Travelling Shoes

Friday, August 13, 2004

 

Vacation/Travelling

Sorry for the light posting. I've been taking a bit of a vacation. Posting should get back to normal at the end of next week.

posted by H.D. Miller on 3:38 PM. . .Link. . .

 

Christmas in Cambodia...Not!

Glenn Reynolds is all over Senator Lockjaw's attempt to get away with fibbing/prevaricating/hedging/lying about having spent Christmas, 1968, on a secret mission up river in Cambodia.

I will note that today's installment of on-going drama involves none-other than historian and shill Doug "Shattered" Brinkley.

It must be terribly bitter for Brinkley to now have to admit that his golden boy was lying... er, "mistaken" about the entire fabricated episode.

posted by H.D. Miller on 3:29 PM. . .Link. . .

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Thursday, August 05, 2004

 

Flight 327, Again

Enterprising part-time reporter and friend of this blog, Clint Taylor is again on the job, revealing new information about 14 Syrian musicians who were scaring the bejebbers out of their fellow passangers on Northwest flight 327. Check it out.

posted by H.D. Miller on 11:12 AM. . .Link. . .

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Friday, July 30, 2004

 

Fork Time

Uh oh.

A Zogby poll taken while the four-day Democratic convention was under way shows that the Kerry-Edwards ticket has failed to add even a single percentage point to its support.

The poll of 1,001 likely voters conducted Monday through Thursday found that 48 percent support the Kerry-Edwards ticket - the exact same number that backed the Massachusetts Democrat in a July 6-7 survey.

Someone put a fork in Lurch, looks like he's done.

posted by H.D. Miller on 3:23 PM. . .Link. . .

 

Shattered

Since I don't own a television set, I listened to Senator Lockjaw's accpetance speech on the radio last night, NPR, to be specific.

Several things jumped out at me, both during the speech itself, and during the NPR punditry that preceeded and followed the big event.

However, one thing really stuck in my craw.

Douglas Brinkley, the author of the lopsided Kerry hagiography, Tour of Duty. describing John Kerry's arm as being "shattered" when he pulled Jim Rassman from the waters of Cam Rahm Bay, an act much touted during last night convention.

In fact, Kerry's arm wasn't even bleeding, much less shattered. His ass was bleeding, having caught a piece of shrapnel in the left buttocks. His arm was just bruised. (You can find a copy of the actual military report here.)

It's clear that Brinkley has let himself get completely Kerry-ed away.

posted by H.D. Miller on 12:20 PM. . .Link. . .

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Thursday, July 29, 2004

 

Other People's Links

Two excellent finds from the always dependable Ed Driscoll.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Find out exactly how many of John Kerry's fellow swift boat commanders support him for the presidency (hint: not many).

Complete Idiots Guide to Bumperstickers. An amusing bit of analysis from a blog called Beautiful Atrocities (which I've just added to the blogroll).

posted by H.D. Miller on 4:22 PM. . .Link. . .

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Wednesday, July 28, 2004

 

Bunny Boy

I just love this quote right here.

A senior Democratic strategist laughed off the comparison the Bushies made to Dukakis.

"The difference is that Kerry is 6-feet-4 and one of the most masculine guys anybody's ever seen," the top Dem said.

"One of the most masculine guys anybody's ever seen."

That's priceless! You just smell the flop-sweat desperation.


posted by H.D. Miller on 1:09 PM. . .Link. . .

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Tuesday, July 27, 2004

 

Throws Like a Girl (Illustrated)

Nice Grip, Pierre.

posted by H.D. Miller on 4:12 PM. . .Link. . .

 

Throws Like a Girl

Orrin Judd has pointed to a remarkably revealing ESPN interview with John F. Kerry. My favorite part of the interview is this right here, because it explains so much about the man.

When asked about his personal moments of sports glory Kerry replied with the following.

On a personal level, getting a hat trick against Harvard in soccer [in 1965] was good fun.

Kerry was playing soccer in 1965!

Only first generation immigrants and wannabe Euro-poseurs were playing soccer in America in 1965. (Most second generation immigrant children, like the DiMaggio brothers, were enthralled by baseball.)

In 1965, no one else in this country gave a damn about the sport.

All of which leads me suggest you take another look at Kerry's first pitch at Sunday night's Red Sox-Yankee's game; a first pitch, thrown from only half way to the mound, which even then rainbowed through the air and bounced well short of the catcher.

Even NPR, in it's report of the event, couldn't help but play a clip of small boy announcing the obvious: "John Kerry throws like a girl."

And now we know why.



posted by H.D. Miller on 1:04 PM. . .Link. . .

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Thursday, July 22, 2004

 

Obfuscate, Obfuscate!

I don't own a television set, so sometimes I miss the most amazing spectacles, such as Peter Jennings' interview with John Kerry.

I regret not seeing this interview because the written transcript contained one of the most amazing bit of political obfuscation I've ever seen.

Peter Jennings: You told an Iowa newspaper recently that life begins at conception. What makes you think that?

Sen. Kerry: My personal belief about what happens in the fertilization process is a human being is first formed and created, and that's when life begins.Something begins to happen. There's a transformation. There's an evolution.

Okay, so far, so good.

Within weeks, you look and see the development of it, but that's not a person yet, and it's certainly not what somebody, in my judgment, ought to have the government of the United States intervening in.

The patented Kerry Boomerang Straddle! To restate: The fertilized egg is a human being, but it's not a person.

But wait there's more:

Roe v. Wade has made it very clear what our standard is with respect to viability, what our standard is with respect to rights. I believe in the right to choose, not the government choosing, but an individual, and I defend that.

Jennings: Could you explain again to me what do you mean when you say "life begins at conception"?

Kerry: Well, that's what the Supreme Court has established is a test of viability as to whether or not you're permitted to terminate a pregnancy, and I support that. That is my test. And I, you know, you have all kinds of different evolutions of life, as we know, and very different beliefs about birth, the process of the development of a fetus. That's the standard that's been established in Roe v. Wade. And I adhere to that standard.

Good Lord, this is most mumbly-bumbly-jumbly piece of mealy-mouthed crap I've ever read.

This man is an idiot. I know all the media people like to talk about how intelligent and nuanced and subtle he is, but he's not.

He's a buffoon, a blithering, dithering, straddling buffoon; someone who puts his mouth in gear before he starts his brain; someone who thinks he's way smarter than he actually is.

Forget for a minute the fact that Kerry's an unprincipled toad, someone with the moral compass of a can of Cheeze Whiz, and consider this entire thing from a strictly political (winning the vote) point of view.

What does John F. Kerry gain with this idiotic bit of flummery?

Nothing, nothing, not one damn thing, nothing.

No one who believes in the sanctity of human life is going to be bamboozled by this crapola, and, far worse, he only makes the true believers in the Democratic party worry that he'll go all soft when it comes time support Roe v. Wade. (Which he would in a second if the political winds were blowing that way.)

In other words, no sensible politican would have allowed himself to be backed into this sort of untenable corner, one which can only be escaped by the squirting of a thick cloud of inky rhetoric.

Compare Kerry's performance with that of Slick Willie, whose position on abortion is nearly identical.

Clinton's as cool as a professional cat burglar tiptoeing through your bedroom at midnight, he knows what he's up to (it's immoral, it's wrong, but it'll get him what he wants). Meanwhile, Kerry's just tripped over the sleeping dog and crashed through the french doors.

UPDATE: Another Damned Medievalist provides a more temperate and thoughtful response to Senator Kerry's "dilemma".

posted by H.D. Miller on 11:21 PM. . .Link. . .

 

Cloud Cuckoo Land

Guess what. According to reports sent in from the Iraqi resistance we're losing dozens of soldiers every day in Iraq.

Why just last Friday...

Iraqi Resistance fighters from al-Fallujah carried out a stunning attack on US barracks in the area of as-Saqlawiyah Friday. The local correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the fighting lasted from 6:00am until 10:00am and local people estimated that between 100 and 150 Resistance fighters took part in the offensive.

A source in the as-Saqlawiyah puppet police force told the correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam that the number of dead Americans as a result of the attack had risen to 24.

And then...

Iraqi Resistance forces ambushed a US patrol that had halted at the battlefield at the Exhibition Square where an engagement had taken place the day before. Friday’s Resistance attack took place at 2:30pm. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that one American tank and two Humvees were destroyed by the Resistance assault. Twelve US troops’ bodies were taken away from the battlefield after the attack.

Elsewhere in Ramadi...

Witnesses indicated that a Resistance attack took place near the local US headquarters near the al-Ma‘arif College behind the Chamber of Commerce building. The Americans reportedly suffered heavy casualties.[...]As to those Americans killed in the personnel carriers, however, at least 45 died in those bombings according to one officer in the Iraqi police who spoke to the correspondent of Mafkarat al-Islam in ar-Ramadi.

Meanwhile, west of Baghdad...

The chief US occupation control center in the al-‘Ana district west of Baghdad, between Hadithah and al-Qa’im near the Syrian border, was attacked by the Iraqi Resistance on Thursday evening. A source in the puppet security apparatus reported that the Resistance used rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and Kalashnikov assault rifles in the attack. Five American Humvees were destroyed and 16 US invader troops killed.

So, according the to good people at Albasrah.net and Jihad Unspun we suffered 97 killed in action on Friday alone, making this (if only it had been reported by the Bush-loving lackeys in the American media) one of the bloodiest days of the conflict, only exceeded by April 6th, when American forces suffered 130 KIA.

But of course, you would accept this only if you were capable of being decieved by the most ridiculous collection of Baghdad-Bob-style moonbeams, horse feathers, and fantasy-land flufferdoodle, all of it coming from a variety of Ba'ath-o-fascists sympathizers and deep thinkers with cheap internet access.

In other words, it's crap.

Meanwhile, back on planet earth, as near as I can figure out, only one American serviceman lost his life in action on July 16th, Lance Cpl. Byran P. Kelly, of Klamath, OR, who was killed in fighting in Al Anbar province.

posted by H.D. Miller on 4:36 PM. . .Link. . .

 

Clint's Scoop

Regular reader and friend of this blog, Clint Taylor, has scored a major scoop with a little old-fashioned investigative leg-work.

That really was a group of Syrian musicians acting all squirrelly on a recent Northwest Airlines flight.

Annie Jacobsen's recent piece for WomensWallStreet.Com made waves. Her account of flying with her family while 14 Middle Eastern passengers acted in a threatening and apparently coordinated manner makes for a terrifying read. Her article captures her sickening sense of both uncertainty and inevitability as what might possibly have been the next 9/11 unfolded around her.[...]

But the men checked out, and Jacobsen was told that they were "hired as musicians to play at a casino in the desert." She was not told the name of the band, nor the name of the casino. And as her story made the rounds through the Internet and beyond (the Dallas Morning News printed a condensed version earlier this week), a note of skepticism about her story crept in. Had she imagined the whole thing? Or was the government covering up a "dry run" for another terrorist attack? [...]

Well, I am nominally the "news director" for Stanford University's student radio station, KZSU, and I figured I'd help the Times out. There aren't that many casinos in southern California, so I had my research assistant, Mr. Google, take a look at some. An hour later I was talking to the nice folks at Sycuan Casino & Resort, near San Diego. Unlike most casinos where it's all Elvis impersonators, Paul Anka, and Linda Ronstadt — oh, wait, scratch that last one — Sycuan books the occasional "ethnic music" show, too. In August, for example, they'll have a Vietnamese night.

"Oh, do you mean Arab music?" inquired Angie, who answered Sycuan's phone. Yes, they had had an Arab act perform on July 1, an artist named Nour Mehana. Terry, Angie's supervisor at Sycuan, confirmed that he was there and that there was probably a backup band brought in, since there's no house band at Sycuan. In fractions of a second, Mr. Google found a website for Sycuan's event promoters, Anthem Artists, whose archive confirms Nour Mehana performed at Sycuan on 7/01/04.

And then I noticed something that was truly terrifying, something linking Nour Mehana to a figure of such repulsive evil that I felt a rush of prickly fear not unlike Jacobsen's: Just one week later, the same company that arranged Mehana's performance, also booked Carrot Top!

Well done, sir!

When I first saw Jacobson's original story my reaction was two-fold:

1) What's the big surprise? It's obvious that the government can't completely protect us from determined hijackers. Screeners and air marshals can help, but they're only human (and federal employees) so they can be expected to miss things, sometimes big things. They should be expected to do their best, and the system should be improved, but ultimately no system is perfect.

2) As Jacobson pointed out in her article, her husband, the crew, and about half of the male passangers (and a goodly number of female passangers) were keeping an eye on those fidgety Syrians. Rest assured that if they had tried anything, it was clearly on, baby. They were ready to roll.

Which is as it should be.

One thing we learned from the events of 9/11 was that individuals are ultimately responsible for their own personal security. The heroes of United Flight 93 recognized this, as did those passangers who pummelled that sad-sack wannabe shoe bomber Richard Reed into submission.

posted by H.D. Miller on 1:11 PM. . .Link. . .

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