Test Your Chickflick Knowledge

I did embarrassingly well on this.

Hey, I admit it, I am a sucker for a good chickflick.

P.S. Go Packers!

Nasrallah Brags About Having Israeli Body Parts

Gleefully gloating about how you have captured the body parts of your enemies is pretty much the definition of caveman barbarity.

"We have the heads, the hands, the feet and even a nearly intact cadaver from the head down to the pelvis," he said.

Well, 'caveman' pretty much exactly describes Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, who has literally been living underground since his 'victory' against Israel in 2006. He did come out into the sunlight for his first public appearance since the war, visiting a stadium in Beirut to commemorate the Shi'ite festival of Ashura.

A million of his followers came out to join him. I am surprised and disappointed that the Israelis didn't find him there.

P.S. Could you just imagine the response if Ehud Olmert made a public appearance and gloated over having the body parts of dead Hezbollah fighters?

Cyberhacks Blacked Out Cities

Via Glenn Reynolds we find that cyberattacks blacked out power in several non-American cities, according to the CIA.

This is the most frightening part: "We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet."

Well of course cyberattacks come through the internet, but the stark revelation that someone using the same internet connection such as you or I are using can turn off the switch in major metropolitan areas is perturbing to say the least.

Um, shouldn't we do something about this?

Hillary's Down, But Not Out She's Toast

She's no comeback kid. Those wires are glowin', and Hillary is about to pop up ready to be slathered with butter and marmalade.

This is better than watching the Dallas Cowboys lose againandagainandagainandagain by several orders of magnitude (America's Team my ass).

Right after Iowa, Obama was polling only one point ahead of Hillary in New Hampshire, but now it looks like a real Obamalanche - the quite reliable Rasmussen, and CNN now put Obama a healthy twelve and ten points ahead respectively in the Granite State.

Kevin Drum is a bit miffed:

In related news, apparently the flinty-eyed independents of New Hampshire aren't quite as flinty-eyed as they'd like you to believe. After a solid year of town halls, coffee klatsches, and early morning doorbell ringing — because, you know, New Hampshirites take their electoral responsibilities so much more seriously than the rest of us — all it took was a few thousand Iowans to flip them from one side to the other in less than 24 hours. Feh.

Kidding? People love a winner! (and they like to back the right horse. . . ideology be damned. New Hampshirites are no less susceptible to this than anyone else).

The Lancet Studies Are Completely Fraudulent? You Don't Say

Common sense and even a cursory knowledge of history provided plenty of proof that the infamous and widely-discredited Lancet studies were fradulent. Now, via Instapundit, we can follow the money and find that the second study was largely financed by George Soros, who dictated a pre-election release of the data in 2006:

Follow the money. Lancet II was commissioned and financed by Tirman, the executive director of the Center for International Studies at MIT. (His most recent book is 100 Ways America Is Screwing Up the World.) After Lancet I was published, Tirman commissioned Burnham to do the second study, and sent him $50,000. When asked where Tirman got the money, Burnham told NJ: "I have no idea."

In fact, the funding came from the Open Society Institute created by Soros, a top Democratic donor, and from three other foundations, according to Tirman. The money was channeled through Tirman's Persian Gulf Initiative. Soros's group gave $46,000, and the Samuel Rubin Foundation gave $5,000. An anonymous donor, and another donor whose identity he does not know, provided the balance, Tirman said. The Lancet II study cost about $100,000, according to Tirman, including about $45,000 for publicity and travel. That means that nearly half of the study's funding came from an outspoken billionaire who has repeatedly criticized the Iraq campaign and who spent $30 million trying to defeat Bush in 2004.

The very idea that Iraq suffered anything close to the casualties claimed in that study - on the order of two to three times the casulties suffered by both side in the American Civil War, or higher than the death toll of the conventional and nuclear bombings of Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden and Hamburg put together, was simply ludicrous for any student of the history of warfare. There simply were no reports or photographic evidence of anything remotely close to such death tolls and damage coming out of Iraq.

The ridiculously high figures posited by that study of course gained wide attention among the credulous throughout the world, but now it is becoming crystal clear that the entire entrprise was financed by high-octane leftist partisans and written by some more concerned about 'imperialism' than the truth.

Once again, in the tradition of Walter Duranty, we find the left is most eager to play games with numbers of mass casualties to suit their ideological biases and project their agenda.

Iowans Stared Into The Abyss, Saw Hillary Staring Back

With nearly all Iowa precincts now reporting, Hillary comes in third behind Obama and Edwards.

Electability is what matters above all to Iowa Democrats, even before ideological purity. This is a replay of '04, where the front runner (Dean) stumbled then fell when the prospect of that guy running against the Republicans frightened Iowans into picking someone, anyone, who could possibly beat George Bush.

Hillary, with her sky-high negatives, was the opponent of choice for Republicans in '08, and Iowa Dems who want to win know that.

Is Hillary toast? No, far from it. Nor should she be toast. What, are we gonna let a high school stadium full of Iowa caucasians(?) decide this election?

Drones Dominate The Air In Iraq

WASHINGTON - The military's reliance on unmanned aircraft that can watch, hunt and sometimes kill insurgents has soared to more than 500,000 hours in the air, largely in Iraq, The Associated Press has learned. And new Defense Department figures obtained by The AP show that the Air Force more than doubled its monthly use of drones between January and October, forcing it to take pilots out of the air and shift them to remote flying duty to meet part of the demand.

Ack, this is supposed to be a bad thing? Our pilots are an extremely valuable military asset, keeping them safe and (relatively) rested is, I would think, to be desired. If they can get the jobs done with drones, that is the more expendable (and cheaper) way to go.

Just call on . . . THE REAPER.

 

Taliban Celebrates Bhutto's Death, Brit Commandos Crash The Party

If you can't see what's wrong with this news story about a British commando attack in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, you are obviously not a highly-trained, detached and objective journalist:

Royal Marines crept into position as the fanatics partied the night away just hours after Ms Bhutto was killed in Pakistan.

The bash was being held in ruined compounds a few hundred yards from Our Boys’ remote base in Kajaki.

Ragtag Taliban sentries tried to hit back with machine gun fire – but stood no chance against the heroes of 40 Commando’s Charlie Company.

Bloodthirsty

The terrorists were pounded with mortars, rockets and heavy machine guns.

Two bloodthirsty revellers trying to creep towards Our Boys in a trench were spotted by thermal-imaging equipment – and targeted with a Javelin heat-seeking missile.

The £65,000 rocket – designed to stop Soviet tanks – locked on to their body heat and tore more than a kilometer across the desert in seconds.

Troop Sergeant Dominic Conway, 32 – who directed mortar rounds – grinned: “It must have had quite a detrimental effect on their morale.”

Sgt Conway, from Whitley Bay, Tyneside, said of the Taliban lair: “It used to be their backyard and now we’ve made it ours.”

Wow. This isn't journalism, it's editorializing. Which means par for the course when it comes to the MSM. But for once, this journalist got the editorializing right, and correctly deduced who the good guys and bad guys are. Too bad you would never see something like this in the U.S. I mean, no mention of quagmires or worsening situations or mounting casualties or anything like that. Just amazing.

By the way, isn't a 'Taliban party' an oxymoron on par with 'jumbo shrimp'? What do they do, beat women with exposed ankles like a pinata?

Hillary Clinton, Bhutto Wannabe

Hillary Clinton is trying to burnish her thin foreign policy credentials by claiming she knew Benazir Bhutto (never mind that she didn't know Bhutto had three children and not two, and that Bhutto's father was executed and not assassinated). You can't blame her, Bhutto is what Hillary wishes she could be: a brave woman of actual accomplishment who achieved the pinnacle of power, and became a real hero to millions of women. Hillary too is a hero to millions of women . . . it is just much harder to see why as compared to Bhutto. Endless repititon of the meme that 'Hillary is a hero' seems to have done the trick.

Now Hillary has been caught fudging another item on her weak foreign policy resume. Trying to paint herself as another fearless and intrepid woman leader (just like Benazir Bhutto!) Hillary came up with a story about how Bill Clinton put her, Chelsea, Sinbad and Sheryl Crow in mortal danger by sending them to Bosnia, braving corkscrew landings and snipers in the process (can one surmise that this was a Bill Clinton plot to get rid of his wife? I bet Hillary's campaign didn't see that angle).

Via Ed Morrissey we find that this unlikely occurence of course probably didn't happen (quoting a commenter who has some personal experience here):

I was part of Task Force Eagle in Bosnia during that time. I was part of then MG William Nash, 1st Armored Division, security detail. I take two issues with her statement. First and most blatantly checkable, was the year she states. She's a year off. It was actually March 1996. We didn't go into Bosnia until after the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords, which was in the Fall of 1995, (November, I think). I remember it because it ruined Christmas for just about the entire 2nd Brigade, 1st AD, in Baumholder Germany. Then President Clinton actually came to Baumholder right before Christmas to make a speech. It should be easily checkable.

Secondly, she landed at Eagle Base in Tuzla, Bosnia in a C-17. At that time, it was the most secure location in country, being an old Russian MIG base. The compound was very well fortified and snipers weren't an issue for us. They never were during the entire mission, except maybe in Sarajevo. Our biggest issue was landmines, again, not an issue at Eagle Base as it had been very well cleared.

Shameless self promotion is just stupid when things like that are so easily verifiable. [ed. - You can say that again. The internet age is not proving friendly to the Clinton deceit machine.]

Is going serpentine really a plus for presidential candidates? It wasn't, until Benazir Bhutto got shot.

If personal bravery, and risking grave personal injury are big reasons to vote for a candidate, well, I guess Hillary is going to vote for John McCain then isn't she.

P.S. I just have to say, in my darkest of dark hearts, I thought 'if she wants to be Bhutto, let her end up the same way. That would probably suit Hillary, for her 'legacy' would be ensured'. I know some of you thought the same thing . . . put it out of your mind. That is banana republic thinking right there, it is unAmerican.

The Real Person Of The Year

TIME Magazine announced that Vladimir Putin will be their Person of the Year for 2007, but they got it wrong (though thankfully they didn't pick Al Gore). Pervez Musharraf was the Person of the Year all along: he is the key U.S. ally in the War on Terror, and he is besieged on all sides by insurgents peeling away large tracts of his nation, democratic reformers demanding an end to his military diktat, and Islamic extremists who want to get their claws on Pakistan's frightening nuclear capabilities. Pakistan is the vortex, and Musharraf is at the center.

His situation alone would put him in the running as Person of the Year, but his actions should have ensured TIME's editors would choose him. He made a deal for autonomy with the tribes of the Northwest Frontier Province, launched a major offensive in the Swat valley, and stormed the Red Mosque in Islamabad. He declared a state of emergency, and wrangled with Bhutto and the U.S. State Department over the reinstitution of democracy.

The assassination yesterday of Benzir Bhutto of course adds to the weight he bears. He is already being blamed for her death, but whether he is to blame or not, he now bears the woeful costs of the near-civil war that now ensues.

Musharraf has already faced nightmares Vladimir Putin can't even imagine.

Only America Has Free Speech

It is often said that 'free speech' is one of the hallmarks of Western democracy - but don't you believe it. Free speech only exists in the United States, and nowhere else. Europe just doesn't get the whole free speech concept, by banning religious dress in places like France, and the criminalization of Holocaust denial and 'revisionist' history in places such as Germany and Austria. Britain is one of the worst offenders. They have chilling defamation laws that make the free exchange of information and opinion completely impossible, they have no written constitution that protects free speech, and their television news is state-run.

Canada is no better. Mark Steyn is being hauled before the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal and the Canadian Human Rights Commission for alleged 'hate speech' in his book 'America Alone'. This is the gist of the problem:

After the Canadian general-interest magazine Maclean's reprinted a chapter from the book, five Muslim law-school students, acting through the auspices of the Canadian Islamic Congress, demanded that the magazine be punished for spreading “hatred and contempt" for Muslims.

The plaintiffs allege that Maclean's advocated, among other things, the notion that Islamic culture is incompatible with Canada's liberalized, Western civilization. They insist such a notion is untrue and, in effect, want opinions like that banned from publication.

Only Americans, the inventors of free speech, understand it and cherish it. The rest of the world pays lip service to it, but when politicians throughout the rest of the world are confronted with the clash of free speech with identity politics, political expediency wins every time. No other nation in the world has enshrined free speech as a sacrosanct principle, and so such mischief often occurs.

Iraq Casualties Still Way Down

According to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count , the Coalition is on course to have the lowest casualties since the beginning of the war:

The lowest-casualty month of the war so far has been February, 2004:

Now, keep in mind that one of the very worst months of the war came only two months after that, in April, 2004, when the Coalition lost 140 brave volunteers. The violence rises and falls in Iraq, and has done so cyclically several times before during this war. There is no gurantee that the latest relative lull will hold. This latest abeyance of violence seems to be the product of planning rather than luck however, and al-Qaeda and the other insurgent groups have lost the initiative and ability to create widespread violence on demand. It also seems quite clear that there is no civil war in Iraq now, if there ever was one.

Let's see if the trend actually holds. Six more months of this (just one more Friedman Unit), and I am convinced that the war is over in all but name.

Success Dawns On Rank-And-File Dems

It was inevitable - when the good news coming from Iraq is too obvious to ignore or marginalize, the public picks up on it, as in this AP-Ipsos poll:

The poll showed a nearly even division over whether President Bush's troop increase this year has helped stabilize the country, with 50 percent saying no and 47 percent yes. Just three months ago, only 36 percent said yes.

By 52 percent to 41 percent, most said the U.S. is making progress in Iraq. When AP-Ipsos last asked that question in September 2006 — a time when vicious sectarian attacks resembled a civil war — just 39 percent saw improvements under way.

While far greater proportions of Republicans than Democrats think progress is being made, even growing numbers of Democrats agree. The portion of Democrats saying the troop increase has helped stabilize the country has nearly doubled since September to 26 percent, and the number saying the U.S. is making progress has shown similar growth.

For many Democrats, though, the gains are seen as tentative.

"Yes, there's been progress, but I don't think it will be long-term," said Regina Pitts, 51, a Democrat from Fairview, Tenn. "We can't stay there forever and babysit."

Regina Pitts form Fairview, Tennessee is woefully uninformed about U.S. national security history. We have been babysitting forever in Germany, Japan and Korea, and have long overstayed our welcome in Bosnia as well. Perhaps Ms. Pitts actually does realize this, but sees Iraq as a 'special case' that is somehow immune from the normal course of how these things work. In any event, it is great to see the fair weather fans among the great Democratic masses finally coming around to admitting success in Iraq.

The anti-war movement is, for all intents and purposes, dead.

(h/t Dave Price)

Nedra Pickler To The Rescue

Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press apparently has a full-time job protecting Democrats and explaining away their gaffes and mistakes. She attempted to 'fact-check' Republicans over Barack Obama's outrageous statement that U.S. forces are 'just air-raiding villages and killing civilians' in Afghanistan. Rather than report on this statement as a good objective and detached journalist is supposed to do, Pickler instead tried to run interference against Republican indignation over Obama's ridiculous claim that the U.S. is just randomly killing civilians in Afghanistan.

Well today Pickler is at it again, this time defending Hillary Clinton against complaints that her campaign sent out emails slandering Obama for his 'muslim' upbringing in Indonesia, which apparently is a falsehood. Pickler's article reads like a press release from Hillary's campaign itself. For example, was this email sent out by a Clinton volunteer to put Obama in a bad light? "Oh heavens no," Zimmerman [Iowa Democratic campaigner] said in a telephone interview. "She just wanted the people who were concerned with the politics of Jones County to be aware of it."

As unlikely as that may be, of course Hillary Clinton herself is most unlikely to have authorized that email. But, man, does the AP bend over backwards to explain this away or what? I am sure we can count on Nedra Pickler to apologize for and explain away mistakes made by Republicans, right?

Right?

P.S. You have by now no doubt heard of the Wicked Witch of the West Wing's attack on kindergartener Obama's presidential ambitions. Tactless, graceless, and a great example of the politics of personal destruction that Hillary (allegedly) deplores. Hillary can't run on her record, can't run on her experience, her character, ethics or her brains. Not to mention, nobody likes her. Why, exactly, is she running for president?

Henry Hyde, R.I.P.

Henry Hyde died today at age 83. He had heart bypass surgery last July, and never quite recovered.

He was a gentleman, and he will be missed. Condolences to his family, friends, and constituents.

More Proof That Waterboarding Is Not Torture

Think Progress, under the category 'radical rightwing agenda', informs us that John Ashcroft was asked at the University of Colorado if he would be willing to be subjected to waterboarding.

“The things that I can survive, if it were necessary to do them to me, I would do,” he replied.

Apparently, Democratic Representatives Jerrold Nadler and William Delahunt have introduced the “American Anti-Torture Act of 2007” which would outlaw the practice. This is good: we need clarity on this issue so those fighting the War on Terror know if waterboarding is legal or not. The fact that clarifying legislation is necessary rather proves that waterboarding is not an illegal practice. And if Torquemada himself is willing to be subjected to the practice, well, is that not also proof that it is not only legal, but also not tortuous as well? Remember: no one ever volunteers to undergo real torture.

Syria Joins Doomed Annapolis Conference

The outcome of the Annapolis Conference, which begins Tuesday and will last for three days, is pre-ordained: it will accomplish nothing, and will prove to be a complete waste of everyone's time. The Conference is intended to bring the Arabs, Palestinians, the UN Security Council member states and Israel together to resolve issues on the way to the creation of a Palestinian state. The Palestinians do not want peace, however, their Arab allies do not want peace, and the Palestinians are in the midst of a civil war such that any nascent achievements from Annapolis will quickly be undone.

Syria decided to join the conference, once it learned that the issue of the Golan Heights might be on the table. The Golan Heights are an extremely strategic part of northern Israel (annexed in 1981), a natural tank trap of stone on a plateau that dominates the surrounding country. The Syrians used it as a fortress to reign terror down upon the Israelis until the Israelis seized it in 1967, and the Syrians are not getting it back, nor should they. Syria is not really serious about the conference anyway, sending a deputy foreign minister instead of the real thing, whom, it is being reported is going for no other purpose than to sabotage the conference and make sure no Arab states attending decide to recognize Israel.

The usual wonderful good faith and outreach to peace that the Arabs customarily show. No wonder this conference is doomed to fail.

Update: Hamas, naturally, has anything but peace in mind, according to spokesman Moussa Abu Marzouk - "Resistance to the Zionist enemy will intensify through the West Bank and Gaza, because Annapolis will expose the uselessness of the process and its destructiveness."

Is he making the point here that no diplomacy is less deadly than the 'just keep talking for the sake of talking' obeisance paid to diplomacy by the peaceniks? Someone had better email this article to Dennis Kucinich.

Another Hamas official, Ahmed Yousef, claimed that Hamas can make its rocket attacks deadlier by packing them with more explosives.

Yeah, these people want peace alright.

Kasparov Beaten And Arrested!

Putin's thugs have gone too far:

Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, leader of the opposition Other Russia coalition, was beaten and arrested for resisting arrest, and will sit five days in jail. He was at a Moscow rally calling for Vladimir Putin's ouster.

(h/t Gateway Pundit)

A Republican Surge In '08?

Of course not, according to the sycophantic MSM, the correct meme is that the Democrats will triumph over all in '08 because . . . well it is hard say why, given the following:

Presidential Campaign

Democratic frontrunner: inexperienced, very high negatives, political tin ear. Could cause the downballot to collapse if nominated.

Republican frontrunner: executive experience (no on-the-job training necessary, Hillary), charismatic, good political instincts (either Rudy or Mitt fits this description).

Congress

Democrats: 11% approval rating for a Dem-majority Congress. Enough said. Remember how many of the freshman Republicans after '94 got swept back out of the House in '96? Dems are trying hard to repeat history.

Republicans: unfortunately, they have a natural knack for being effective only when in the minority.

War in Iraq

Democrats: we can still have a defeat, if we just try harder!

Republicans: proven right about the Surge. Continued abatement of violence vindicates Iraq policies, takes Iraq off the table as an issue. Evaporates the Democratic 'mandate' from '06.

Taxes

Democrats: higher taxes are the answer to every problem, in every context, all the time.

Republicans: American like lower taxes. Who, seriously, votes to have their taxes raised?

National Security

Democrats: what's that?

Republicans: it ain't pretty, it ain't perfect, but at least wetake it seriously.

Illegal Immigration

Democrats: let's turn them all into Democrats as soon as possible.

Republicans: this is priority for many Republicans, independents and Democrats. We've learned that now!

Corruption

Old news: Jack Abramoff, Bernard Kerick, Duke Cunningham.

New news: Norman Hsu, Fujian busboys, William 'Cold Cash' Jefferson (Democrat, Louisiana).

Happy Turkey Day!

A picture of U.S. troops on Thanksgiving in Europe, 1944, lifted from James Lileks:

Not one of those guys can take their eyes off those birds. Can you blame them? Heh, I wonder if any of them has had a shower since Normandy.

This is poignant picture - these guys still had to face some of the very toughest fighting of the war, in the Battle of the Bulge, Arnhem and crossing the Rhine. I wonder how many of them made it.