's hair doesn't even catch fire? Ol' Sparky's got plenty of juice left if Grisham wants another go at things.
In the recent siege in Saudi, there were four Americans in the building the terrorists didn't know about. This guy wasn't one of them.
A Saudi official revealed for the first time that four Americans who were staying at the hotel took refuge on the roof without the knowledge of the gunmen and were rescued a few hours before the siege ended. He said the hostages were in contact with security forces by telephone, and the main concern was keeping their presence a secret from the militants.
At least Saudi security didn't accidentily-on-purpose reveal their presence to the "militants."
My sister expects me to find us a 3-star hotel in Washington D.C. for $80 a night.
In further retarded news, a guy in Boston gets to live out his Abu Ghraib prisoner-fantasy. They're breaking open a big box of chem-lights for him down at the Boston lock-up even as we speak.
Farm Accident Digest reports on the autopsy of a murdered Rodent-American.
Don't even try to pull the rat hair over a Cracker Barrel restaurant's eyes.
Ruth Stonesifer, the Gold Star Mother I mentioned earlier, has a beautiful website celebrating her son Kristofor, an Army Ranger killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.
It's because of guys like Kris that we sleep safe in our beds at night.
Thank you, Kris.
Be sure to check out the section Mom/articles. Mrs. Stonesifer is a wonderful writer.
(Via comment by John G.)
Here's Duane at a festival in New York in 1969, sharing the stage with some friends.
Wail on, Skydog!
Here's an interesting (and scary) article on Al-Qaeda's possible plans to gain control of the Saudi oil flow. Hey, no blood for oil, Al-Qaeda!
Given Saudi security's recent Keystone Kops impersonation, and the royal family's seeming inability to come to grips with terrorism, we now have something new to seriously worry about.
Everybody better get their act together and fight these people.
Egypt has reportedly told Arafat that unless he steps down, it will remove its blanket of protection and allow him to be eaten by the monster under the bed.
Arafat was given a deadline of June 15 to give a decisive reply, or else his future will be ''left in the hands of Ariel Sharon.''
Coming on the heels of King Abdullah's saying Arafat may be "the problem", this is bound to be a sad time is Yassertown.
(Via Farm Accident Digest.)
