First – thanks to everyone who has been voting for small dead in Best Canadian category. Thanks, also, to the other bloggers who’ve sent their endorsements this way.
Here are mine again;
Go JEFF! – in the tough Humor category, Protein Wisdom has finally moved into a narrow lead. (sorry, link fixed)
Fellow Canadian Ghost Of A Flea is currently in fifth in Best Culture, but in striking distance of 4th.
Bill at INDC may have to invite Jim Geraghty over for a tasty meal to claim the
Best New Blog prize, but let’s keep him within striking distance.
As much as I love and depend on Instapundit, my vote this year goes to Powerline for Best Overall. Strong daily writing, and the work they did on Rathergate tipped the balance for me.
And of course, Canadian ubercolumnist, Mark Steyn for the Media/Journalist category.
In best Conservative, I’ve been voting for James at Outside The Beltway. One tough category. Another favorite, is competing in the Ecosystem Top 100 – Politburo Diktat.
And don’t forget the Military bloggers who fought to make half of the entries in the Middle East category possible. I don’t think any of them care who you vote for. Just vote for somebody, and then go read ’em all.
Nobel Prize In Genocidal Conspiracy Theory
Powerline thinks it’s time for the Oslo folks “to hang it up”. This week they awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Kenya’s Wangari Maathai. In addition to her qualifications as a world class tree planter, she’s been pretty good at watering conspiracy theories.
“Do not be naive. AIDS is not a curse from God to Africans or the black people. It is a tool to control them designed by some evil-minded scientists.
“I may not be able to say who developed the virus, but it was meant to wipe out the black race.”
She later claimed the quote was taken out of context. As Hindrocket notes, “If so, it must have been quite a context.”
“State of Fear”
Is there a left-wing enviromoonbat in the “mandatory” column of your Christmas holiday gift list, that you just don’t know how to buy for?
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(And a whole lot cheaper than an SUV.)
Broken Homes
They tried to make it work, for the sake of the kitties…
Give the animal rights movement a few more years to transform pet ownership into pet “stewardship”, and we’ll need a whole new branch of family law.
Towards The Pencil Sharpener Registry
In recognition of the rabid determination of the Liberals, NDP and Bloc to burn another $96.5M at the feet of the Gun Registry God[tm], I present this glimpse of the future, as it exists today in Britian.
Pencil sharpeners have been banned from a primary school after a pupil dismantled one and used the blade to slash another child’s neck. … The attacker was suspended for two days and is now back in school. … Headteacher David Willis has now banned all pencil sharpeners. But the decision to allow the boy to return to school has angered parents. Some have signed a petition calling on the school to permanently expel the youngster.
The school management argued that while pencil sharpeners could be proscribed the attacker could not be prevented from returning. Tracy Buckley, the school’s head of governors, has written to all parents, saying the school understood the gravity of the incident and acted accordingly. The letter states: “The school, like every other school, has a duty to promote ‘inclusion’ of all pupils. The emphasis of the (DfES) guidance is that a permanent exclusion is discouraged and to be considered as a last resort in very extreme circumstances. A fixed period exclusion was entirely appropriate for the circumstances.”� … Yesterday, the Manchester Evening News reported how teachers at Priestnall High School in Stockport started acting as bodyguards, patrolling streets round their school, following attacks on five pupils.
Via Belmont Club. Go read the rest.
Dogs Of War
If there were any lingering doubt about the success of the battle of Fallujah,
this news item should dispel it.
“Rabies, and standing water, are our most immediate concerns,” said Captain Dennis Staggs, a surgeon with the 1st Marine Exepditionary Force (MEF), adding that among a host of measures suggested to head off a health crisis, medical officers said feral animals should be cleared from the city.
“If you consider the entire public health situation, with nobody in town, there’s no public health crisis, and if it is prepared correctly there won’t be a health crisis,” Staggs said Wednesday.
Standing by his humvee last week in northern Fallujah, marine Lance Corporal Will Lathrop of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit said, “The problem has gotten bad enough that there’s actually an order for this,” referring to a command issued recently to deal with Fallujah’s feral animals.
[…]
A gunnery sergeant stalked past the convoy, tersely ordering his executioners to put on surgical gloves before handling the dead animals, his mouth pulled into the tight grimace of a man trying to finish the job before him as quickly as possible.
“This is hard on these guys, especially killing the dogs. But these animals have been eating dead bodies. They can spread disease,” said Lieutenant Aaron Brown, grimly reciting the toll for the day — several cats and at least one dog.
PETA is going to be all over this…. though I suspect they’ll stop short of calling up human shields.
(I’ve corrected my oversight and provided the link – so the reference to PETA takes on more significance…)
Distrust, Then Verify
Steve Verdon demonstrates today at Outside The Beltway why googling transcripts is becoming one of the blogosphere’s most productive techniques. A quote from Donald Rumsfeld is presented in falsified context by Spencer Ackerman at the New Republic, whereupon Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly decides it makes a fine springboard for his own purposes.
Drum:
But go read Spencer Ackerman’s summary of Rumsfeld’s performance. Sure, we ought to have more armor for our Humvees by now, but this isn’t really a question of armor, it’s a question of respect:
Today, he came face to face with pissed-off frontline soldiers. And he treated them with the same arrogance and condescension that their superior officers have come to expect. To the question about unequal retirement benefits for equal service, Secretary Marie Antoinette replied, “I can’t imagine anyone your age worrying about retirement. Good grief.”
Indeed. Hard to imagine an average joe worrying about retirement. Who does this grunt think he is?
Well, Kevin – maybe he thinks he’s a grunt in a room with a Secretary of Defense who’s comfortable enough to share a mildly self-effacing joke with his troops? Here is Rumsfeld’s actual answer:
SEC. RUMSFELD: [Laughter] I can’t imagine anyone your age worrying about retirement. [Laughter] Good grief. It’s the last thing I want to do is retire. The pay and benefits for the Guard and the Reserve relative to the active force have been going up unevenly at a rate faster than the active force. If you go back over four years – matter of fact, I just went over this with the senior person in the department who looks at pay and benefits. And apparently, what’s happened is that for a variety of reasons, the incremental changes that are made each year, in terms of pay and benefits and health care and retirement and what have you, have brought the Guard and Reserve up at a faster level than the active force. And what one has to do in managing the total force and the total force is critically important. We need the Guard and Reserve as well as the active force. And we have to see that we have the incentives arranged in a way that we can attract and retain the people that are needed to defend the country. At the moment, we are doing well in terms of attracting and retaining the people we need. And if anything, I think the data suggests that the Guard and Reserve forces had been advantaged relatively compared to the active force over the past four years. Question.
Keep in mind that these aren’t two neophyte amateur bloggers. Drum and Ackerman are paid to write this crap. You’d think fact checking before writing would be part of the job description, unless of course – the job is crafting dishonest, politically-motivated hit pieces.
Oh… wait….
Bad News Breaking
There are reports of an explosion in the skies over Mossbank – close to the Air Force base in Moose Jaw. Eyewitnesses think it was a Tudor training jet, and possible mid air-collision. A news conference has been announced for this afternoon.
It sounds like the best that can be hoped for is a safe ejection, but with the delay in news from the base, it’s not hopeful. One would think that if pilots got out safely, they’d be quick to assure people of that.
update 15 Wing Moose Jaw has confirmed that two Snowbirds jets have collided.
Co-incidentally, it is 6 years to the day since a Snowbird crash claimed the life of Captain Michael VandenBos at the same base.
update – noonhour – Eyewitness says she saw one parachute. DND is reporting both pilots ejected, uncertain of fate of either. What? Are they still out on Skidoo’s looking for them? It happened two hours ago.
update – DND is reporting that Capt. Miles Selby, 31, of Tsawwassen, B.C. is confirmed dead, the other, Capt. Chuck Mallett, 35, of Edmonton is in hospital with minor injuries. Details here.
A World Away
I wonder what they would have said, if three years ago Iraqi bloggers Omar and Mohammed had been told they’d be standing one day in the Oval Office talking to the President of the United States?.
… without prior notice, Omar and Mohammed went to the Oval Office and met with President Bush! They said that the meeting lasted about a half hour, and the President was very interested in hearing the thoughts and opinions of Iraqi citizens first hand. He wasn’t aware until then of the good things that Spirit Of America has been doing over there to help the Iraqi people and assist in their obtaining democracy. Omar joked that he got to meet POTUS and they didn’t even search his pockets beforehand.
via LGF
Update More from Jeff Jarvis. Cool stuff.
Michael Moore’s Holiday Gift List (updated)
Help Michael “relive the moment”.
Vote “Incredibles”.
Value Added Reporting
New background on the “shot heard round the world” yesterday – a question to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Kuwait, posed by a soldier in the audience about what is now being termed “hillbilly armor”. Today, Drudge is reporting that the question was planted by an imbedded reporter.
Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Edward Lee Pitts is embedded with the 278th Regimental Combat Team, now in Kuwait preparing to enter Iraq, and is filing articles for his newspaper. Pitts claims in a purported email that he coached soldiers to ask Defense Secretary Rumsfeld questions!
When reached Thursday morning, various Chattanooga Times Free Press staffers offered ‘no comment’ on the development.
I’ve copied the email in the extended entry.
While it appears the soldiers have a legitimate complaint (though, apparently not a new or immediately solvable one), the media reporting on the incident would have us believe that the question was unexpected.
Why is the distinction between a legitimate spontanious question and a legitimate, but media planted question, important?
It’s this type of manipulation that chips away at the legitimacy of the profession of journalism – not because the question is false, but because it makes us pause, and wonder what other “spontanious” questions from “the audience” are planted by reporters looking to manufacture and/or enhance contraversy for the purpose of increasing the “sales” value – both literally and figuratively – of a story.
In the case of reporter Edward Lee Pitts, it was a story he’d already written and submitted.
(update – The media reports assume a premise of “more armour good, less armour bad”. A roundup of opinion and observation about the question is well covered by Instapundit. Go read it, before forming any opinions about the criticism.)
Walking The Fence
Supreme Court has ruled that the federal government has the authority to redefine marriage. Then they stated that churches have a right to refuse to perform them, and provinces may refuse to recognize them. [ update: full text here– ed]
Well, that settles everything!
A couple of questions for which I don’t know the answer – perhaps one of my readers does. In a tough child custody battle, would a remarried gay couple assume a prefered position in the eyes of the courts (vs a co-habitating gay parent) over the single parent ex-spouse? ie: the husband leaves, remarries his boyfriend, and then petitions for custody of the children based on having a “two parent” household and better financial status? Is the court allowed to weigh concerns of parents that may have religious or moral objections about their children being exposed to a gay lifestyle?
With the legal definition of marriage expanded, how does this affect the legal obligations that are applied to long time common law relationships? If same sex marriage becomes law, do existing long term gay couples instantly recieve common law status for purposes of property division, support, etc. in the same way that long term heterosexual relationships have? (I know it varies from province to province.)
The debate over same sex marriage isn’t venturing into these areas nearly often enough. Virtually all the focus is on the issue of “commitment” and sexual orientation, or, to be blunt – who gets to boink whom under the umbrella of state sanction. If that were the fundamental purpose of marriage, we wouldn’t need marriage at all.
Reader Tips
I’m trying a new category here at SDA – reader tips. Always appreciated, I feel badly when I don’t have time, space or the angle to use them. So, instead, I’m just going to offer up some of those I don’t steal for my own use on a periodic linkfest. Chances are, if one of the regulars here thinks something is worth reading, it is. I’ve been “on to” these guys for a while now – most of them are way smarter than I am, but too goddamn lazy to do their own blogging….
“This quasi-medical condition afflicts a nation in the following way. Most people just shut up. They don’t say anything, even when the loudmouth minority around them are saying the most outrageous things.”
Rich Richman is tracking the Sharansky/Bush democracy dialogue.
“Listen, friends, you have to face the truth. You are never going to be rich. The chance of that happening is about one in a million.” – Michael Moore
“With a little bit o’luck, with a little bit o’luck“- New Official National Security Jingle
Insurgents target power grid with explosives. There are ties to the French.
For this inaugural post, I’m just going to say thanks to “everybody” who provided the links. In the future, I’ll list names, unless there’s a specific request not to.
Zayed Is Back
The last time we heard from Zayed, there were “ten or so hooded men dressed in black carrying Ak-47’s and RPG’s” manning a checkpoint ouside his door.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
I am quite fine. Thank you all for the concern.
I am finally done now with Basrah and will start working in Baghdad again. Trying to get a convenient post here in Baghdad close to where I live is what has been keeping me away. Well, that and a few other difficulties that seem to have become part of our daily life. Note that we are getting less than 6 hours of electricity per day.
I will try to start posting again very soon.
That’s a relief. Now, go over to the Weblog Awards and vote for Healing Iraq.
“Here… Step Over To The Rug”
I don’t know dick all about US Treasury Secretary John Snow.
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But I think I know a rope-a-dope when I see one.
Canadian Commandos Awarded Presidential Citation
CANADA’S top secret commandos were awarded the prestigious U.S. Presidential Unit Citation yesterday for their heroism in rooting out Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. It’s only the second time that Canadian soldiers have received the honour.
An undisclosed number of Joint Task Force 2 members travelled to California to receive the battle honour from U.S. President George Bush.
Canadian commandos joined the front lines in the hunt for Taliban and al-Qaida agents in late 2001, scouring caves in Afghanistan’s mountains and setting the groundwork for military units such as the Princess Pats.
[…]
“They established benchmark standards of professionalism, tenacity, courage, tactical brilliance and professional excellence while demonstrating superb esprit de corps and maintaining the highest measure of combat readiness,” the citation reads.
The citation commends the 100% mission success rate “while operating under extremely difficult and constantly dangerous conditions.”
Let’s hope they’re celebrated with the respect they deserve – unlike the shameful reaction towards the 6 Canadians snipers who were awarded the Bronze Star from the US military.
After “Alexander”
Apparently, there’s nowhere to go but down. From the gossp column of the NY Post.
OLIVER Stone plans to explore the possibility of an affair between former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan in his next movie. Stone has apparently always been enamored of Baroness Thatcher, now 79, and wants to cast Meryl Streep (above) in the role in an upcoming biopic, reports the London Sun. An insider told the paper Stone decided to turn his lens on a famous woman after his string of movies about famous men, including Richard Nixon, JFK, Jim Morrison and Fidel Castro. His latest, “Alexander,” has been panned by critics and is doing poorly at the box office.
Oh Oh Oh! Like Gigli with naked old people!
Via linkmeister Inoperable Terran
Shagbark Hickory? Butternut?
Commenting problems
I know a lot of you have been having trouble commenting. It’s unintentional, as a result of some heavy spam blocking I was forced into a couple of months ago.
I’m going to experiment here – I’ve unblocked the vast majority of the ip blocks I had banned (was using wildcards, so that is why so many got caught up in it). We’ll see if I get a spamolanche again, and in the meantime, use the comments thread to this post to try any tests. It’ll be easier to delete them in one fell swoop later.
Gamil Rodrigue Gharbi
| With 14 murdered female students, 15 years and a billion dollars in waste in a gun registry behind us, very few people have been told who Gamil Rodrigue Gharbi reallly was. |  |