Quote of the Day, another BSIHORL

From a NY Post commenter going by the monicre of "teacher"

Turn charity back to the charitable to be dispensed only at the local level where it's really hard for the fakers to fool us.

That perfectly expresses what I've been trying to figure out how to say for quite some time now.

The Art of Politics

Mark Steyn on Obama (during a Hugh Hewitt interview):

And the thing about Obama is he has this, he’s a very articulate guy when it comes to saying nothing. [...] it’s like seeing a movie that seems terrific at the time, but by the time you get to the restaurant twenty minutes later, you can’t remember a thing about it.

Yup. That about sums it up.

Quote of the day

Talking about Leftists in general - a culture he himself was once immersed and saturated in - David Horowitz used this description:

It's a kind of religion ... they get intoxicated with their own virtue ... so I was always preaching. I never listened.

Intoxicated with their own virtue - the very thing they claim to hate about the religious right.

That one goes on the shelf with "moral preening".

Distilled Wisdom

If you've read me much, you are aware that I'm really impressed by concise statements that pack everything they need to say in while remaining easy for most people to grasp. Things you know in your head but tend to have to ramble a bit to explain because it hasn't been distilled to its verbal essence. Statements like these are great tools for holding ideas up to the light of reason. And I plucked this one out of Morgan's post from this morning:

When has a whiner ever gotten something the whiner was whining about wanting, and stopped whining?

This applies to appeasment of all kinds. In child rearing. Reparations for slavery. Apologizing to various demographic groups for all sorts of stupid stuff. Terrorism. Flouting 17 U.N. resolutions and your cease-fire agreements and complaining about sanctions as well as forms of physical enforcement.

Some Overdue Whittle-ing

I started reading Whittle's latest (it was posted back in early January) quite some time ago, but got busy near the end of part I and hadn't gotten back to the essay since then. Tonight I've gone back to read the whole thing, and found this distillate of verbage:

Why is it that the fielded military can adopt Boyd’s concept of agility and maneuverability, but the political leadership remains absolutely blind to the fact that this battle may or may not be won on the streets of Baghdad and Fallujah and Ramadi, but it absolutely can be lost on the CBS Evening News? One would think the insurgents would need a multi-billion dollar, worldwide high-tech satellite network to spread their propaganda. But, being the generous people that we are, we have gallantly lent them ours.

Nobody beats Bill. Sums up my thoughts excactly. For all the talk of how many have been killed and how long this war has gone on, how much shorter would it have been and how many fewer lives would have been lost if it were obvious from the beginning that our own fifth column at home were not going to play along with the "insurgents'" game, if they had not been actively rooting for, aiding, and abetting the other side?

George Will Sums it up...

The Debate is Over™

“People only insist that a debate stop when they are afraid of what might be learned if it continues.”

I Like This

If you read me much you know I'm impressed by conciseness. Definitions that distill words, yet express all the meaning they need to to cover the bases. This is a thoughtful article, and I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the premise. It's this little bit that popped out that I like.

As we anguish over the possibility of collateral damage, this enemy practices collateral damage as a tactic of war.

There you go.

terrorism /ter-or-izm/ n. collateral damage as a tactic of war.