Goofus and Gallant

Oliver Stone Is A Bastard

2006-04-05T19:05:00.000-07:00

With a title like that, you may be expecting a somewhat humorous post. If that's the case, then I'm sorry that I must disappoint you. What this post is about is trying to expose one self-important bastard's black heart and to try to gin up in you the kind of righteous indignation that this sorry excuse for a human being brings forth in me. Here are a couple of quotes from Mr. Stone.

The director of “Natural Born Killers,” “JFK,” and other controversial films is quoted as saying, “We’re Hollywood wackos and all that stuff, left-wing… (It’s) an easy and facile dismissal. I’m still a citizen, I’ve served my country as a veteran. … We have a right to speak and every time we speak: ‘You’re an actor, a showbusiness director,’ [as if] we’re making it up! This is not a way of dealing with people. This is slander.”

That was a quote Oliver Stone gave to the LA Times. Here is a different quote, the kind of quote that he evidently feels should be immune from criticism:

“I think the revolt of September 11th was about ‘Fuck you! Fuck your order … The Arabs have a point! … Does anybody make a connection between the 2000 election and the events of September 11th? Look for the thirteenth month!

“This attack was pure chaos, and chaos is energy. All great changes have come from people or events that were initially misunderstood, and seemed frightening, like madmen. Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Gates …”

No one said you couldn't speak your mind, you egotistical bastard. But I'll be damned if you feel your status as an artist or a creative person makes you untouchable to the vast majority of the American people who would consider such a statement beyond ignorant. Personally, I consider Mr. Stone and his ilk to be nothing less than fifth columnists operating towards the defeat of our country in a time of war. His right to sedition is guaranteed by our Constitution, but that doesn't mean he should be innoculated from our loathing.

Because of my strong feelings on this matter, I am going to violate one of our unwritten rules on this blog.

Well, here it goes: FUCK YOU, OLIVER!

(H/T Libertas)

Denver is happiness in my rear view mirror

2006-03-30T15:48:00.000-08:00

It has been quite sometime since I posted. For that I apologize. I have no great excuse and we all know I feel about excuses anyway: They are like third string quarterbacks; Every team has one but in the end, they are useless. During my absence, I have found myself to really despise the city of Denver and the state of Colorado. That's a different story. Now it's time to talk about Major League Baseball. Let's briefly talk about this steroid investigation. For Bud Selig to investigate steroids is like Tony Soprano's wife investigating him. You've slept in the same bed with him for years, profited off his business and now after all this time, you want the truth? You knew what was going on but you decided to deny it. This is an investigation into past steroid us. In no way am I defending the players but I must pose this question: Did these players break any rules under the Major League Baseball guidelines when and if they took steroids? Another question: Did major league baseball GM's and managers encourage the use of steroids? Yes, I'm serious. Did these guys approach the players and tell them that their careers won't last forever so you must do what you have to in order to succeed in the now and after saying that, leave the room so they couldn't admit to know what was being done? Your thoughts.....

The Second Coming of Gordon

2006-03-29T08:43:00.000-08:00

On Christmas I receive presents, most likely in the ‘stuff-you’ll-never-use’ format. On Easter I receive candy, most likely in the ‘is that from last year’ format. And on Opening Day of the major league baseball season I always receive a tingle up the spine, most likely in the ‘soon to be heart-break’ format.

It’s inevitable that my beloved Royals will falter, but the thing about baseball is that anything can happen. Whoops…scratch that. The thing about baseball is that only 15 teams can really compete and most of the overpaid players use performance-enhancing drugs due to an authoritarian that’s as much to blame as the new-age fans that surfaced during the Summer of ’98 (which holds strong comparisons to the Summer of Sam).

But my Royals have a secret weapon this season. He’s a weapon that will change the fortunes of the franchise for years to come. Sure, Johnny Damon was unfairly compared to George Brett. Jim Pittsley fielded comparisons to Randy Johnson. Hell, even Bob Hamelin was compared to Babe Ruth, though it has yet to be determined if that was because of his girth or his adulation of the long-ball.

All I’m saying is that this top-secret weapon hit .333 in 18 spring training games. He took walks with the same frequency that Jesus performed miracles. He attended the University of Nebraska which is near Jerusalem. His father was a carpenter…I think. And when this young man ditches his customary thongs and dining table robes to don his baseball uniform all he must do to be reminded of his likeness is look out into centerfield at David DeJESUS.

All I’m saying is that Alex Hoobastank Gordon shouldn’t be unfairly compared to anyone, despite his unquestionable talents. Amen.

Monday Linkage (Updated)

2006-03-27T13:37:00.000-08:00

It's a slow Monday, so a link to Winds of Change's excellent Winds of War is all that I have for right not. It's a really wonderful wrap-up of everything that is happening in every corner of the world as it relates to the War. Check it out.

As I find more interesting links, I'll update this post. Have a great Monday, or at least the best Monday possible.

**UPDATE**

Here's a post about the role of our "friends" the Russians from In From The Cold.

This article by Michael Ledeen covers the same ground.

While we're at National Review, this interview with Charles Murray discusses an idea I think we can all get behind.

Want a little entertainment, Greg? Well, this little excerpt defies all description. God bless the Michael Bay Blog! (and thanks to the Galley Slaves for pointing this one out)

Well, I hope you enjoyed this link-o-rama. If you did, next time I feel to lazy to create something original I'll do this again. If you didn't, well go to hell. You're not my real dad (or mom)!

Toodles

Jump! For My Love (Of Holly Robinson-Peete)

2006-03-25T11:14:00.000-08:00

In a previous post, Greg pointed out that I have eschewed the humorous posts. This has not been for a lack of interest, rather it has been because of a lack of material to post on. By material, I of course mean good, entertaining TV shows. Honestly, TV in today's world sucks. I have 400 channels, and there is nothing on any of them. I usually find the most engaging TV show to be a Senate Committee hearing on C-SPAN 2. It wasn't always this way. Once upon a time, Television truly had a golden age. Magnum, P. I. could be seen five times a week, and the A-Team was always around if no one else could help (and if you could find them). David Hasselhoff was driving around in John Adams and Jan-Michael Vincent was busy flying secret missions for the government with a secretary and a fat old man.

Then, in 1987, television (and specifically action shows) reached its crescendo with 21 Jump Street. Sure, you might think a bunch of 20-something police officers wouldn't be able to pass as high-school sophomores, but then again you aren't Johnny Depp, with his boyish good looks and baby-smooth skin. Together with Holly Robinson (later -Peete) and Dustin Nguyen ("Harry"), the Lenny-like Peter DeLuise and Johnny Depp's evil doppelganger (Richard Greico), Captain Fuller had the pushers and 'bangers in his sights. No small-scale narcotics distribution network stood a chance against these intrepid crime-fighters.

To our everlasting disappointment, this brat pack of counternarcotics couldn't last forever. The country couldn't handle their in-your-face style forever. You know, "the man" always going to get you in the end. Besides that, when the undercover cop "students" start looking older than their teachers, as well as older than the cast of "Thirtysomething", then you know that this marriage of The Breakfast Club and Dragnet is on the rocks and headed for divorce. Besides, Michael DeLuise is a massive tool and killed a show that was already on life support (sorry about he mixed metaphors).

Anyway, this revolutionary fusion of John Hughes and Donald P. Bellesario, of teenage angst and hard-nosed police work, was nice while it lasted. We will morn your passing, 21 Jump Street, and revel in the nostalgia of your reruns.

Saved by the Veracity

2006-03-25T10:32:00.000-08:00

I was a bit perplexed the other day when a colleague compared his recent obsession with the NCAA college basketball tournament to Jessie Spano’s addiction to caffeine pills in a 1991 classic “Saved by the Bell” episode. I wasn’t baffled by Jessie’s college of choice, Stansbury, being absent from the Field of 64. No, what was disturbing was that my colleague thought “Saved by the Bell” was appropriate for realistic comparison.

There are a number of problems with this. First of all, when you attended high school did you share EVERY SINGLE class with your friends? Did your high school change zip codes from Indiana to California? Did the same said high school strike oil on the football field rendering the high school rich?

Oh, yeah…was the most popular guy the annoying, closet-cased, blonde-haired slacker? Or, was the valedictorian (sans Jessie’s selfish attempt) the guy who couldn’t execute a simple plan? Better yet, was the popular gang at your high school the over-achieving bunch who was nauseatingly involved in EVERY high school activity?

Heck, was your high school the alma mater of a Debbie Gibson-esque singer? Did your high school also host a popular pot-smoking actor’s anti-drug commercial? Did your gaggle of friends, at some point, all work for your local hang-out and yet when it was established that none of you could cut the proverbial mustard you all ended up still calling the hangout your “home away from home”?

Or, does anyone really share that close of a relationship with their ultra-unpopular principal? Don’t think for a minute I forgot that there were two senior years, albeit the Tori years can easily be erased from memory.

My point is that while “Saved by the Bell” is/was one of the greatest shows in recent television history, it shouldn’t be a grounds for realistic comparisons. Of course, “California Dreams”…well, that’s a different story.

Churchill Friday

2006-03-24T19:02:00.000-08:00

I just love Winston Churchill. To me, he is the greatest leader of the 20th Century. He was an iconoclast, loved the British Empire, and worked for his entire life to strengthen and perpetuate it. But he loved liberty more. It has been said that Churchill gave up the Empire in order to fight Hitler, even when he could have made a separate peace with "Mr. Hitler" (As Churchill often called him).

Because of my tremendous admiration for Sir Winston Churchill, I am starting a new feature here at G&G. Every friday will be Churchill Friday. I will provide a Churchill quote or interesting anecdote involving Winston Churchill.

Here is an excerpt from his speech to Parliament after Dunkirk:

Turning once again, and this time more generally, to the question of invasion, I would observe that there has never been a period in all these long centuries of which we boast when an absolute guarantee against invasion, still less against serious raids, could have been given to our people. In the days of Napoleon the same wind which would have carried his transports across the Channel might have driven away the blockading fleet. There was always the chance, and it is that chance which has excited and befooled the imaginations of many Continental tyrants. Many are the tales that are told. We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous maneuver. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye. We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if it can be locally exercised.

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty's Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

(Information provided By The Churchill Centre. For more information, please click on The Churchill Centre link.)

To War Or Not To War?

2006-03-24T06:03:00.000-08:00

For this post, I will require some feedback.

Two of my favorite columnists, Charles Krauthammer (a.k.a. the Smartest Man Alive, pictured on the lower right) and Ralph Peters (pictured to the left), have written two columns on Iraq and Civil War. Both make excellent points and I can see the merits in each of their arguments. The only problem is that the main thrust of their articles are diametrically opposed to each other.

Please read the articles and comment on them. The articles are short and shouldn't take up too much of your time.

Here are the articles:

Of Couse Its A Civil War
By Charles Krauthammer

Civil War In Iraq: Not Even Close
by Ralph Peters

Read these and tell me what you think!

(Thanks for the idea, Mark Coffey. )

Scrubbing the Feeling

2006-03-21T20:40:00.000-08:00

Remember when you were little and everything was edible and nothing was impossible? Sure, reality has reduced your dreams to a puddle of empty promises and Dr. Atkins has made your Cheetos and Peanut Butter sandwich an endangered species, but still there remains hope that two incompatible entities can still unite as one to become something great…right?

So, in 1976 a little known band out of Boston hit the airwaves. They garnered respect for their synthesizing “Long Time” and Tom Schloz’s rockin’ guitar solo on “Peace of Mind”, but the real genius was released on “More Than A Feeling”.

Jump ahead to 2001 when little known Zach Braff, a pack of C-list actors, and the always gratifying John C. MicGinley headed up NBC’s “Scrubs”. The show focuses on Dr. J.D. and his adulation for day dreams. Of course, his best friend and co-worker Dr. Turk complements J.D.’s every move.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Cheetos (the band Boston) and Peanut Butter (Scrubs)…together at last.

CHEETOS AND PEANUT BUTTER

How Do You Say "Bob" In Arabic?

2006-03-19T18:10:00.000-08:00

In atonement for my last, exceeding-long post, I give you the interview with a Guantanamo Bay detainee, a detainee nicknamed "Pimp Daddy":

Ali was brought before the military tribunal that is determining whether he and the several hundred other Guantanamo detainees should continue to be held as enemy combatants. At the outset of his hearing, Ali thanked America for getting rid of Saddam's "cruel regime," which he said killed one of his uncles. Ali claimed he had escaped service in Saddam's Republican Guard and decried the Butcher of Baghdad's poor treatment of his fellow citizens. He even professed a desire to become an "American person."

So far so good. But then, something odd happened. Ali launched into an obscenity-laden rant that takes up much of the 24-page record of his tribunal proceeding.
He is clearly a very angry man. But why? Is it the occupation of his native Baghdad? His detention at Gitmo?

No. Ali explains:

My problem isn't just that I am poor, or that Saddam's government killed my second uncle. My problem, I'm sorry to say in front of the two ladies, but I want the Judge to know everything about me. I was never a "homo" or gay, but I have a problem. I can't get married because my penis is small-sized. I went to the doctor and they said there is no help. They said I couldn't have an operation or surgery of any kind because I'm poor. I want to get the operation or drugs in America or Europe. Who can help me? . . .

This problem has taken all of my life and my thinking. For example, when I was in school, a lot of my friends were married. I look at my friends and say they have a good life. I can't stay in my house, because my father and mother are waiting very anxiously for me to get married. She says she has a nice girl for me to marry, because she says this is my goal in life. I run away from these questions from my mom. I told her that I want to go to college and be a good person. My family said it was a bulls--reason and that I'm Arab and I can marry and complete my life. I can't stand the sight of my mom, because she says, "my son, I want to see your kids." I just kiss my mom and I say "maybe someday."

In America this is only a little problem, but in my home and in my life, it's very difficult when the days get dark, because I hate running from my people. I feel someday I'll go back to my home and I'm sure that all of my friends are married now. This is not just me in my family; it's also my younger brother. He was born in 1980. He's big and is a nice guy, but has the same problem. I know about my brother, but my family doesn't.

I guess this means that Enzyte is a strategic asset in the War on Terror.

As always, I urge you to read the entire article.

The Liberation of Iraq - Three Years On

2006-03-19T16:17:00.000-08:00

Since this weekend marks the third anniversary of the liberation of Iraq, I've decided to mark the occasion by beginning a project I have intended to begin for a long time. A couple of years ago I started to archive news articles and columns dealing with the issues at the heart of our beginning a war with Saddam Hussein, and Hussein's role in the larger War on Terror. I am going to begin to transfer these articles over to this blog, providing links to the articles and also providing a summary of the articles. After completing this, I plan to discuss recent evidence which as emerged due to the Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence releasing documents captured in Iraq after the fall of the Regime in 2003.

This first article deals with terrorists being trained in Saddam's terrorist training camps. Here are a few important paragraphs:

THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.

Later in that same article, this was revealed by a source working in the Intelligence Community:

Other officials familiar with the captured documents were less cautious. "As much as we overestimated WMD, it appears we underestimated [Saddam Hussein's] support for transregional terrorists," says one intelligence official.

Speaking of Ansar al Islam, the al Qaeda-linked terrorist group that operated in northern Iraq, the former high-ranking military intelligence officer says: "There is no question about the fact that AI had reach into Baghdad. There was an intelligence connection between that group and the regime, a financial connection between that group and the regime, and there was an equipment connection. It may have been the case that the IIS [Iraqi Intelligence Service] support for AI was meant to operate against the [anti-Saddam] Kurds. But there is no question IIS was supporting AI."

The official continued: "[Saddam] used these groups because he was interested in extending his influence and extending the influence of Iraq. There are definite and absolute ties to terrorism. The evidence is there, especially at the network level. How high up in the government was it sanctioned? I can't tell you. I don't know whether it was run by Qusay [Hussein] or [Izzat Ibrahim] al-Duri or someone else. I'm just not sure. But to say Iraq wasn't involved in terrorism is flat wrong."

This article is critical of the final report of the 9/11 commission for excluding certain facts:

The Special Operations Command data-mining program, which according to three public witnesses identified Mohammed Atta as a potential terrorist 18 months before September 11, wasn't included in the final report and was apparently ignored by the Commission's staff on at least two occasions. When confronted by this new evidence, the Commission changed its story several times over one week, eventually settling on a rebuttal which hinged on discrediting the one witness who had come forward. By the time another week had gone by, two more witnesses had appeared--and further damaged the Commission's credibility.

INSTEAD OF BEING THE DEFINITIVE WORD on September 11, the report has begun to resemble a literary equivalent of Swiss cheese as more and more data came out about what else the Commission missed in its report, either by chance or by design. These data points, or dots as the Commissioners themselves called them, did not have the opportunity for connection in their report:

* The target=_blank>trial and conviction of Mohammed Afroze in India, for his part in a conspiracy to use airplanes to bomb four overseas targets on 9/11/01 using commercial flights out of Heathrow Airport in London.

* The second memo from U.S. District Attorney Mary Jo White in response to the notorious memo from Deputy Attorney General Jamie
S. Gorelick, warning that the implications of the memo will create insurmountable obstacles for prevention of terrorist attacks in the United States. In fact, the report barely mentions the Gorelick memo at all. It certainly never mentions the fact that the Gorelick memo was sent to the Office of Intelligence and Policy Review, which provided legal advice to all government agencies on the use and sharing of intelligence information with Department of Justice agencies.

* A July 21, 2001 editorial in a state-run Iraqi newspaper, al-Nasiriyah, which predicted the three targets of the September 11 attacks two months beforehand. This editorial read was read into the Congressional record by Senator Fritz Hollings on September 12, 2002.

* On July 26, 2001, an Iranian espionage agent told CIA agents in Baku, Azerbaijan, that Osama bin Laden would attack the United States on 9/11 using six men who had already entered the country via Iran. When pressed for his sources, the agent told them that Iranian intelligence knew all about the plot.

* The discovery and arrest of two Iraqi spies in Germany in February 2001, which the Germans claimed at the time exposed an extensive Iraqi espionage network operating in several German cities--at the same time three of the four 9/11 lead hijackers traveled to or through Germany, the only time it ever happened after their successful entry into the United States. Almost six moths to the day before the 9/11 attacks, an Arabic newspaper in Paris described the arrests as relating to the suspicion that radical Islamists, and specifically Osama bin Laden, had started working with the Iraqis to target American interests around the world.

* A memo from the State Department warned Bill Clinton in 1996 that its intelligence services had determined that the United States had to stop Osama bin Laden from relocating to Afghanistan, or al Qaeda would grow into an even more dangerous threat. The report also fails to mention a later Clinton administration effort to offer the Taliban official recognition if they handed bin Laden over to our custody.

* German intelligence analysts concluded in 2002 that radical Islamist terrorists such as al Qaeda worked with Iraqi intelligence services through contacts in the German neo-Nazi community.

* As Stephen Hayes points out, the Commission failed to include Ahmed Hikmat Shakir and Abdul Rahman Yasin--despite their connections to the first World Trade Center bombing and the 9/11 hijackers.

None of the above data points is mentioned in the Commission's final report. They all indicate a possibility that other state sponsors had close ties to al Qaeda. They also indicate that the scope of the Islamist war has little to do with American policy but instead with the establishment of a latter-day caliphate for the ummah, and after that, global Islamist domination. More to the point, however, they all demonstrate--along with Able Danger--that the intelligence services had recognized the threat and tried to take at least some action to stop it before it could fully form against the United States.

I am sorry for the already-excessive length of this post. For the time being, this article and excerpt will be the last one included in this blog posting. This deals withan Iraqi intelligence official who was deeply involved in the world of terrorism:

From the evidence now available, it seems clear that Saddam Hussein did not direct the 9/11 attacks. Few people have ever claimed he did. But some four years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and one year after the 9/11 Commission released its final report, there is much we do not know. The determination of these officials to write out of the history any Iraqi involvement in terrorism against America has contributed mightily to public misperceptions about the former Iraqi regime and the war on terror.

HERE IS WHAT WE KNOW TODAY about
Ahmed Hikmat Shakir. In August 1999, Shakir, a 37-year-old Iraqi, accepted a position as a "facilitator" at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A "facilitator" works for an airline and assists VIP travelers with paperwork required for entry and other logistical issues. Shakir got the job because someone in the Iraqi embassy in Malaysia wanted him to have it. He started that fall.

Although Shakir officially worked for Malaysian Airlines, his contact in the Iraqi embassy controlled his schedule. On January 5, 2000, Shakir apparently received an assignment from his embassy contact. He was to escort a recent arrival through immigration at the airport. Khalid al Mihdhar, a well-connected al Qaeda member who would later help hijack American Airlines Flight 77, had come to Malaysia for an important al Qaeda meeting that would last at least three days. (Shakir may have also assisted Nawaf al Hazmi, another hijacker, thought to have arrived on January 4, 2000.)

Malaysian intelligence photographed Shakir greeting al Mihdhar at the airport and walking him to a waiting car. But rather than see the new arrival off, he hopped in the car with al Mihdhar and accompanied him to the meeting. Malaysian intelligence has provided its photographs to the CIA. While U.S. officials can place Shakir at the meeting with the hijackers and several high-ranking al Qaeda operatives, they do not know whether Shakir participated actively. (Also present at the meeting were Hambali, al Qaeda's top man in South Asia, and Khallad, later identified as the mastermind of the attack on the USS Cole.)

The meeting concluded on January 8, 2000. Shakir reported to work at the airport on January 9 and January 10, and then never again. Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawaz al Hazmi also disappeared briefly, then flew from Bangkok, Thailand, to Los Angeles on January 15, 2000.
Shakir, the Iraqi-born facilitator, would be arrested six days after the September 11 attacks by authorities in Doha, Qatar. According to an October 7, 2002, article by Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, "A search of Shakir's apartment in Doha, the country's capital, yielded a treasure trove, including telephone records linking him to suspects in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and Project Bojinka, a 1994 Manila plot to blow up civilian airliners over the Pacific Ocean." (Isikoff, it should be noted, has been a prominent skeptic of an Iraq-al Qaeda connection.)

Shakir had contact information for a lot of bad people. As noted, one was a Kuwaiti, Ibrahim Suleiman, whose fingerprints were found on the bombmaking manuals U.S. authorities allege were used in preparation for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Suleiman was convicted of perjury and deported to Jordan. Another was Musab Yasin, the brother of 1993 Trade Center bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin. Yet another was Zahid Sheikh Mohammed, brother of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, now in U.S. custody. Shakir also had an old number for Taba Investments, an al Qaeda front group. It was the number long used by Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim, the highest-ranking Iraqi member of al Qaeda. According to testimony from al Qaeda informants, Salim maintained a good relationship with Saddam's intelligence service.

I have discussed Shakir with nine U.S. government officials--policymakers and intelligence officials alike. The timeline above represents the consensus view.

With all of these excerpts, I urge you to read the original documents. I chose excerpts I felt best captured the essence of these articles, yet to get the true importance of the information, please read the originals. This is especially true with the last article. The issues surrounding Hikmat Shakir are complex and I feel I did not truly do them justice.

Once again, I am sorry for the length of this posting. There should be more of these posts coming, for I have many more articles archived.

Andrew McCarthy: Distinguished American

2006-03-16T09:59:00.000-08:00

Andrew McCarthy is a true American hero. Of course he's a legendary actor, appearing in such classics as St. Elmo's Fire and Weekend at Bernie's. But did you know that in between acting stints, Mr. McCarthy is hard at work keeping our country safe? What? You didn't know that? Well here's a look at Andrew McCarthy's biography:

Andrew C. McCarthy
Legal Commentator, Terrorism Expert [not to mention first-class actor]

Andrew C. McCarthy is a former federal prosecutor and a Contributor at National Review Online. From 1993 through 1996, while an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, he led the prosecution against the jihad organization of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, in which a dozen Islamic militants were convicted of conducting a war of urban terrorism against the United States that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. Mr. McCarthy also made major contributions to the prosecutions of the bombers of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the Millennium plot attack Los Angeles International Airport.

Following the September 11 attacks, Mr. McCarthy supervised the U.S. Attorney's Anti-Terrorism Command Post in New York City, coordinating investigative and preventive efforts with numerous federal and state law enforcement and intelligence agencies. From 1999 through 2003, he was the Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District's satellite office, responsible for federal law enforcement in six counties north of New York City.

Mr. McCarthy is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Justice Department's highest honors: the Attorney General's Exceptional Service Award (1996) and Distinguished Service Award (1988). He has served as a Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and as an Associate Independent Counsel in the investigation of a former cabinet official. He has also been an Adjunct Professor of Law both at the Fordham University School of Law and at New York Law School.

He writes extensively on a variety of legal, social and political issues for National Review and Commentary, among other publications, as well as providing commentary for various television and radio broadcasts.

The observation in bold is mine. It is also true.

Now we see the true, multi-faceted Andrew McCarthy. While he was on the set Pretty in Pink, he was also serving as a Special Assiatant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Want to know why Weekend At Bernie's II sucked? Well, it's kind of hard to give 100% effort in acting while you're prosecuting The Blind Sheik, Omar Abdel Rahman. Why didn't the folks who bombed the Marine Barracks in Lebanon in 1983 get brought to justice? Mr. McCarthy can only give so much for his country. His acting is his art! If the choice was between St. Elmo's Fire and Hezbollah, well there's only one choice a true artist can make. We also now know why he's been out of the acting business for such a long stretch. Kind of hard to act while you're supervising the U.S. Attorney's Anti-Terrorism Command Post in New York City! Well, the Department of Justice's loss is the American viewing public's gain. Since leaving public service in 2003, Mr. McCarthy has devoted himself to several acting project such as the renowned Kingdom Hospital and the equally acclaimed E-Ring (supposedly based on Mr. McCarthy's days in the Pentagon). While the tragic loss of these shows demonstrates the fact that the American people are not quite ready for the raw power of Mr. McCarthy's presence on either the small or big screen, we anxiously await his next outing, either in the world of acting, or counter-terrorism.

If you can't tell by now, I'm a true McCarthy-ite. I believe in McCarthyism and I just know that the rest of this country will as well.

Everybody Cut Footloose? No Thanks.

2006-03-15T21:38:00.000-08:00

Fire up the DeLorean, because we’re going back to the year 1984 to the Western town of Bomont. A town where everyone has been working so hard, been punching their cards…and they’ve got this feeling, that time’s still holding them down.

Ren McCormack, the new boy from Chicago who has an ardor for dancing, is looking to shake up little Bomont. Of course that will be tough considering Reverend Shaw Moore and the town outlawed dancing and rock music, because it’s viewed as “easy sexuality and relaxed morality”.

This is where will stop the film. Let’s ignore the fact that even the most totalitarian societies allow dancing. Let’s disregard that McCormack is an Irish name and it’s common knowledge that the Irish don’t dance or practice homosexuality. Heck, let’s even ignore Kevin Bacon’s character giving an impassioned speech in front of the town council in which he actually says in a non-sardonic tone, “This is our time to dance!”

My problem with the movie “Footloose” is that I can’t relate to Ren McCormack’s battle cry for dancing. (This isn’t isolated to the fact that my dance moves include The Robot and The Muppet Dance.) If some snot-nosed hippie came in to my sleepy town with some big ideas of dancing up a storm, I’m pretty sure I’d break his legs. If not his legs, then definitely his censored spirit.

I don’t have anything against easy sexuality or relaxed morals, but I’m not about to back the plight of some wiener who feels the need to share some cheesy dance steps. Even more, it makes me sick to think that ol’ Ren could turn a bunch of goodie-two-shoes into a group that can then instantaneously perform highly choreographed dance numbers.

If I lived in Bomont in 1984 I would have sported a buzz cut, complemented by my white shirt and rolled up jeans, and I would’ve sat in the back with the Rev. I would load my 22-shotgun and eye the first “antagonist” to take out. Then I would lean over to the Rev and say, “Why don’t you go fire up the DeLorean…”

An Evolving Understanding of Soverignty (Updated)

2006-03-14T11:52:00.000-08:00

Update at the bottom

On my previous post, Greg had this comment:

You know, I go back and forth on this issue. It's sort of a catch-22.I don't think we should be bullies and force our beliefs on a culture that doesn't embrace it. However, I can see where pulling out of Iraq now would have repercussions far worse than Vietnam.

That is a legitimate point, and deserves to be addressed. Only addressing this point requires much more than can be said in a simple comment.

"Being bullies and forcing our beliefs on a culture that doesn't embrace it" means, in this case Iraq and Afghanistan. Afghanistan must be included in this discussion because the democratization path was laid by our intervention in Afghanistan. We swooped into Afghanistan in order to destroy a regime that threatened us. The threat was much more immediate in Afghanistan, but the strategy followed is identical to what is being done in Iraq.

In both the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq, the purpose of our intervention was to pre-empt a threat to our national security. A group of people labeled the "to-hell-with-them Hawks" propose dropping the "forcing our beliefs" portion of our war strategy and instead focusing on simply applying massive military force to perceived threats, destroying them, and leaving. As these people say, "rubble won't make trouble". With the world the way it is today, that path is monstrously irresponsible. I believe that we can't go around indescriminantly bombing any country we view as a threat. We can't kill people and run away. If we engage, we must engage fully, to the point of changing their government (this has been labelled "regime change"). This leads me to my second point.

Mass graves, torture rooms and genocide do not a culture make. Toppling a dictatorial regime and nurturing a pluralistic spirit does not constitute cultural imperialism. Popularly elected leaders, an independent judiciary, and honest civil servants are not solely features of Western governments. Culturally, the Iraqi and Afghani people are still independent peoples. The leaders of the two nations have been chosen by their peoples, and their founding documents were written by those freely elected leaders. Toppling the Taliban and Saddam's Iraq were not attacks on Arab culture, rather these were violations of their soverignty. Soverignty is a value-neutral concept. Both virtuous and evil regimes exist within soverign states. The modern international system was set up under the Treaty of Westphalia, and declared that the nation-state was the highest form of polity. This did not prevent Great Power war over the next 300 years, and its limitations should not be expected to limit a power from defending itself from a threat simply because that threat emanates from a soverign state. When soverignty protects a massive evil like Saddam Hussein, and allows collusion with our sworn enemies within that state, soverignty loses all value and that state deserves to be smashed. After that, we would be negligent in our responsibilities as a leader of nations to leave that crushed nation in a state of anarchy and devestation. Soverignty and belligerence cannot be allowed to exist together

In short, we had a responsibility to our people, our nation, to remove the grave threats in Iraq and Afghanistan. We had a responsibility to the Iraqi and Afghani people, and to the world, to provide the people under those regimes a modicum of freedom and security.

Once again, a great comment, Greg.

Update:

As always, someone said what I was trying to say in a much more eloquent and capable manner than I am able to do. Here's Andrew McCarthy (?) at National Review:

This war was about national security, and the imperative of eradicating the Islamist terror network and states that promote it. It was not about democracy-building. The legacy of the Iraq war critically depends not on what kind of government Iraq ends up having, but on making the public case that Saddam was a terror-monger – that he was leading the paragon of regime-type President Bush rightly said had to change or be ousted right after 9/11.

For too long, people in the intelligence community (who were vested in the delusion that secular Saddam would never make common cause with Islamo-fascists), and people in the media and on the Left (who revile the administration) have been in no great hurry to see come to light evidence that would support the Iraq initiative. (For example, with all the news we read about intelligence failure in Iraq, how often have you seen reported in the mainstream press what Steve reported a few months ago in the Standard: to wit, that we are holding in Gitmo an Iraqi who is charged with having gone to Pakistan with Iraqi intelligence to explore blowing up the U.S. embassy there in August 1998 … the very same month al Qaeda blew up our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania)

'08 Straw Poll

2006-03-14T10:07:00.000-08:00

I found this on another site, and I think its kind of neat. Just pick who you would want to see as the nominee, and who you would not like to see as the nominee. You can pick more than one for each category. For instance, I picked McCain, Romney and Newt Gingrich as the people I would like to see get the nomination. I picked George Alle, Bill Frist, Chuck Hagel, George Pataki and Tom Tancredo as the people I would NOT like to see run. I hope this works out well!

Everybody Do the Bart-Man!

2006-03-13T19:59:00.000-08:00

The truly disappointing thing is, I don't know which I want more: his shirt or his hat. Either way, we can't forget to "Embrace the Knight".

Say Anything...Just Not That

2006-03-13T19:43:00.000-08:00

So, you have a problem and you don’t know who to call. No, you can’t call the Ghost-Busters for help with inner, life-altering, concerns. And no, not even Zack Morris can always come through with an E.T.-memory-that-is-somehow-attached-to-drug-use diatribe.

The Zen Master is Lloyd Doblar. Better known as John Cusack’s character in the 1989 cinematically great “Say Anything…”

You’re having trouble fixing the clog in the sink that McGwire left from all of his hair loss in 1998…Lloyd?

"One question: do you need...someone, or do you need me? Forget it, I don't care."

You're having trouble finding a prom dress...Lloyd?

"I am looking for a dare to be great situation."

You’re contemplating slicing your wrists because you just spent over 3 hours watching “Titanic” when you could have been playing frisbee…Lloyd?

"You probably got it all figured out. If you start out depressed everything's kind of a pleasant surprise."

You're having trouble with Mr. Alba because he questions why you're a male nurse...Lloyd?

"What I really want to do with my life - what I want to do for a living - is I want to be with your daughter. I'm good at it."

You're trying to find the silver lining in owning the world's last Scooby-Doo scribble pen...Lloyd?

“I gave her my heart…she gave me a pen.”

Big Mac brings a special sauce to his legacy

2006-03-12T21:16:00.000-08:00

September 8th 1998

8:08 P.M. EST.

Perhaps one of baseball's greatest moments in the history of the game. Four years removed from the strike that sent so many fans away in anger and disgust, Mark McGwire's 62nd home run off Cub's pitcher Steve Trachsel sent the country into a state of jubilation. For that single moment, everything in the sport was right. There was no talk about steroids or contracts. No players leaving for the World Baseball Classic. And perhaps most importantly, no questioning of McGwire's natural athletic ability.

In 1987, this slim rookie from USC set a rookie record by hitting 49 home runs. He was as big as Mookie Wilson but much more potent at the plate. Throughout his career, when healthy, McGwire continued to pound the ball at an astonishing rate. However, steroids will forever be associated with his legacy. Despite his accomplishments on the field, he may never make it to the Hall of Fame. In my opinion, that is unacceptable. However, I am only one man and my opinion basically counts for nothing.

But now there is a new player. A player whose presence strikes fear into the heart of pitchers. Even though he is on the field with other talented athletes, he is not one of them. He is better than them. He has no weaknesses. He can beat you with his glove or his bat. He can even steal a base when called upon. He has accomplished more than Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and other greats in his first five years of major league service.

He can be the best baseball player that ever played, and he wishes to be. Steroids never come into question with this young man. For this reason above all, his capacity for greatness, the baseball gods have sent us...

Batman for President?

2006-03-12T10:49:00.000-08:00

Okay, we here at G&G usually leave the political dialogues to Colin, but I have a radical idea for the left side of America: nominate George Clooney for President in 2008.

I know what you’re thinking, “Actors make as good of political leaders as saran wrap does toilet paper.”

Here’s the thing, Ronald Reagan was a great leader and “The Great Communicator”. Ahnold blows, but that’s because the state of California always goes off image. And nominating Clooney would seem like the same song and dance. However, Clooney is a good-looking lad, but isn’t the presidency a human glove-puppet anyway, right? As long as he surrounds himself with good people, he’ll be okay.

The right would have a field day with his comments about Jack Abramoff and the Iraq war, but it’s not like he was making outrageous claims.

Besides, he’s a better speaker than Bush and his only blemish is that he’s single. Of course, Clooney doesn’t come off as the skirt-chasing pervert that JFK was and JFK was married.

I’m sure the American right would make Clooney out to be another loopy Hollywood liberal, but Clooney is far from the Hollywood norm: a good-looking, independently minded, faltered-Catholic, who is actually clean-and-sober. His movies (especially his 2005 films) aren’t exactly politically, deep-seated agitprop. “Syriana” and “Good Night, and Good Luck” are more civics lessons than liberal heresy, and as his Best Supporting Actor speech suggested, Clooney is just engaged with today’s world, rather than a Hollywood bonehead.

I’m not saying Clooney would make a great President, but I do believe he’d be a better candidate than the cocky-poop that’s been trotted out in the past two elections. Don’t take this post as my full-fledged endorsement. I just think the guy should be forgiven for “Revenge of the Killer Tomatoes”.

Barry, Barry...Quite Contrary

2006-03-11T19:58:00.000-08:00

This week Sports Illustrated pulls excerpts from “Game of Shadows”, the latest book to indict a major league baseball player of using performance enhancing drugs. This time the book targets Barry Bonds and the evidence is as overpowering as his mid-summer moon shots.

With 708 home runs, Barry Bonds stands a legitimate chance at breaking Hank Aaron’s mark for most homers in a career. Barry’s egotistical attitude and bullying of the media are just some of the reasons his reputation is what it is today. But, when steroids enters the realm the ballgame changes, just ask McGwire, Sosa, and Raffy.

Even Barry’s most loyal of fans can’t dispute the allegations of steroid use. Sure, Barry was a certifiable Hall of Famer before he allegedly started using in 1998 (out of jealous of McGwire and Sosa’s public perception, no less). And selfish Barry couldn’t stand it; so in came Greg Anderson, in came BALCO, in came steroids, and out went the innocence of the game.

For the fans’ sake, baseball’s sake, and even Barry’s sake he needs to walk away. He needs to pack up and head into the sunset and let us forget him. He doesn’t deserve baseball. He deserves his BALCO buddies and his steroid-enhanced head, but he doesn’t deserve any sympathy.

Alas, Bond’s ego will probably prevail and the record that Aaron worked so hard to achieve will be broken by a cheater. It’s as annoying as the pimples on Barry’s back, but it’s the price baseball pays for ushering in the steroid era.

Last Serious Post For A Little While (I promise)

2006-03-10T10:43:00.000-08:00

The enemy is not idealistic or egalitarian, but clearly pre-modern and fascist. The more we are told that Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror, the more al Qaeda's methods surface in Iraq and its leadership boasts that it is the new front, after Manhattan and Afghanistan. At least some in this country still believe that victory in Iraq, and the emergence of a viable government there, would have implications far beyond Iraq, inflicting a terrible defeat and humiliation on the Islamists in their own backyard.

That's why I support, and will always support, the War.

(courtesy of Victor Davis Hanson)

Now back to Jessica Alba!

An American House of Cards

2006-03-07T19:35:00.000-08:00

Carl von Clausewitz once said that war was (and I'm paraphrasing him here) "politics by other means". As we've seen with the incredible way that the Iraq war has been politicized, he was more right than anyone could have imagined. Using that premise as a jumping-off point, one could say that the practice of intelligence, military or civilian, is warfare by other means. Finally, rounding the circle, one could then conclude that the art, craft and practice of intelligence, as a fundamental aspect of warfare, is as susceptable to politicization as war in general is.

That fun little mental exercise leads me to my next point. The American intelligence community, through its gross politicization, has ceased to function in our national interest. One example of this was recently brought to my attention by Tom Joscelyn, blogging about a man named Michael Scheuer. Scheuer was the man in charge of the hunt for bin Laden from the mid-1990's through September 11. He is also a strident critic of the entire war on terror, and holds beliefs that most Americans would consider abhorrent. Here's an example, again from Mr. Joscelyn, along with his thoughts on Mr. Scheuer's comments:

"A government is only legitimate, and can only be dealt with, if it renounces
violence and recognizes the right of all states to exist. In practice, this
means that Palestine's new Hamas government must unilaterally disarm in the face
of a demonstrably brutal enemy – backed by the unqualified support of the
world's only superpower – and willingly turn its back on a duty (jihad) that it
believes derives from God's word. In commonsense terms, this sort of voluntary
national suicide and mass apostasy seems a bit much to ask and, even more, to
realistically expect to achieve."

Got that? Israel is the "demonstrably
brutal enemy," while Hamas would be committing "voluntary national suicide" if
it renounced terrorism. If I thought it required more than two brain cells to
debunk this nonsense, then I would. But, I don't. So...

My objective here is not to take down Michael Scheuer, for others have done that and will continue to do that with much greater skill than I can muster. My point here is that, up until a few years ago, this man was the top bin Laden guy at the CIA! My point here is that the CIA, which can only function effectively if the intelligence it produces can be trusted by the principals (The President, VP, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, etc.) as being the unvarnished truth withough agenda, currently is lacking that trust. The same self-loathing post-modernist groupthink that has infected academia (anyone who has ever attended a college class can attest to this, for those who haven't, google Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky or Ward Churchill, or just go here and read any story) has worked its way into the Intelligence Community. It's not as pronounced, but just as present. The present campaign (and by "present" I mean since shortly after 9/11) of leaks of classified materials, materials in some cases damaging to national security, in other cases just inacurate or incomplete in order to cause political damage to the Administration, has very nearly brought our war effort to a screeching halt, has damaged the credibility of the Administration in a time of war, an, perhaps most importantly, has damaged the ability of the President and his key advisors to trust the assesments coming from the Intelligence Community.

Don't get me wrong, I have a tremendous amount of respect for the mission of the Intelligence Community, and for many of its members, but the mission of the Intelligence Community is too important to let unelected bureaucrats use its tremendous power and authority to wage a partisan blood feud against a sitting Administration, no matter whether that Administration is Democrat or Republican. Congress needs to probe these leaks, following on what the Department of Justice is doing. More importantly, the hiring and firing of career spooks under Porter Goss needs to continue, but at an increased rate. The criteria for hiring people needs to change, also. Investigative skills can be just as important for analysts as International Relations degrees from Johns Hopkins. The street cop and special agent practice much of the same tradecraft and use many of the same analytical tools that people in the Intelligence Community use, but practice these skills with a much greater degree of objectivity than the analytical spooks do. But with the sorry state of our intelligence capabilities today, any improvement will do.

In the beginning, I mentioned a saying by Clausewitz, and in conclusion I would like to add on to that saying with this observation; war may be politics by other means, but gathering intelligence against an enemy as shadowy as the salafist Islamists is simply battle by other means in our current war. With the current lethality and skill of our armed forces, by the time the battle is joined by our forces, it is already won. The true front lines of this war is in the seceretive and seldom-understood world of intelligence. With faulty intelligence and and intelligence community more worried about fighting perceived enemies inside the Beltway, rather than avowed enemies throughout the world, gathering strength to destroy us, no matter how skilled and how deadly our military is we risk defeat each and every day. However, when our intelligence capabilities match the capabilities and sophistication of our military forces, no threat, potential or otherwise, will ever even have the opportunity to materialize.

Of War and Total War

2006-03-05T20:51:00.000-08:00

The picture to the left is of the Battle of the Somme, 1916. It is widely believed to be the bloodiest battle in the history of warfare. 56, ooo men were lost on the first day of battle. Combined lossed exceeded 1,000,000 men for the entire battle. This is what total war looks like.

Although some don't want to admit it, today we are engaged in a titanic struggle for the future of our very country. We are at war with a vicious ideology as insidious and as hate-filled as any of the former "-isms" we've faced in the past. What we are not at war with is the Islamic faith. We must do everything in our power to keep this war from mutating from a struggle with a violent form of fascism using the Islamic faith as cover for its own naked aggression into a struggle with the world's 1.4 billion Muslims. If we allow that war to come to pass, it will resemble our own Indian wars of the 19th century, only with nuclear weapons. In pushing towards the idea of a war with Islam, instead of a war aiding the reformers and modernizers within Islam, a strange alliance of Left and Right has formed. The left, so desperate to regain power, takes up the banner of xenophobia and isolationism, and in doing this stands with certain elements of the pre-Eisenhower (to say nothing of pre-Reagan) conservative movement, and old balance-of-power realists to oppose all change in the Islamic world, to try to try to effectively close our nation to the world, in hopes of keeping the dangerous and foreign "other" out. This explains the opposition to the Dubai Ports World deal.

This doesn't have to be the path that we follow. We can take up the hard task of bringing modernity to one of the last corners of the world that has not entered the 21st century. As Jack Kelly says, "Josh Manchester, a Marine veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, asks in his Web log (Adventures of Chester) the central strategic question in the war on terror: Is Islam compatible with a free society? Dancing around this question is dangerous, because as Mr. Manchester notes: "A 'yes' answer offers a far different set of strategic imperatives than a 'no' answer.".

President Bush has answered "yes" to this question. Up until recently, we thought that most of the rest of the country had answered "yes" to this question, also. In answering "yes", Bush stands with a proud and distinguished group of people. Churchill, Kennedy, Reagan, both Roosevelts, all answered "yes" to this question when it was asked to them in different forms. Here's Jack Kelly again on who answered "no" to this question, and what a "no" answer means:

Osama bin Laden, conservative columnist Ann Coulter and
some Christian preachers say "no" -- all of Islam is at war with the values of
the West.

It would be inconvenient if they were right. There are
approximately 1.4 billion Muslims in the world. Blood will flow in rivers if we
have to fight them all. If you believe being a Muslim is as inherently
threatening to liberty and democracy as being a Nazi was, then it follows that
we must either convert, deport, arrest or kill the Muslims in our
midst.

Harking back to the title, war is what a "yes" answer will give you. It will be messy, sometimes hard to understand and frustrating. Victories will be too small to recognize individually, while setbacks will large, spectacular and horrifying. It will be a long and tedious struggle.

On the other hand, total war is what a "no" answer will give you. Several years of ignoble peace bought with the defeat of our country in foreign war, a pathological fear of foreigners, and closing ourselves off to the rest of the world. Following this, an attack spurring us to action in what has been dubbed, with much forboding, "The Great Islamic War". In this exercise of total war, we will strike out to wipe the Islamic faith from the map. We will win, but lose our souls in the process.

Right now, we have answered yes. We are fighting alongside Muslims, not against them. Once again, Jack Kelly:

I think the answer is yes, because I know of many Muslims
who are devoted to liberty, democracy and social equality. I wrote about "the
trainer" (who infiltrated a terror cell in Toledo) in last week's column. Our
ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, is an example. So is businessman and
terror fighter Mansoor Ijaz.

You don't hear much about genuine Muslim moderates because
if you did, it would expose the cravenness of a news media that largely has
capitulated to the demands of Islamic radicals. That capitulation can be
portrayed as something other than cowardice only if the vast majority of Muslims
are depicted as being offended by the exercise of free speech.

We are winning, although it is not often portrayed that way. If we as a people lose heart, we will move ever closer, as a people, to answering this question "no". This we must never let happen, for if we let this happen we will be forsaking those who came before us and failing those who will come after us.

More Oscar Madness (this time, with guest stars)

2006-03-05T20:24:00.000-08:00

Greg, your Oscar post inspired me. I refuse to watch these pampered millionaires pontificate on national tv, while hundreds of sycophantic peers mindlessly cheer. Instead, I decided to find fellow bloggers who would live-blog the event and, using sarcasm and wit, cut these inflated egos down to size.

Who, you may ask, will be live-blogging this event and insulting everyone and anyone who comes into their sites? Well, how about Mizzou alum Stephen Green. With lines like this:

Me, I'm excited as a little kid. The Oscar show is still the best chance you have on broadcast television to see happy nipples. At least since Will & Grace's Debra Messing starting wearing padded bras.
So what will happen tonight? Heck if I know. But between the slinky dresses, a couple of martinis, and too much cold medication, we should have some fun watching.

He should be worth following.

Who else, you may ask, will be blogging this event? Why, its none other than the one, the only Judd Nelson. Here's what Judd has to say about Keira Knightley:

Not that it matters, but I have it on good authority that Keira Knightley used to keep a poster of me from St. Elmo's Fire on her bedroom wall.
For what it's worth.

And here's Judd on race relations:

And I know black. Three words, peeps: New Jack City.
Nuff said.

And Jennifer Anniston:

Not that it matters, but I have it on good authority that Jennifer Aniston used to keep a poster of me from St. Elmo's Fire on her bedroom wall. For what it's worth.

And finally, a last insight from Judd on race relations:

I worked with T in New Jack, by the way. We became tight. In fact, to this day, we still like to get together and rap. And eat Sloppy Joes.

So stop by this site and check it out, won't you?

Oscars the Grouch

2006-03-05T16:00:00.000-08:00

You know what really makes me sick? Okay, well besides Jimmy Fallon and any chap that sports an earring and claims to be heterosexual. It’s the fact that Oscar nominees (people who act for a living and get paid outrageously for it) will be receiving goodie bags at the Oscars tonight.

I know what you’re thinking: ‘But, Greg, it’s a simple marketing ploy’ or ‘Greg, don’t you think you’re just jealous?’. Well, you’re right on both accounts, but I don’t appreciate the cut of your jib.

Listen, it’s a brilliant marketing ploy. After tonight the Oscar nominated-actors will fly to Bora Bora for their free stay at a hotel that’s the antonym of Motel 6, receive free suits made by someone from Italy and not Osh Kosh, and diamonds that are worth more than my collective value—and I’m NOT cheap!

What’s even more impenetrable is that actors like Matt Dillon, Michelle Williams, and Philip Seymour Hoffman will receive these goodie bags. In case you’re unfamiliar with them, that’s the douche in “Something About Mary”, the awe-uninspiring new girl in “Dawson’s Creek” and the kid from “Crocodile Tears”.

Maybe my boy Heath will hook me up.

You got it dude!

2006-03-04T11:47:00.000-08:00

In keeping up with the latest Chilie's, TGI Friday's, Pizza Hut and Applebee's commercials, I think I have found the perfect song for one of these restaurants to capitalize on. It goes a little something like this:

Everywhere you look, there's a face (there's a face)
Of somebody who loves you
When you're broke out there and you're appetite's alone
Our light is waiting to carry you home
Everywhere you look!!

Do you recognize the song? Maybe this will help.

Actual Love for Love Actually

2006-03-04T11:19:00.000-08:00

So, the recent happenings with Buck O’Neil, Zack Greinke, the Golden Mosque, and my inability to find an “Embrace the Knight” t-shirt on eBay have me feeling pretty despondent.

Of course, whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.

It’s like a good man once said on numerous occasions (even when it didn’t apply), “you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”

The Buck Stops Here

2006-03-02T09:30:00.000-08:00

Baseball has become a joke in recent years; an inescapable punchline to an otherwise growing sports world. McGwire and Co. embarrassed the nation that embraced them so much in the steroid-bash of ’98 and the empty seats that remain for the World Baseball Classic all tell the story of how America’s pastime has become a running joke.

Of course, those of us in Kansas City have one of baseball’s best kept secrets: Buck O’Neil. Yet, baseball has ruined this 94 year-old Negro Leagues pioneer and baseball ambassador by snubbing him during the latest Hall of Fame vote.

Buck played for the Kansas City Monarchs (the Yankees of the Negro Leagues, but without the money). Sure, he had a career average of .288 (Look up Ozzie Smith’s average) and he played with some great ballplayers (Satchel, Jackie, etc.), but he’s bigger than the game.

Buck was the first black coach in the majors when he coached the Chicago Cubs in 1962. He was the guy who discovered Ernie Banks and Joe Carter. He has been the face, voice, ears, eyes, inspiration and everything else for the Negro Leagues and even baseball and yet baseball can’t return the favor.

Once Buck passes on without a Hall of Fame call and Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Raffy are delivering their induction speeches just remember how the game could have prevented a blemish. By snubbing Buck, baseball has simply cemented itself as sports’ long-running joke.

The Golden Mosque - Aftermath, Current Situation and Future Consequences

2006-02-28T19:14:00.000-08:00

This has turned into a series of posts, and I beg our reader's indulgence while I continue to try and cover these events and provide any commentary I feel necessary. I warn you, this is a lengthy post - Colin

The situation in Iraq after the bombing of the Golden Mosque was as tense as Iraq has been since the January 30th, 2005 election, possibly even since the end of major combat operations in May, 2003. Ethnic tensions which had been building for many, many decades under Saddam and his Ba'athist thugs reached what I believe was a crescendo in the civil strife and sectarian violence following the destruction of the Golden Mosque. Tribal anarchy seemed just around the corner in Iraq, but cooler heads prevailed. There are villains in this situation, there are buffoons, and yes, there are heroes, too.

Moqtada al-Sadr is both a villain and a buffoon, and al-Zarqawi stands as the embodiment of evil in all of Southwestern Asia. Sadr's Mahdi Milita was taking advantage of the tense situation by attacking rival factions, sunni and shiite alike. All the while, Sadr was making overtures to sunni leaders by appearing with them publicly and praying with the members of powerful sunni groups. The Prime Minister of Iraq, Ibrahim Jaffari, is proving to the the embodiment of a buffoon. He makes no major statements to his people and refuses to be seen in public, acting as the leader of Iraq. He is not the person we were hoping to lead Iraq ahead after such a successful election in December. The Iraqi Police have also shown themselves to be buffoonish. They could not keep the peace in the streets, and in many cases did not even seem to try. Police training is an area that the Coalition needs to work on in the next year.

Luckily, there were may heroes in Iraq to counteract the buffoons and the villains. One hero is our Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad. He is a man of courage and of vision. He is one of the main reasons this situation did not turn out any worse than it did. Working behind the scene, Amb. Khalilzad twisted the arms of the various political groups in Iraq and got them to sit down together and make a show of unity, which greatly aided in calming the nation down. On the Iraqi side, President Jalal Talibani is another person who could properly be described as a hero. Operating as the Iraqi President, a role which was originally intended to be largely ceremonial, President Talibani has become the voice of all Iraq, going beyond the narrow sectarian differences and reaching out to people from all areas of Iraq. Because of this, he has garnered a lot of trust from the Iraqi people and from other Iraqi politicians. He used this trust to call in actors from across the political spectrum and get them to sit down and agree to not act in a hasty manner, to direct their followers to calm down and not engage in violence, and tocome back to the table and continue establishing a new government. In short, he gave an Iraqi face to the demands and cajoling of Amb. Khalilzad. Much credit goes to the Iraqi people themselves, who once again proved the cynics wrong. Every setback we've seen since the fall of Baghdad was supposed to start a civil war, and every time the Iraqis weathered the setback and after a shor period of re-adjustment, went on with their lives. Their incredible resolve deserves to be recognized.

Suspects and Motives behind this attack

The second part of this post has to do with possible perpetraitors of this attack, and their motives. Several groups are suspect in this attack, and they will be profiled here. Also, their possible motives will be analyzed.

al Qaeda and aQ-affiliated Salafists: In short, this means Zarqawi. Right now, Zarq is the top suspect, for both he and Zawahiri have announced that it is their goal to push Iraq into open civil war in order to drive the United States from the battlefield. From there, the plan is to take over Iraq and use it to launch a Caliphate engulfing the entire Middle East. Blowing up a religious shrine presents no problem to Zarq, for he sees the Shia as less than human, and the Golden Mosque was a Shiite holy site. Aside from motive, Zarq also has the expertise to carry something like this out. All of the major car-bombs and IEDs that go off in Iraq are coming from Zarqawi's aQ bomb-makers. Many of the IEDs show the kind of sophistication necessary to destroy a building the size of the Golden Mosque. He has conducted attacks of this size before, like when the fuel tanker truck blew up in Baghdad last year.

This explanation also has the advantage of being the simplest, most-likely and least conspiratorial. Although the world of intelligence and warfare is made up of deception and deceit, Occam's razor still holds true: the easiest explanation is usually the correct one. Still, other possible culprits are out there and their motives deserved to be looked at.

The Islamic Republic of Iran: Iran is a belligerent power, trying to reach regional hegemony using its nuclear program. In doing this, it has found itself a pariah nation, shunned by a great number of the nations of the world. In response to this condition, Iran has given up trying to obtain respectibility and instead tries to engage the world by treachery and deceit. This means that Iran must secretly build up its client states in order to gain equality with the west on a balance-of-power basis. To do this, Iran tries to enlarge its sphere of influence to include not just Syria, but Iraq as well. For Iran to gain power in Iraq (at least in Southern Iraq, where the oil reserves are located), the country has to fall into civil war, like Lebanon did twenty-five years ago. Then Iran can use its intelligence apparatus and its covert military units to create a Hezbollah-like organization (or possibly Hezbollah itself) in the Shiite-dominated areas of Iraq, at which point Iran has de-facto control of Iraq, much like it did in Lebanon (through its client state, Syria, and its state-run terrorist organization, Hezbollah). To start this civil war, Iran would need to spark extreme sectarian violence. Attacking a revered Shiite holy shrine and seeing that the attack is blamed on sunnis would appear to be a provocative-enough move. This is the theory people suspecting Iranian involvement have adopted. It is currently being called the "Reichstag Fire" theory, so named for the fire the Nazis set at the Reichstag (German parliament) in the 1930's and then blamed on the Communists, so that the Nazis could outlaw opposition parties. The Iranians definitely had the capabilities (because of their covert military-intelligence organizations) and the opportunity (because of their penetration of the shiite Iraqi community).

This is probably one of the most dangerous possibilities, because this would constitute and act of war by Iran against Iraq, and by agreement against us, too. That is why this is also not the most likely theory. Iran is close to developing a nuclear weapon, and turning Iraq into a sworn enemy, especially when the United States, which has sworn not to let Iran develop nuclear weapons, would not make sense. Alienating the Iraqi shia would not make sense. However, Iran has been doing all sorts of things recently which do not make sense.

Combination of Groups and Motives: It is possible that a combination of the groups mentioned here have acted together. This is the least likely scenario, but it is still a possiblility. Iran and al Qaeda have acted together before, and imagining that they would act together again is not too much of a stretch. Iran could have supplied the explosives, and al Qaeda could have supplied the suicide bombers. It's also possible the weapons were supplied without knowledge or concern to how they would be used. This kind of "blind" state sponsorship is very likely involved in this attack, along with most of the other attacks that happen because its happened so often in the past. This was the hallmark of Saddam Hussein's sponsorship of terrorism because, for the most part, it kept his hands "clean".

Conclusion

This is a summation of just one terrorist attack. All of the players (and many wern't even talked about here) are present in many other attacks across the world. Hopefully this gives a glimpse into just how dangerous and interconnected terrorism issues can be and why in the case of terrorism, the only option is to defeat them before they defeat us.

I'm not sure anyone will actually read to this point, but you do I would love to see your thoughts in the comments on the what you think about the possible suspects and motives.

My twin - Part 2

2006-02-28T09:33:00.000-08:00

We all laugh at the big nose and the big hand. There are some (GJM) that believe if they were to make a movie that the famous "pie banger" should play the one and only Mikey Tisa. I must digress and chose Michael Imperioli. If I were still in my prime, I could pull this look off.

Here are a two actors that would be perfect to play my father. Their facial features are much similar to mine and for crying out loud, look at there noses!

Autistic Cure

2006-02-26T16:13:00.000-08:00

We make a lot of jokes on this website. Seriously, a LOT! But, I’m actually going to deter that for one post. By now you’ve probably heard about the Greece, New York high school basketball manager that scored 20 points in a game. You probably already know about 17 year-old autistic Jason McElwain.

Forget the fact that he scored more points in 4 minutes than I did in my grade school basketball career. I won’t even attempt a paraplegic dunking joke. Because when it comes down to it, Jason’s feat wasn’t about basketball at all; it was about an abnormal kid getting to be a kid.

Autism is supposed to affect the way a person communicates and relates to people around them. Jason did just that when he hit his final shot: the crowd went out of control, even rushing the court and carrying Jason on their shoulders.

Don’t worry, the blog will continue with its regularly scheduled programming, but for just one moment let’s give Jason the accolades he deserves.

If you haven’t seen the footage then here you go:

JASON McELWAIN

The Gathering Storm

2006-02-26T11:36:00.000-08:00

Events over the past few weeks have showed the weakness of the resolve of the American people, the pettiness of our political leaders (well, not all of them) and the inscrutable nature of our enemies. The facts are that things are not as bad as they now seem. The situation in Iraq, after the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, is not as bad as reports would make it seem. Rational thought and cooler heads are prevailing, and the violence being perpetrated is being done by al Qaeda in Iraq, trying to use an attack most likely committed by them to force the country into a state of tribal anarchy.

For some reason, the recent tipping point has not been an attack in Iraq, nor has it been the seemingly mindless violent protests taking place all around the Islamic world in response to a few innocuous editorial cartoons (I say "seemingly mindless" because most likely the most violent protests took place in countries being run by authoritarian regimes, and thus the protests were almost certainly state-run and state-sponsored). The tipping point has been an innocuous corporate merger between two foreign companies, one British and one based in Dubai, of the United Arab Emirates. This deal, a deal over operation of several port terminals in several American cities, would not change the operations of these facilities in any noticeable way. Nor would this endanger American security (I could go into more detail about the port deal, but that is not really the subject of this post). This "tipping point" pushed not only hypocritical members of the Left and the Democratic party over the edge into the rarefied air of demagogery, it also pushed many in the xenophobic Right and the Republican party in the fever swamp of the fear of the "other" and demonizing of foreigners. This is a symptom of the American people tiring of dealing with a dangerous world. The problem is that we cannot ignore the world without facing the horrible consequences that we faced in 2001. Retreating from the world, into our own borders would be ceding the battlespace to our enemies. The War on Terror is a unique war, and it is a hard war. We have to be willing to face the world if we want to succeed and remain a great power. In a recent column, Bill Kristol writing in the Weekly Standard had this to say:

From Copenhagen to Samarra, the radical Islamists are on the offensive. From
Tehran to Damascus, the dictators are trying to regain the upper hand in the
Middle East. From Moscow to Beijing, the enemies of liberal democracy are
working to weaken the United States. Across the world, the forces of terror and
tyranny are fighting back. Are we up to the challenge?

It's not clear that we are. Many liberals, here and in Europe, long ago
lost the nerve to wage war--or even to defend themselves--against illiberalism.
Parts of the conservative movement now seem to be losing their nerve as well. In
response to an apparent clash of civilizations, they would retrenching, hunker
down, and let large parts of the world go to hell in a hand basket, hoping that
the hand basket won't blow up in our faces.

Remember: The United States of America and its allies--regimes that seek to
embody, or at least to move towards, the principles of decent, civilized,
liberal democracy--did not seek this war. But we are at war, and we could lose
it. Victory is not inevitable.

And he concludes with this:

Moral seriousness in this case means political seriousness. Insist on going
ahead with the ports deal so that Arab governments who have stood with us in the
war on terror are not told to get lost when one of their companies acquires port
management contracts in the United States. Make a real effort to destabilize
Ahmadinejad in Iran. Do what it takes to defeat Zarqawi and secure Iraq. Stand
with Denmark, and moderate Muslims, against the radical mob. This is no time for
dishonorable retreat. It is time for resolve--and competence. After all, it
would be most unfortunate if the administration summoned its nerve and charged
ahead--only to meet the fate of Tennyson's Light Brigade!

This is not an easy time for America, being faced almost daily with death and destruction that numerous groups both at home and abroad want to blame on us (not to mention the ever-present possibility of an attack on us or our interests either here or overseas). What this is is a defining moment for us as a country. We can leave the world a better place for us having fought this war, or we can retreat and leave the world to tear itself apart. We can be a great nation or a once-great nation. The choice is up to us.

Finally, here are some words from Sir Winston Churchill, a man who chose not to be cowed by the storm clouds on the horizon, but instead decided to confront evil, with no guarantee of victory:

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us
many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our
policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might
and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous
tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That
is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is
victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however
long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let
that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that
the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the
ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task
with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail
among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say,
"come then, let us go forward together with our united strength."

Roundhouse Kicking the competition

2006-02-25T17:02:00.000-08:00

If there’s one thing America knows it’s a good fad. But forget about the pet rocks and the pedophilia-laced Tickle-Me-Elmo, because the greatest fad has become Chuck Norris.

That’s right, the star of the Oscar-snubbed “Sidekicks” and 60 year-old King of Karate is being (pardon the pun) kicked around by Internet lovers everywhere. Bring up the name ‘Chuck Norris’ and people will have a sardonic riddle about the Great One.

So, despite not having Daniel-san or Peter Cetera’s “Glory of Love” backing him up, Chuck Norris has become the quintessential karate icon., whether he likes it or not. With all of this said, I give you the top 5 Chuck Norris facts:

#5. Superman owns a pair of Chuck Norris pajamas.
#4. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
#3. Chuck Norris is 1/8th Cherokee. This has nothing to do with his ancestor. The man ate a freakin’ Indian!
#2. Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
#1. Chuck Norris isn’t hung like a horse, horses are hung like Chuck Norris.

Love Monkey Business

2006-02-24T20:50:00.000-08:00

The recent cancellation of “Love Monkey” has caused me to spiral into a deep depression. I haven’t been this disappointed with the American viewing public since Jimmy Fallon became a bona-fide semi-celebrity.

I started to wonder about things that would make me happy. I considered purchasing a giraffe and naming him ‘Colin’. But that wasn’t a cost-effective plan. So, then I figured I’d eat a big bowl of chocolate cookie dough ice cream. Unfortunately, my stomach hasn’t been feeling all that great since Cookie Monster and I had a 2 gallon milk race. Usually I place a call to Tom Selleck in times like these, but Tom is busy grooming his ‘stache.

Then it hit me. If I may never see “Love Monkey” again, at least I'll always have John Mayer. And the good Lord knows he's kept his head up after his show, "The John Mayer Show" lasted for all of 5 tenths of a second. Enjoy!

So remember, Jason Priestly, it's not goodbye, say good night. More accurately, say Embrace the Knight!

Fear and Loathing of CBS

2006-02-23T19:58:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's just the competition with the ratings juggernauts like American Idol or the Olympics, but CBS has decided to forego airing new programming for at least the past couple of weeks. Ordinarily, this would be fine with me. After all, a new episode of CSI, CSI: Miami, or CSI: New York is about as exciting as, well, a rerun of CSI, CSI: Miami, or CSI New York. But in their flailing around, I fear CBS has blundered in such a way that they will never be able to recover from, at least in my eyes.

You see, an actor by the name of Tom Cavanaugh starred in a delightful show called "Ed" a few years back, and in its infinite wisdom, NBC decided to cancel that show. Canceling "Ed" marked a turning point for NBC. That is, a point where the ratings started to turn downwards. They have never rebounded. CBS was on the rise during this period. CBS decided to cast the talented Mr. Cavanaugh in a lovely little show called "Love Monkey". While not quite up to the "Ed" standard, "Love Monkey" showed a lot of promise. The only problem is that "Love Monkey" has disappeared from the airwaves. I hope it will be back, yet I fear that it will not.

Let me state this plainly. If CBS cancels "Love Monkey" without even giving it much of a chance, then the network of the All-Seeing Eye is dead to me. Simply dead (not Simply Red) to me. Take this as your warning, Columbia Broadcasting System. You are on the verge of losing a viewer. And I suspect I won't be the only person on this blog to disown CBS.

Golden Mosque Update

2006-02-23T19:29:00.000-08:00

I don't want to do a full-blown post with a run-down and analysis of the developing situation in Iraq in response to the attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra, but this is an important story and therefore I want to provide some links to good sites which are talking about this:

Bill Roggio looks at this attack and weighs the chances of full-blown civil war.

Iraq the Model gives us an on-the-ground view of the situation in Iraq.

The Belmont Club provides a little perspective and says that the situation is not as dire as it may seem in the eyes of some.

There's a quick run-down of the Iraq situation today. Now, back to regularly-scheduled blogging.

Downfall of Society?

2006-02-23T17:31:00.000-08:00

In the comments on the last post, interesting questions were raised regarding the state of contemporary American society. After perusing the internet today, I might have found a possible explanation for at least some of the ills we encounter today:

The downfall of civilization can be traced directly to the practice of putting
televisions in taverns. Men stopped talking to one another. Then they went home
and started talking to their wives to whom they hadn’t talked in centuries. This
led immediately to wholesale divorce, which in turn led to women in the
workplace and juvenile delinquency. Other ills too numerous and horrible to
mention followed until men stopped wearing ties so they wouldn’t hang
themselves.

Exactly. It's all because of the women. Sounds plausable to me. Anyway, it gave me an excuse to find and post another picture of our favorite silver medalist, Tanith Belbin .

Golden Mosque Attack

2006-02-22T19:37:00.000-08:00

Sorry to interrupt, but this story is probably the most important story to come about in weeks. Unknown terrorists attacked the Al Askari Mosque (or "Golden Mosque") in Samarra. This was likely an Al Qaeda attack, aimed at fomenting a civil war. Bill Roggio has more:

The likely culprit is al-Qaeda in Iraq, or groups underneath the newly
created Mujahedeen Shura Council. Zarqawi has desired a sectarian war between
Shiites and Sunnis since his entry into the conflict, as he clearly stated in
his letter to Osama bin Laden. al-Qaeda in Iraq has gone to through great pains
of late to deny this, and will very likely not take credit in such an overt
attack on the Shiite faithful. Silence and uncertainly will play into their
hand, and feed conspiracy theories on who committed such an act. But the nature
of the target and the sophistication of such an attack undeniably points to
al-Qaeda. The detained ÂcommandosÂ will be thoroughly interrogated, and the FBI
will likely be called in to determine the nature of the charges used to destroy
the dome.

It's important to put this in perspective. Imagine an attack on St. Peter's Basilicaca, or on the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Or better yet, think of 9/11. The attack on the Pentagon probably compares to this. But thankfully, the Iraqis seem to be letting cooler heads prevail. Still, tensions are high and much is happening in Iraq right now. Here's a summary from Iraq the Model:

President Talabani promises to make rebuilding the shrine his
personal responsibility and to donate the required money from his own.

Head of the Sunni endowment sheikh Ahmed al-Samarra'I
announces that he will allocate 2 billion dinars (~1.4 million $) for the
rebuilding of the shrine from the treasury of the Sunni endowment.

Huge demonstrations in many of Iraq's provinces including
Samarra and Mosul where thousands of people condemned the attack.

The top 4 Shia Ayatollahs hold a meeting at Sistani's home to
discuss the situation.
The Association of Muslim scholars and the Islamic
Party condemn the "criminal act".

Retaliatory attacks on reportedly 29 Sunni mosques and the
Accord Front warns from the consequences of such violent reactions.

Jafari in a press conference calls for national unity and the
leaders of the UIA hold a meeting. A press release is expected to come soon.

The Iraqi TV opened the phone lines to receive the reactions
of the audience to the attack and hosts Sunni clerics and politicians in an
attempt to relieve the tension.

Baghdad is in undeclared emergency situation, shops closed and
streets nearly empty.

Tight security around the shrine of Abu Haneefa in Aazamiya
district of Baghdad, this is considered the top shrine/mosque for Sunni Muslims
in Iraq.

Masked gunmen attack Shia protestors in at least one
neighborhood in western Baghdad and armed clashes in Ghazaliya and Hay
al-A'amil.

People exchange phones calls with their relatives and friends
to check on them and discourage them from leaving their homes.

This is a very fluid situation, and could turn out very badly. This also provides a golden opportunity for the Iraqi people to come together. Recently, the Sunni population of Iraq has been engaging the Al Qaeda terrorists in vigilante actions. This shows that the Iraqi people have turned against the Zarqawi crowd. This can give the people an opportunity to stand against Zarqawi and Al Qaeda not as a village or a sect, but as a nation.

Another possibility which needs to be addressed is the possibility of state sponsorship. Although a cursory examination of the situation would lead people to discount that possibility because of assumed conflicts between both secular states (Syria) and Islamists (like Zarqawi and Al Qaeda), and between Sunni extremists (Al Qaeda) and Shiite extremists (Iran), we know from past affiliations that Al Qaeda, and Zarqawi in particular have cooperated with both Iran and Syria. If a state took part in this operation (and, judging from the sophistication of the attack, it cannot be ruled out), it brings a whole new dimension into discussion of this attack.

Sorry for this interruption. Now, back to your regularly-scheduled sarcasm.

(Note: The picture taken was from before the attack)

Dead Meat

2006-02-22T18:54:00.000-08:00

I must intervene here and express my concern for Greg's comment about Rocky III. If anything, Rocky V was the cheesiest of the Rocky installments. That is of course, pending the release of the sixth installment. Despite the Rocky movies and Captain Planet, we all know who the cheesiest is....

The Power is Yours!

2006-02-21T21:04:00.000-08:00

As I was driving home from work in my gas-guzzling SUV when I recalled one of the neglected cartoons of our youth: Captain Planet.

Basically, Ted Turner created these five over-zealous teenagers (the Planeteers) who educated the early 90’s youth about environmental responsibility. Each kid had a ring (check out the Fire guy and you’ll know why this is the only socially-acceptable ring he’ll ever own) that represent earth, wind, water, fire and heart, respectively. When they combined these powers they created uber-hippie and mullet-sporting Captain Planet, who could pretty much solve any problem with a sultry grin.

Simply, “Captain Planet” was cheesier than WHAM and “Rocky III” all rolled into a cheese pizza.

There were two great things about this show. The first was Linka, the Soviet goddess who represented Wind. She became the first official cartoon character I had a crush on; mostly because I felt Jessica Rabbit was out of my league.

But the second greatest part of the show (besides its socially thought-provoking message, of course) was the theme song. Go on…fire it up!

CAPTAIN PLANET THEME SONG

Links, Links and More Links

2006-02-21T20:37:00.000-08:00

This is as good a time as any to remind people to visit our wonderful links on the toolbar to the right. Royals, Homestar (especially for you, Mikey), all sorts of good stuff.

By the way, injecting the "Link" picture into this post was an attempt at humor. This is in no way an endorsement of the "Zelda" series of video games.

Knight School

2006-02-21T17:58:00.000-08:00

How many times do you go out to eat and you hear kids crying, screaming, yelling they want this or that? For me, the answer is every time I go out. The problem; lack of discipline. Parents spoil their children to the point where they don't care what kind of behavior they display in public. Now, I know with all the stupid laws against "disciplining" children, there is one thing to do. Send them to Bobby Knight. The man is a legend, despite what some say: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=bayless/060217

The man runs a tight ship and his players graduate and respect him. They don't get suspended, they don't have drug problems and they play team ball. His players are also well groomed and dress appropriately on and off the court. So if your kids need some discipline, you know who to go to.

Skating with the Star

2006-02-20T19:18:00.000-08:00

O·lym·pi·an ( -l m p - n) adj.

a. Greek Mythology. Of or relating to the greater gods and goddesses of the ancient Greek pantheon, whose abode was Mount Olympus.
b. Of or relating to the Olympic games.
c. Of or relating to the region of Olympia in Greece or its inhabitants.
d. A person who embodies what the Olympic rings stand for: entities that all countries have in common and that all countries would not object to if said person was skating for their Olympic team.

I point out this definition because we often forget what the Olympics mean and what it means to represent our country. The 2006 Winter Olympics have been an embarrassment to watch. Whether it was a hotdogging snowboarder or a disappointing Apolo Ohno or the curling team’s inability to excel at the easiest “sport” on the face of the planet, the so-called Olympians representing the U.S. of A have hardly represented their country, let alone embodied the true definition of Olympian.

That is why I must point out ice-skater Tanith Belbin. If you’re confused then please refer to the accompanied picture or the letter d’s definition. God Bless us, everyone!

Be My...Cherry Pie!

2006-02-19T19:34:00.000-08:00

In honor of President’s Day I believe I will conduct G&G’s first Top 5 list. Of course, I’ll preface this by saying that I apologize for not posting as much the last week or so (business travel) and that I’m disappointed in our new member’s posting frequency (Mikey Tisa). Oh, and another prelude…I would like to point out the regularity by which presidents are mentioned in this blog.

Seriously, go back and read through. Previous mentions include Reagan, Jackson, Dubya, and Lincoln. Also, C is always hinting towards a big elephant in the room (read into that what you will). And now I’m about to stir the proverbial pot more than a long-winded Kenneth Starr. Without further ado, I give you the first G&G Top 5:

Top 5…Greatest Presidents of All-Time:

#5. George Washington
#4. Harry S. Truman
#3. John F. Kennedy
#2. Abe Lincoln
#1. Franklin D. Roosevelt

If This Was Jeopardy...

2006-02-19T16:32:00.000-08:00

Then this post would be listed under the category of "potpourri".

Andrew Jackson always interested me. He was a flawed man (like Jefferson, he owned slaves), but he as also a tough frontiersman. This article expresses just how tough of a guy Jackson really was. Here's a excerpt:

On his way out to the duel site, Dickinson amused his traveling party with his shooting skill, sometimes cutting a string with a bullet from 24 feet, the distance that would separate the two duelists.
For his part, Jackson spent the time traveling to the duel site settling on his strategy. Realizing that Dickinson was the better shot, Jackson figured he should let Dickinson shoot first and absorb the hit. If he tried to rush a shot before Dickinson fired, Jackson feared that his aim would suffer and he would miss the target. So his plan was to take a shot from Tennessee's best marksman. If he survived the blow, he would then take his time and kill Dickinson.
At the duel, Jackson stuck to his plan. Dickinson fired first and grievously wounded Jackson; his bullet broke two of Jackson's ribs and lodged close to Jackson's heart. But it did not kill him.
Indeed, Jackson hardly flinched. Dickinson stared in astonishment and screamed, "Great God, have I missed him?" Jackson took deliberate aim and squeezed his trigger. Nothing happened. He re-cocked his pistol, again carefully aimed, and fired. This time the gun functioned properly, killing its mark. Jackson required over a month to recuperate from his wound.
JACKSON'S DUEL illustrated his iron-will and fearless nature. These attributes served him well both in war and politics. Also serving him well was Jackson's overpowering love for the United States.

That redefines "tough". I'm not trying to justify his slaveholding or the Trail of Tears, but that is a great story.

(Oh, and I'm sorry I couldn't find a picture of Angie Harmon or Jamie Sale or Julie Bowen in an Andrew Jackson outfit. I just had to settle for the picture of Ol' Hickory)

Ripped From the Headlines?

2006-02-19T12:41:00.000-08:00

"Law and Order" often advertises its shows as being "ripped from the headlines", but how many people can claim that the headlines are often "ripped" from the pages of his books? Tom Clancy is such a person. For a period in the mid-1990's, he published a series of books about Islamic terrorists assembling a nuclear device and detonating it in America, about a Kamakazie suicide pilot crashing a jumbo jet into an American landmark, about biological terrorism and about a second Gulf War. His books turned out to be almost prophetic.

Once again, it appears that Mr. Clancy was writing the headlines about six years before events would catch up to him. In his 2000 book The Bear and the Dragon, Mr. Clancy talked about a country under threat (Russia) finding security in the world's greatest security alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Today, we have this:

The senior advisor in the Iraqi defense ministry
Mohammedal-Askari told the press today that the ministry is looking forward to
seeing Iraq become a member of the NATO and that the minister Sa’doun al-Dulaimi,
the chief of staff and the higher commanders are planning to propose this plan
to the new government once it’s seated.Al-Askari told al-Hurra TV tonight that
the chief commanders in the ministry had been discussing this subject with
great interest for a long time and that:

If al-Dulaimi gets a second term he will be working hard
to convince the parliament about the necessity of joining the NATO as this falls
in Iraq’s strategic interests….the recent changes in the Middle East region
and Iran’s intentions to pursue nuclear weapons is encouraging us to move in this
direction.

This time, the country struggling to become a free and independent state, embracing capitalism and the rule of law is Iraq, and it is under threat from its belligerent neighbor, Iran. Hopefully NATO will see the wisedom of a move like this and work to embrace the Iraqis. I'm not holding my breath, though.

(By the way, the Law and Order title was simply a convienent reason to put up a picture of Angie Harmon. Now, if only Dubya could find a way to make her our Ambassador to NATO he would surely earn himself a place in history alongside Lincoln.)

Don't Stop Believin'

2006-02-18T08:51:00.000-08:00

There are two types of people in this world: Journey fans and liars.

No, seriously. Talk to your fellow employers, family members, high school chums and/or John Heard (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Colin’s father). They’ll all tell you about the greatest band to ever rock people’s proverbial socks off.

You’ll run into some pretentious people. You know, the kind that will insist that The Beatles are the Apostles and some band-you’ve-never-heard-of “really define music”? But just wait until one of these hippies phone goes off, because it will probably be ringing “Open Arms”, “Faithfully”, “Don’t Stop Believin’” or “Wheel in the Sky”.

To this day, Steve Perry’s voice still makes my eyes misty, Neal Schon’s complex guitar solos bring me back to the good ol’ days, and Steve Smith’s hair makes me jealous.

So, next time you’re doing your best white guy/muppet dance to Journey’s power ballads or admiring a futuristic Phoenix symbol, just remember that Steve Perry loves you too. And if you’re still sitting there with a pompous distaste for Journey…well then…I have pity on your soul, because you’ve never experienced love until you’ve embraced Steve Perry, just like you’ve never felt comparatively intelligent until you’ve gone hunting with Dick Cheney.

Gotta go…John Heard and I are going to reenact the “Separate Ways” video with Steve Perry, John Stamos, and Tom Cavanagh. I call I get to do the potent, but evocative blow against the side of the warehouse this time!

Commies and Baseball

2006-02-16T19:45:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, our interests collide. Okay folks, I want to spark a good discussion with this one. First off, read this article. Then, let's hear what you think. Let's aim for lots of comments on this one.

Happiness is Denver in my rear view mirror

2006-02-16T19:23:00.000-08:00

I can't believe this is happening. I, Mikey Tisa have joined this blog with Greg and Colin Boy. We are the three amigos, no wait, we are the three super villains from Superman II. We are three Supermen joined linked together by this blog. Three Mizzou grads with a passion for Ronald Reagan and pure silliness.
Here is my inaugural rant for the evening. It's not even really a rant, but more of a poll. Who thinks it's time for Charlie to be taken by "The Others?" Your thoughts......

I Felt Bad...

2006-02-15T20:49:00.000-08:00

That the beautiful and talented Jamie Sale was moved from the top of this blog, so I decided another post dedicated to her was in order. A post dedicated to her kind heart, talent on the ice, and lack of clothing in this picture.

Iran getting a man-portable nuclear device to Hezbollah so they can smuggle it into the US and set it off in New York City in Times Square on New Year's Eve is fun to talk about, but here at G&G, we try to focus on what's really important. Things like Jamie lying naked in the snow, giving you that "come hither" look. She truly does embody the essence of sport.

(P. S. Once again, assuming that the essence of sport is hot, scantily-clad women)

Ever Closer to Midnight

2006-02-15T18:36:00.000-08:00

During the Cold War, a group of American scientists banded together and created a clock, its hands a minute or two from midnight. The clock was a doomsday clock, the distance from midnight signifying how close the world was to all-out nuclear war. With the end of the Cold War, the clock was reset, back to about ten till midnight. Today, however, with an enemy more ruthless and determined than any we have ever faced, with A. Q. Khan's nuclear proliferation black market operating even in his absence through surrogates like North Korea and dysfunctional African nations like Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and with the madman Mhamoud Amahdi-Nejad who believes he can cause armaggedon and bring the coming of the Mahdi to fruition armed with nuclear weapons, the clock ticks ever closer to midnight. Action is required, if for no other reason than our own self-interest. But currently we are engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. Airstrikes would likely not be enough to destroy Iranian weapons production capacity. Most importantly, we would risk alienating our allies, the Iranian people (Iran is a dictatorship, theocracy really. Its elections are shams orchestrated by the Mullahs. The people, however, are fiercely anti-regime and pro-western.). I hope to articulate my vision of an alternative.

In order to counter a mad regime while supporting its people, a varety of tactics used by this country in conflicts dating back to WWII need to be employed. Both low-intensity warfare and covert action should be used, and basically every effort short of bombing runs should be expended to bring down this enemy regime which has been haunting this nation since 1979.

The first tactic is the easiest, and that is support regime dissidents, pro-democracy reformers and civil society movements (similar to our support for "Solidarity" in Poland during the 1980's). This is a simple financial expenditure, all of the risk will fall on the shoulders of the reformers in-country. Providing broadcasting equipment, IT knowledge and printing presses will be much less expensive than seeing the Straits of Hormuz being blocked by a scuttled oil tanker.

The second tactic is a little trickier, since it calls for actual paramilitary action and for making the lives of the people we're trying to help a little more miserable. That would be sabotage of essential services in order to further discredit the regime. sabotage has been a tool of the US and allied powers since WWII, when the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and British Special Operations Executive (Also called SOE, which Winston Churchill tasked to "set Europe ablaze") put agents into Occupied Europe to sabotage the German war effort by bombing railroad tracks and factories essential to production of war materials. Iranian partisans would have to take the lead in this effort, also. The purpose would be to make the regime look incompetent in the eyes of the Iranian people. Since the hold the Mullahs have over the people is so strongly psychological, being made to look incompetent is a crucial component in destabilizing the regime.

The third tactic is probably the most risky, and crosses the boundary from covert action (work done by spies, classified as intelligence operations. The previous examples are covert action) to low-intensity conflict. Here, experience gained in Vietnam and in Central America comes in handy. During Vietnam, the National Security Staff under the direction of President Kennedy set up all sorts of subversive operations in North Vietnam, and one of them was called the Sacred Sword of the Patriots League. This was a ficticious anti-Hanoi guerilla movement, and operated in order to siphon resources of the North away from the subversion of South Vietnam and concentrate on fighting a threat to the North. The purpose of a resistance movement created by us for use in Iran would be different, however. First off, this movement would be able to act against the regime in ways we could not. Sabotage acts could be claimed to be patriotic acts of brave resistance fighters, not meddling by a foreign power. Second, it would give the US a way to halt the Iranian nuclear program (through attacks performed by US military personnel acting as partisans on Iranian nuclear facilities) without the inevitable blowback like retaliatory attacks against the western powers, oil shortages, or a loss of support in the Iranian populous. These kind of attacks through surrogates characterized the war against communist usurpation of Central American powers during the 1980's. A strategy not unsimilar to this turned the tide against the Sandinistas in Nicuragua, sweeping Daniel Ortega from power and bringing the Contras into postions of governance. Nicuragua remains a close friend to this day. Our current deployment of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus the parsity of regime elements in the rough tribal areas of Baluchistan in the south on the Afghan-Pakistan-Iran border region, and the fiercely independent Kurds of Northern Iran on the border of Iraqi Kurdistan provide us with an easy infiltration point for such covert military units, and a rally point for a (hopefully) national resistance movement sometime in the future.

Establishing contacts with personnel in the Iranian military would also be heplful. Iran essentially has two militaries, one (the Iranian military) is really a hold-over from the pre-revolution era and is staffed by officers from under the Shah. The other military (the IRGC, or Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps) is similar to the SS of Hitler's Germany in that it is fiercely loyal to the Mullahs, above all else. Members of this organization are presumed to be "ideologically pure". Tensions between the two branches of the Iranian military already exist, we should just do everything we can to exacerbate these tensions.

In case this is not clear by now, our goal should be to affect regime change in Iran. The best means towards this end right now would be to foment open rebellion and, if necessary, civil war. Because of our strategic positioning in Iraq and Afghanistan, we could implement this policy by following the Afghan model of aiding a resistance movement through air power. We have the facilities and logistical positioning in both Iraq and Afghanistan to build up such a movement, and the Iranian people are ripe for the opportunity to disestablish the Iranian theocracy and once again join the community of democracies. It may seem like such a move would take time, but once something like this starts, the snowball effect quickly takes over. Remember, Afghanistan fell three months following September 11, and those people were nowhere near as cosmopolitan or sophisticated as the Iranians. Regime change in Iran in the next couple of years might seem like shooting for the moon, but it's not. It is entirely reasonable. Besides, doing thing like shooting for the moon is what the United States does best.

The Essence of Sport

2006-02-13T20:46:00.000-08:00

Although long forgotten by the vast majority of the unwashed masses. We here at G&G will never forget the only good thing (except for Stephen Harper, sorry Eric Gagne) to come out of Canada, the delightful and talented Jamie Sale. She stole our hearts at the Salt Lake City games, redefining the word "cute" and giving us new reasons to both loathe and be grateful for the Russians and the French (loathe because they made such a sweet creature cry, be grateful for because they kept her adorable face in the news and on the TV).

Not only beautiful but talented, too. I mean, who wouldn't put a champion figure skater on par with Hank Aaron or Walter Payton. Rest assured, she will have a longer, harder and more deeply felt impact on the world of sports than Willie Mays, Micky Mantle and Steve Balboni combined. My sarcasm is tempered a little by the fact that she does, indeed, posses a gold medal while I posses, well, I posses.....Hey, my Mom thinks I'm cool!

In all seriousness, we still love you, Jamie. The Games just aren't the same without you.

(P. S. In case you missed it, the essence of sport is hot, scantily-clad women)

A Tiger doesn't change his stripes

2006-02-12T20:44:00.000-08:00

Oh, I fell for the trap. I mean, hook, line AND sinker. I was dry-humping furniture in 2002 when my beloved Missouri Tigers marched towards the Elite Eight. I was going around telling people Quin Snyder was the second coming of John Cusack. He was young, charming, motivated his players’ by reciting Survivor verses, and could beat the Jayhawks. He was a dream come true.

Then somewhere between the Ricky Clemons, the cocaine, and the Sam Houston States, Quin became a nothing. He became to great coaching what the Cocoa Pebbles omelet is to fine cuisine. But, come to think of it, he was never a great coach.

Only once did Mighty Mizzou finish above 6th in the Big 12. He never really beat KU; it was usually the Jayhawks beating themselves. In fact, the only thing Quin brought to the Missouri program was a sweating problem similar to Justin Terry’s and 17 types of venereal diseases.

I really do wish Quin the best as much as I hope for Mike Alden’s pink slip. But in the words of Go West that might make me “…the king of wishful thinking.” Because if there’s one thing I learned from Quin Snyder it was that a Tiger doesn’t change his stripes.

Oh, and that cocaine is better when taken off vinyl floors rather than wood ones.

Brokebacking Heath

2006-02-11T19:05:00.000-08:00

Thanks, C for that last post. Now, we’re going to have Jimmy Carter writing comments on our blog and Tom Wilson, Jr. telling us why “Family Circus” is worse than “Ziggy”.

But while we’re discussing serious subjects, I’d like to confer about the movie “Brokeback Mountain”. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but it’s stirring quite the controversies. From what I’ve heard about the movie I can see why.

Let’s just take a time-out here though. Everyone is jumping to conclusions about Ang Lee’s Oscar-nominated movie. All the talk is about the actors doing this, and the actors doing that. Well, I for one am okay with this movie.

It’s a travesty when we live in a country where a movie like this is still condemned. I say, shame on you people. SHAME! The fact of the matter is this, we could all stand to look ourselves in the mirror and see our flaws…our imperfections. I applaud this movie and I applaud Ang Lee’s stance. For despite “A Brother’s Grimm” and “The Patriot”, I do believe Heath Ledger is a good actor. I don’t care what the critics of “Brokeback Mountain” say.

Besides, how hard is it to play a cowboy? Isn’t that what the movie is about?

Remember, Heath, it ain't where you came from, it's where you're going. Despite the controversies, this young man will undoubtedly be a huge star. I guess, what I'm saying is, I don't know how to quit him. "Embrace the Knight"!

http://www.collegehumor.com/movies/1658610/

History's Greatest Monster

2006-02-11T16:07:00.000-08:00

Is there any greater example of received wisedom in modern America than The Simpsons? Once again, they tagged that pompus, preening Georgia peanut farmer for the disasterous failure he was. Too bad they didn't mention that in addition to being history's greatest monster, he's also America's biggest hypocrate:

"Under the Bush administration, there's been a disgraceful and illegal
decision -- we're not going to the let the judges or the Congress or anyone else
know that we're spying on the American people"

Too bad he doesn't remember the position his own administration took on this very matter:

For several reasons, the needs of the executive are so compelling in the
area of foreign intelligence, unlike the area of domestic security, that a
uniform warrant requirement would, following [United States v. United States
District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972)], “unduly frustrate” the President in
carrying out his foreign affairs responsibilities. First of all, attempts to
counter foreign threats to the national security require the utmost stealth,
speed and secrecy. A warrant requirement would add a procedural hurdle that
would reduce the flexibility of executive foreign intelligence activities,
in some cases delay executive response to foreign intelligence threats, and
increase the chance of leaks regarding sensitive executive operations.

Cartoon Riots

2006-02-11T15:39:00.000-08:00

Funny. Ziggy prompts the same reaction in me. Oh, and you better not bring up Cathy. That is, unless you want me to issue a fatwa against your ass.

'Hey, Guy' homage

2006-02-11T11:23:00.000-08:00

“Friends are born, not made” – Henry James

I have no idea what this means. Actually, it troubles me to think that all those lonely folks sitting by themselves in grade school—I had my reasons—need only to ask the world to fornicate, in order to have friends.

Alas, my point is that Colin and I have a friend by the name of Mikey. This self-proclaimed ‘pear shaped’ lad entered our lives during our sophomore year in college. It was a joyous occasion. I have a photographic memory, so the scene still plays vividly to this day.

There we all were all in one place, a generation lost in space. The three of us were serving Saturday morning detention for harassing hardened Principal Vernon. Anyway, Colin was wearing a clown suit and Mikey (or, Michael Ian Black as he went by then) was hassling a Helias girls’ soccer player when we had a conversation that altered our lives forever:

Me: I said, leave her alone.
Mikey: You gonna make me?
Me: Yeah.
Mikey: You and how many of your friends?
Me: Just me. Just you and me. Two hits. Me hitting you. You hitting the floor. Anytime you’re ready, pal.

After a series of back spasms and singing songs that included Hootie and the Blowfishes’ “Let Her Cry” and a stirring rendition of “We Are the World”, Mikey, Colin and I became friends.

This friendship lasts today and is still growing stronger. While Mikey continues his love for everything Canadian, Gonzaga, St. Louis baseball, and anything to do with Kent Collins, he will forever be a loyal friend. So, lift up a Labatte Blue for our Denver comrade, who used to bare an uncanny resemblance to Spencer Breslin and still fears for Boston police officers, and yell “Viva La Friendship!”.

Because friends like this don’t come often. Unless, of course, the world starts humping like bunnies.

Alba-cadabra!

2006-02-09T15:27:00.000-08:00

I can't believer we've gone this long without bringing up a subject near and dear to the hearts of us here (and oh how we wish she wasn't just near and dear to our hearts). Jessica Alba is perfection personified. She is the zenith of the female form. She's hot. I can't get as deep as Greg when talking about chasing unicorns, but I can name a unicorn that exists for all guys (at least all guys who ever watched Dark Angel on Fox or, God forbid, Honey.) Truly a remarkable woman. So accomplished in her field (assuming that her field is sexiness).

We love and appreciate you, Jessica. You just keep on keepin' on.

Only, try to avoid any more Honey's, ok?

New Glory, glory, hallelujah

2006-02-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

Okay, I have to put this up. It's a line from Ralph Peters, a retired Army Lt. Col. and one of the most astute military analysts out there today. He currently writes for the New York Post, and has a book out there called New Glory, which I really must read. He pulls off being both one of the biggest supporters of the policies of the Bush Administration out there and one of their harshest critics at the same time, and he does it flawlessly.

Here's Col. Peters:

War is not a game of tit-for-tat. The correct proportional response to any
attack on the United States or its interests is to strike back with such
devestating force that even friendly nations are shocked [emphasis mine]. (New Glory, p. 82.)

(H/T Tigerhawk)

Unicorns: Gone Wild

2006-02-08T21:53:00.000-08:00

u∙ni∙corn (y n -kôrn ) n
a. A fabled creature symbolic of virginity and usually represented as a horse with a single straight spiraled horn projecting from its forehead.
b. A female that has intersected the path of a male, but that the male—for one reason or another—lets walk away from their serendipitous meeting without setting another meeting. Thus, the female forever becomes a fabled creature.

I point out this definition because too often we leave our destiny, our future in the hands of fate. So much of this life is peripheral that sometimes we forget about the essentials. While we have to remember to “Embrace the Knight” we also can’t forget about the unicorns.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to post a picture of Kristen Bell.

The Naked Truth Redux

2006-02-08T19:37:00.000-08:00

I don't think any post titled "The Naked Truth" can go away without addressing another fine comedic offering from the golden days of the sitcom (mid-1990's) being shown on a certain network which will not be named. Of course, any mention of "The Naked Truth" needs to spawn a discussion on that very fine sitcom's talented and beautiful star, Tea Leoni.

Not only is this woman truly beautiful, but she is a genuinely entertaining actress. Lamentably, that is a characteristic which is all-too-often missing from the extremely sexy leading ladies Hollywood offers us today. Plus, what an original concept for a television show! A single girl living in the city working for a magazine, one of the most original concepts for a sitcom I've ever heard of! My only regret is that Brooke Shields didn't get such a prime role. I mean Laura San Giacomo. Oops, I meant to say Lea Thompson. Anyway, kudos to you, TV World, for taking chances and and not churning out television shows like Model T's ( I pity the fool who would attempt something like that)

But in all seriousness, and I feel comfortable speaking for both myself and Greg here, We at G&G love Tea Leoni and are very appreciative of her work, and extend a special "thank you" to a certain un-named cable network for providing us with a Tea fix, along with a lovely little show called "Two Guys and a Girl" (sans Pizza Shop. Poor Pizza Shop, always being taken advantage of by the group simply because you were an inanimate object. Didn't they realize you had feelings, too? Why did they have to hurt you like that?). What kind of network would schedule such A-list programming? Only the most masculine of cable networks would attempt such a bold scheduling decision, I assure you of that. I mean, because I would only watch the most manly of TV networks, and I watch these glorious shows, so logic leads one to conclude that whatever network airs these programs must be the most masculine of networks.

The Naked Truth

2006-02-08T17:53:00.000-08:00

Have you seen this? Have you heard about this? (Meant to be read in that annoying Jay Leno tone.)

So the cover of the “Vanity Fair” released today has fashion has-to-be-gay superstar Tom Ford cunningly seating with the essence of pulchritude. Yep, he’s in a photo with Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson…and they’re both naked.

When I first saw the cover I started gleefully signing “I see London, I see France…” but to my chagrin no one in the Hen House found it amusing. But I saw the opportunity to please as a challenge more than a letdown, so I tried again.

This time I said something like, “Well, they say sugar, spice and everything nice, but all I see is epidermis.” Still my creative insights fell on deaf ears.

I decided to try one more. This time in an acute impression of a curious 6-year-old I said, “I can see her bum.”

I didn’t capture my target audience’s attention that day. Here were two of Hollywood’s most beautiful leading ladies posing naked on the cover of a magazine with a closet-case homosexual doing his best Magnum PI imitation, meanwhile I’m being dragged off by the KCPD. That’s a heavy dose of irony that you can’t find in those Naked drinks.

I guess patrons don’t like people lying about seeing London and France. Geez…not even a courtesy laugh. Tough crowd.

Conceptual Model Part II...sort of

2006-02-08T16:49:00.000-08:00

I was about to post part II of my conceptual model post, but instead decided to this article by the great Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute. Reading his article (actually, all of his articles) along with a history of WWII in the Middle East and the role of the Mufti of Jerusalem as an ally of the Axis Powers provided the genesis for what I said in Part I. Instead of ham-handedly trying to replicate what he was saying, I decided to let Dr. Ledeen say what I am thinking in a much more forceful and eloquent way than I am able to do.

Read the whole thing. Its good stuff.

Puget Sound advice

2006-02-08T15:17:00.000-08:00

So, I’m up here in Seattle, Washington. It’s the home to Luke Ridnour, The Space Needle, Big Foot, liberals, a permanent fish smell, and Scotty the Schizophrenic Panhandler.

Scotty gave me some advice as I left my hotel the other day. He said, “Don’t die alone.” He said this after he tried to wipe a booger on his imaginary friend and yelled, “Go tell Grover the King don’t need him!” to a woman walking across the street. However, his words resonated within me.

“Don’t die alone.”

Who wants to die alone? No one. Not Scotty, not me, not C. Surely we’ve all experienced times when people tell us “you’re going to die alone.” If these words were people, I’d embrace genocide.

I mean, exactly how depressing is that? So, hopefully Kristen Bell will return my calls, because thanks to Scotty I’m destined to live my life watching WE, eating alone, and muttering Air Supply’s “I’m All Out of Love”.

Oh, but back to Scotty. He told me this morning, “Each time you touch yourself, God kills a kitten.” Hmmm…sound advice, indeed.

Putting the MAN in Manilow

2006-02-08T10:50:00.000-08:00

And on the music front we have this:

http://www.undercover.com.au/news/2006/feb06/20060207_barrymanilow.html

I thought he had died in a plane crash with Bob Hamelin and the non-George Michael performers from "Wham!"? Wasn't that "The Day the Music Had a Mild-To-Moderate Case of IBS" or something.

Oh well. "Copacabana" is a fun song.

War? What is it good for?

2006-02-07T23:12:00.000-08:00

You bring up some good points, C. Most notably, that this feeling of superiority and inherent isolation is/has faulted the Islamic world as much as it did the Germans in the early 20th century. We should probably just blame Yoko Ono for all of this.

No one really wants war. Personally, I hate war as much as I hate Jimmy Fallon and Hostess cupcakes without the cream filling…now, that’s the stuff! We all remember what happened when the U.S.S.R. tried to breed a superior race, right?

Thank goodness for Rock. Basically, “if I can change, and you can change, then we ALL can change.” Okay, so listen to Colin’s harangue about the Islamic history and his theory, because I’m just trying to provide comic relief.

We all can agree that it’s all cool to be peaceful, but every once in awhile you have to “Embrace the Knight”.

A Conceptual Model (Part I)

2006-02-07T21:42:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot about the war recent (although that's nothing new), and have come up with something like a "unified field theory" to explain our enemies' motivation, what ties them together (all of the connection stuff), and places them in a better historical context. This is not a fully fleshed-out concept, rather the stream-of-consciousness brainstorming of one person of middling intelligence trying his best to understand a global war that stymies our best and brightest intellects.

Thinking about the historical epoch in which the current salafist doctrine was developed, what else was happening in the Islamic world at that time, and what else was happening in the wider world during that period, I've come to the conclusion that the term "Islamofascist" is the most perceptive description of our foes to date. The Muslim Brotherhood, the precursor to all sunni salafist organizations, was established under Hassan al-Banna at that time. Also, Pan-Arabism came into being during this same period, although not in as formalized a sense as the Muslim Brotherhood. In contradiction to the disappointingly common perception that this blood-lust currently being seen as the face of the Muslim world dates back to the Arabian desert in the seventh century A.D. and the Prophet Muhammed, I believe that the Salafist cause really dates back to central Europe in the late 19th century.

Shortly after the German nation formally came together, an "ethnic pride" movement known as the Volkish Movement got its start. The Volkish movement is where the myth of the Aryan supermen was born, where the theories of eugenics and the inherent superiority of the germanic peoples gained traction in certain outposts of German society. This was an ethnic, cultural movement. German nationalism was at this time contained within the confines of the Imperialists under the Kaiser. After the German Empire collapsed and the Weimar Republic was founded following the humiliating German loss of WW1, the ethnic Volkish movement and the old Imperial nationalists would come together under the banner of the Nazi party.

This same pattern could be seen in the Arab world early in the 20th century. Al-Banna created the myth of inherent Islamic superiority, which, although not based on race, placed Arab culture above all others to such a degree that being part of another culture was considered so evil that other cultures needed to be isolated or destroyed. This was also when Pan-Arabism and Arab Nationalism came into vogue. Arab Nationalism and the Brotherhood's cultural chauvanism combined to form the same poisonous mix as in Europe. The only problem is that Hitler's junior partners in the Mahgreb and the Middle East stayed under the radar, thus avoided the full wrath of the allies during and after the war. Partly because many of the countries were officially neutral, and partly because many more countries were colonies of Allied powers, and the Nazi allies were seen as freedom fighters, not fascists.

That sets up the post-war period, where the religious fanatic Salafists found common ground with the supposedly secular Pan-Arabists (like Nasser, Hafez al-Assad, Hussein, Yassir Arafat) in their belief in the inherent superiority of the Arab culture.

In part II, the present and future implications of this theory.

Embrace the Knight

2006-02-07T20:09:00.000-08:00

I absolutely, 100% concur with my esteemed colleague's assessment of that entertainment phenomenon known as "TV's 'Ed'". My only minor quibble would be with saying that "it was the greatest TV show ever". It is not comparable to "LOST". Comparing TV shows across different genres is a fool's errand. Ed damn near invented the class of television show known as the dramedy. Therefore, it should be compared to other dramedies out there, like the delightful "Love Monkey" or the excellent "Boston Legal". Even compared to those excellent shows, Ed comes out on top. NBC's cancellation of "Ed" was the beginning of the end of their run as TV's Hyperpower, the unchallengable juggernaut. Because after Ed went, all of their other shows started to fall off or be cancelled, and worthwhile replacements were lacking.

Anyway, Ed was a high-water mark for my television viewing life, accompanied by worthy challengers like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "The Mind of the Married Man", and supplemented by reruns of "Two Guys and a Girl" on a television station which can never be named (Man, I was a pathetic loser in college. Oh well. At least I was well-entertained pathetic loser!).

"Love Monkey", while not quite rising to the "Ed" level, still manages to the probably the most charming show on television. What this proves is exactly how vital and dynamic Tom Cavanaugh was, and how he was the linchpin of "Ed"'s successful run. Besides, "Love Monkey" has now given us the delicious concept of cowboying up and "Embracing the Knight". For that, we can forever be grateful.

-Colin

Stuck in Stuckeyville

2006-02-07T18:24:00.000-08:00

Let’s get something straight right off the bat…Ed was the greatest show on Earth. The only reason I use “was” is because LOST is only in its second season, so it has room to surpass the splendid Ed.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the show it was created by funnyman David Letterman, the majority of the show took place in a bowling alley owned by lawyer/nice guy Ed Stevens, it was whimsical, magical, and comparable to Love Monkey on a heavy dose of beguiling steroids (the show was charming, not the steroids). It took place in the fictional, but realistic, town of Stuckeyville, PA.

Sure, it had the classic clichés:

- Carol Vessey was the beautiful girl that everyone loved, especially lead-character, New York lawyer turned bowling alley lawyer Ed.
- Funny best friend Mike Burton giving sage advice to Ed between timely punchlines.
- Subplots with secondary characters.
- People.

Here’s what set the show apart from the pack though: it was really funny! Between Mike’s traditional ten buck bets and lovable Ed’s perpetual search for love with seemingly-always unknowing Carol, the show had an innocence that made it enjoyable.

Friends had their Ross-Rachel thing, but Ed-Carol was different because you didn’t feel the need to punch Ed in the face the way you wanted to punch the stumbling-paleontologist-my-ass Ross. Plus, Ed was the everyman who deserved Carol, as much as Carol deserved him.

But while Colin might not agree, the show was taken to a new level because of Ed’s friend Mike Burton. Mike was like Andy Dick; the difference being that Mike was humorous, good-looking, heterosexual and not in need of a severe beating. I’ll just leave you with these lines from one episode of Ed:

Mike: “I figure I’ll go downtown once a month, maybe work the hotel lobbies, and sell my body to aging divorcees.”
Mike’s Wife, Nancy: “Well, honey, you really think we can live on thirty-eight cents a month?”

RIP Ed…RIP. Or, more appropriately, DVD.