Quote of the Day

In an article entitled "Hitting a Nerve with 'Evolutionists'" speaking of, I assume, "science" and other correspondents in the press:

... most of these correspondents know precious little science, and haven't the stamina to engage in detailed argument. They are simply shocked and appalled that anyone would dream of challenging what they believe to be the consensus of "qualified experts"

- David Warren

I think he's spot on, there.

And I agree with him that panspermianism simply punts the question and never sounded too likely to me, either, due mainly to the temperatures involved.

I like David. I agree with him a lot of the time. Maybe even most of the time. He does get carried away a bit in this article, though, by saying things like:

We can now roughly date the origin of our universe, and 15 billion years more-or-less is proving much too short a time for random processes to produce a non-random result. Verily, 15 billion times 15 billion years is still not nearly enough time.

I'm going to have to pull the reins in here... 15 billion years is a very, very long time, and the whole bit about the amount of time it takes a random process to produce a non-random result really doesn't make any sense at all. It doesn't take a certain amount of time (for a number of iterations, I presume) for a random process to produce any of the results it produces. Otherwise, it wouldn't be random. Each result of a random process is a result, and the term "non-random" really makes no sense at all when speaking of an individual result of a random process. Unlikely, yes. Non-random? No.

I'd venture to say that 4.3 billion years is an unfathomably long time as well, and have no trouble buying the idea that life on earth may have started by random chemical reactions. Or it may not have. I can't imagine how it would have happened, but I can imagine that it could have happened. The problem here is that when you start going down paths like this (stating it wasn't long enough when we have no idea what long enough might be and it has been an incredibly long time), you're guilty of the same short-cutting of logic the "there ain't no God" correspondents make when they speculate about science.

So maybe it is true that there are multiple universes. What does that prove? Nothing at all, as far as God is concerned. All of this merely punts the question of God to another level.

I was watching "The Universe" the other night and was reminded that Gallileo himself was a devout Catholic, and learned that the big bang theory was first proposed by a Catholic priest (Georges Lemaître). Indeed some Catholic scholars acutally thought that it proved God does, in fact, exist -- that there was an "in the beginning".

And so if you go back in the big bang theory to the point of the bang itself, you are left with the question of what caused the bang, or what it even was that banged in the first place (if the word "place" even makes sense in that context). Proposing other universes likewise punts the question of origin to another universe. That road will never end. But you might find some interesting things along the way.

---

a footnote on how many "iterations of randomness" it would take to produce what we have here on this one planet... a simple question. How many Big Bangs have there been? If eternity goes forever into the future, there's no reason to believe it doesn't go forever into the past.

Peaceniks only care about Oil

James Lewis on American Thinker notes in "Where Have All the Peaceniks Gone"

As far as I can tell, Burma's fascist massacres of peaceful Buddhist monks has not yet led to a peep from our self-proclaimed peaceniks. Where are they?

Well, as noted again and again by the progressive left, see, when America choses to fight it's all about oil. The logic goes: if there weren't oil there, we wouldn't be fighting, ergo it's all about the oil.

[sarcasm on]
Well... I guess if there's no oil or gas there's no human shields. Peaceniks only care about oil, apparently. ;-)
[sarcasm off]

Now ironically, I read some comment from a lefty in the past week or so that Burma did actually have something to do with oil and that was the only reason Bush expressed concern over the situation there.

This smells like another color coded "democratic" revolution, along the lines of the Ukraine etc. When Bush talks about having concerns about the "humanitarian" situation in Burma, then look for the oil and gas :

Makes you wonder if these people ever had any marbles to lose.

Rush to Judgement

I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh.

He's got his place in the world and he fights for things I fight for -- but I've never had much use for talk radio... just as I don't have much use for your Hannity & Colmes, Chris Matthews, etc...

But here I am reading in the news that Rush owes our troops an apology for slandering them by calling them phony soldiers. And I don't live in a cave, I know who he is and a bit about him.

Woah, there, Nellie.

Show of hands from people who actually believe that is even remotely in line with what Rush is about -- that it would even cross the man's mind to do such a thing.

21%? That's what I thought.

In their latest performance of the Holy Rite of Moral Equivalence, it seems like the progressives are trying to equate a "slander" that wasn't even a slander to the MoveOn.Org "Betray Us" ad.

Of course, Rush was talking about Jesse MacBeth et al. There have been a few people who have claimed horrible things about our troops claiming to have the authority of being a soldier and deployed there themselves, eyewitnesses -- who turned out to be lying about whether they were there or, in the case of MacBeth, theat they were even soldiers.

It's a bit of a stretch -- it's a monumental stretch well past the breaking point, to say that Rush was calling our soldiers "phony". He was calling phony soldiers phony. The ones who lie about where they've been, what they've done, and what they've seen to score political points for the anti-war crowd.

Progressives are instructing us to believe that he meant things he didn't mean. Rush told us what he meant, and it's completely in line with what he said... no pretzel logic required.

They don't go together

Driving by a gas station today I happened to notice cigarette ads on top of the gas pumps.

Is that really a good idea?

Think about it. ;-)

Just sayin', 'sall.

Stupid Bumperstickers

If Evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve.

Oooo-kay. A supposedly clever play on "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."

Only it's only superficially clever. Which means it's clever only to the superficial :-)

The "if guns are outlawed" bumpersticker is literally true. It has the added benefit of leading you to ponder what the ramifications of such a world would be. But the Evolution one is nonsense.

Mind you, I'm not saying I don't believe Darwin in general. I actually do. That's not the point here.

I believe that there's a chance I'm wrong about Darwin. Small, but positive and finite.

First of all, nobody has ever proposed we "outlaw Evolution". Many have argued we should outlaw teaching it as fact. And they have a point. A subset of those believe that if you're going to teach it as a theory, creationism should be taught as an alternative theory. After all, it's a pretty popular one, and you can't prove it's not true at some level. At the very least, this group of people don't think the teaching of creationism, or even the mention of it, should be outlawed. Which is what their philosophical opponents believe.

Because,

If Creationism is outlawed, then only outlaws will be created.

See, I can be "clever", too.

The Entitlement Game

George Will has an excellent writeup on the battle over SCHIP, what it's about, and the big picture.

Cox & Forkum Hang it Up

The first Cox & Forkum cartoon I remember seeing was the classic Uncle Sam rising from the Twin Towers, fist clenched and looking determined. It was powerful and pretty much expressed my sentiments and those of many, many others. Eventually, I found the website through someone's link. It has been on my sidebar since the beginning of my own blog.

Update: Well this is kind of embarassing... the cartoon I remember wasn't Cox & Forkum at all. It was John Kurtz. But it doesn't change any of the rest of the post. It would fit well with John & Allen's work. The sentiment of that cartoon echoed well in John's illustration on the cover of Black & White World II. (right)

Many were the times when my blog reading started out with Cox & Forkum. Not only was I guaranteed a quality and timely cartoon dealing with an issue in a manner that typically reflected my own, but the commentary was a fantastic launch-pad to other stories and other sites. The links have lead me to some political commentators I may never have read, and provided background to Forkum's typically well-worded, well-thought-out, and well researched commentary.

It has been an indispensible site in the past few years of the culture war, and I feel almost like I'm losing a favorite neighborhood friend who is moving away.

Life does go on, though, and it changes for us all. I sympathize with John's need to focus somewhere else. Change is good and necessary for growth and sanity. He is absolutely right when he says that focusing on this stuff every day can be draining and utlimately unhealthy. I've had to step away from the keyboard on my meager blog several times in the past myself to clear my head and remember what life is really for to begin with -- and get back to it.

We will miss them greatly, but take comfort in the massive and quality contribution they have made and left behind, and for its role in rallying us together, united in keeping America ... well... America.

Political Positions

Call this my "mini-manifesto". It's a "what issues are important to me" and "where do I stand on them" post.


Presidential Candidates, are you listening?

• The Islamist threat. We should relentlessly infiltrate, disrupt, chase, kill Al-Queda and related groups.


• Iraq. Finish what we started. Two big criticisms of the U.S. are that we meddle where we "shouldn't" and we don't meddle where we "should". But a third and more embarassing criticism is that we start stuff and don't finish it, leaving a mess behind. AQ believes we are weak because of it. It is certainly a weakness they have been able to exploit in the past. 1) finish because we now owe it to Iraq. 2) finish to prove Al Queda wrong.


• Personal Responsibility: We need to focus more on our expectations of the individual rather than what we should be doing collectively for the individual that fails. Our current society of victimhood rewards failure and punishes success. It's not difficult to imagine where that leads. Most of the rest of the following -- follow from this.


• Second Amendment: What part of "Shall Not Be Infringed" do you not understand? I want the ability to protect myself when and where I feel I need protection. Gun control laws ultimately punish law-abiding citizens.


• Federal Government: The Federal Government is too big, too powerful, too encompasing and it continues to grab more and more power from the states. We need to get back to the United States of America, not the United America of States. Moving away from Judicial activism in the Supreme Court is a very important step in that direction.


• Energy Independence, exhibit A: One of the most stinging ways to deal with a desire to re-establish the Caliphate is to cut off the funding for it. This is somewhat of a pipe dream, to be sure since other countries will swoop in to buy what we don't -- but it will be at much lower prices (limiting their funds) and -- we won't literally be "over a barrel".


• Energy Independence, exhibit B: This means drill in the Arctic, drill in the Gulf, drill all sorts of places Enviro-ligion doesn't want us to drill. It probably also means nuclear power. We should continue to research alternative energy sources, the cleaner the better.


• Pollution & Environment: I do consider myself an envrionmentalist. It is not my religion, however. I'm more a la Patrick Moore. Clean water and clean air top my concerns. I love wild, open spaces probably more than most people do. We have the technology to do this right with minimal disturbance.


• Immigration: We have immigration laws. Enforce them. If we don't like existing immigration laws, change them. By vote, not judicial fiat. And don't do it retroactively, especially if you've no intention of enforcing the new ones, either.


• Health Care: Is not the business of the government.


• Social Security: Personally, I'm not counting on it. I'd support privitization. At least then I would have some control over my "share" and politicians couldn't dip in to it to fund politically popular progams du jour to get them re-elected at my expense. One way to "fix" it would be to return the program to its orignal scope. This would require taking less money that I'll probably never see again out of my paycheck.


• Taxes: We don't need more stinking taxes. Roughly 40% of my income goes to some form of government when all is said and done. That's enough. It should be more than plenty. Government needs to prioritize. It also needs to cut down on entitlements. See "Personal Responsibility".


• Abortion: I'm personally against it in general (if there are serious issues involving the life or health of the mother, it should be up to the mother & her family. I realize there are complexities when there's more than one life on the line). At the very least I don't think it should be allowed through the entire 9 months of pregnancy. If we're talking about human rights and a baby can be removed from the womb and function, albiet sometimes with help -- that's a human, sorry -- inside or outside. You can pull the head out, poke a hole in it and suck its brain out, and that's apparently cool. But if you pull the whole thing out and throw it in a dumpster, you can be prosecuted for murder. If B is wrong, then A is wrong. The "Pro-Anything-Goes" folks don't want to quibble with the "birth" line. The pro-life folks don't want to quibble with the conception line. I find the latter more defensible than the former. If some compromise could be reached, at least fewer conscious babies might be killed. At any rate, the Supreme Court apparently trumped Congress on this in a piece of judicial activism. It was done wrong. It should be done right.


• Gay "marriage": If people want to extend benefits that currently go to married couples to committed gay couples, I would not stand in the way. Do not, however, force the social agenda bit of making everyone officially call it the same thing -- down the people's throats. They can have the same rights. But don't make us call it marriage. They can even call it marriage if they like, that's their First Amendment right. But don't force people who don't believe it is marriage to call it marriage by encoding it into law. That's all I ask. I think that's what most people who are against it ultimately object to. Do that, and I expect a majority will vote for it. (Or at least not vote against it). If it's really about rights and not about social engineering, using a different word shouldn't be a problem.
• Subsidies: In general, I am anti-subsidy.

I know, this, in the eyes of progressives, makes me a big, fat, callous meanie. I am not. There was a time when the poor and downtrodden were looked after by private charity, often religious-based, but often not. When government guarantees aid, demand for aid skyrockets. The expectations of the individual in the social contract erodes, and people tend to live up or down to their expectations. When we expect people to work, we expect people to save, and we expect people to take charge of their own lives, they win and society wins.

Yes, people fall through the cracks. But lower expectations make the cracks wider and deeper. 40% of my earnings go to government. Probably half of it, if not more, goes to programs sold to us to stop up those cracks. More and more is promised, and over the years, more and more is taken away from the productive. And over the years, the cracks remain, and people still fall through them.

Eventually, it won't be worth it for the productive to produce.

And then who are you going to tax?

Reflexive Anti-Americanism No More

From France:

... whereas traditional Gaullism tended to define French grandeur as establishing a counterweight to American power, Sarkozy is not adverse to seeing French assertiveness exercised in conjunction with the United States. As Kouchner put it, "permanent anti-Americanism" is "a tradition we are working to overcome."

Would that our own home grown traitors follow a similar path.

Que Soros, Soros

This might open a few eyes.

Hat tip to Bob Parks.
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How many people, for instance, know that James Hansen, a man billed as a lonely "NASA whistleblower" standing up to the mighty U.S. government, was really funded by Soros' Open Society Institute , which gave him "legal and media advice"?

That's right, Hansen was packaged for the media by Soros' flagship "philanthropy," by as much as $720,000, most likely under the OSI's "politicization of science" program.

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[weren't] 2006's vast immigration rallies across the country began as a spontaneous uprising of 2 million angry Mexican-flag waving illegal immigrants demanding U.S. citizenship in Los Angeles, egged on only by a local Spanish-language radio announcer?

Turns out that wasn't what happened, either. Soros' OSI had money-muscle there, too, through its $17 million Justice Fund. The fund lists 19 projects in 2006. One was vaguely described involvement in the immigration rallies. Another project funded illegal immigrant activist groups for subsequent court cases.

So what looked like a wildfire grassroots movement really was a manipulation from OSI's glassy Manhattan offices. The public had no way of knowing until the release of OSI's 2006 annual report.

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OSI also gave cash to other radicals who pressured the Transportation Security Administration to scrap a program called "Secure Flight," which matched flight passenger lists with terrorist names. It gave more cash to other left-wing lawyers who persuaded a Texas judge to block cell phone tracking of terrorists.

They trumpeted this as a victory for civil liberties. Feel safer?

It's all part of the $74 million OSI spent on "U.S. Programs" in 2006 to "shape policy." Who knows what revelations 2007's report will bring around events now in the news?

Not surprised. But still ...

Failed Strategy

I keep reading hearing that the Bush Administration is "persuing the same failed strategy" in Iraq. Over and over, ad nauseum.

I would like to ask these perenial critics just what that failed strategy is? Not what is failed about it, but about what "it" is in the first place? They keep insisting that it's been the same one all along.

I would like to ask them because I don't think they'd know "strategy" if it bit them on the nose.

I think, in the end, the only way you could interpret the answer you'd get from them would be:

Fighting

Any strategy that involves fighting is, well .... fighting, and that's the resolution of their measuring devices (this from the keepers of the Holy Book of Nuance).

Surprise!

I have a brother who will be performing in a G.K. Chesterton play "The Surprise", that I will be going soon to see.

This is more out of love for my brother than any affinity, or even much knowledge of Chesterton, though due to my brother's fancy I've read a blurb or two.

I went in search of a little more on what the play might be about... and of course, Google continues to work well for such things. I found a basic plot introduction. But I also ran across a Chesterton quote from a 2005 post on the Anchoress' blog that just ... really ... sticks out. Primarily to the "dissent is patriotic" crowd, or those who feel their worth only in the act of protest.

Why do these fools fancy that the soul is only free when it disagrees with the common command? Even the mobs who rise to burn and destroy owe all their granduer and terror, and a sort of authority, not to their anger, but to their agreement. Why should mere disagreement make us feel free?

GK Chesterton - The Surprise

Not bad.

White

The Rev Jesse Jackson has accused Barack Obama of "acting like he's white", exposing the resentment among some members of the black community towards the presidential hopeful.

What, are we suggesting that there's something wrong with "White"?

Wouldn't that be ... racist?

Nebraska Senator Sues God

I abhor frivolous lawsuits.

So, says he, does Nebraska Senator Ernie Chambers. So to prove his point, he says, he is suing God.

Oddly, the case that triggered this was a case an alleged rape victim filed against a judge because he ruled that she could not use words like "rape" or "sexual assault" in the trial. Oddly, I think the woman has a point and, judging by the Senator's apparent political leanings, I would think he would think the same. It's an odd case to call 'frivolous' when there are so many cases to choose from that many more would agree were frivlous.

Chambers himself said his main objection is that the constitution requires that the doors to the courthouse be open to all. Well that begs the question to whom would he like access restricted?

I think our Constitution have served us pretty well.

Now I'm not saying whether the judge was right or wrong to ban those terms from her testimony. See, that's what we have judges for. They are to use their judgement. He may have had a good reason to do this.

I can see an argument that when you are trying to determine whether an encounter was, in fact, a rape, and both sides are presenting evidence .... facts, if you will, to have one side constantly to state that the encounter was, in fact, "rape" when establishing whether or not it was a rape is the entire reason for the trial to begin with -- you can see where that is pretty much allowing as "evidence" the "fact" that there was a rape. It's a circular argument. In that case why are they even having a trial?

Let's not forget that people can be falsely accused of rape and sexual assault (Duke LaCrosse, anyone?) The fact that you say you are a victim doesn't mean you are a victim. That's ... why ... they're ... having ... a ... trial. And I'll be the first to say, let the truth come out. If he raped her, throw the book at him.

On the other hand, she may have had a point with the suit. Perhaps juries should be expected to filter out accusatory language from the facts. They are, after all, supposed to be adults. But modern society seems to be expecting less and less maturity from adults.

At any rate, I think these are good questions and with that in mind perhaps her lawsuit is not frivolous at all. We have judges to decide these things, and on judge can check another judges actions. It's a part of the system that works.

That being said, frivolous lawsuits are a problem, and if you ask me Sen. Chambers is showing a questionable interpretation of what constitutes one. He's saying that anybody can sue anyone, so why not sue God?

Now... can I sue Noriega? The answer really is, unfortunately, yes -- I can if I have a grievance I can specify. Should I be able to sue Noriega? Well he isn't subject to our laws, so what's the point?

Similarly, given God's existence in the first place, God isn't subject to our laws, either. He wasn't born here, he hasn't immigrated, he's not a citizen.

Chambers says God is under the court's jursidiction because "God is Everywhere". Well if you want to split hairs, our founding fathers wrote into our Declaration of Independence that our basic rights themselves come from God. I'd think that'd put him outside of the jurisdiction of His subordinates.

He's not even a living person (that is, a breathing carbon-based humanoid). And you can't sue His estate because there's so much disagreement on just who represents His estate.

Now to file a lawsuit against God to show how silly it is to file a suit against Noriega, see, that would be a more appropriate use of irony.

I have to wonder, given Chambers alleged (I haven't checked up on it which is why I'm saying "alleged") prior railings against Christianity, there may be another motive here.

He may be trying to get the Court to say that God doesn't exist.

Good luck. People have been arguing that for millenia, and as far as I can tell, there's no way for the living to prove it one way ... or the other.

Democracy

Dang, I've had a potential post lolling about in my head on Liberty and Democracy for quite some time and here Sowell goes and distills it very succintly.

Democracy means voting. It does not mean freedom. When we lump the two ideas together, we confuse ourselves and others.

Britain was a free country long before it became democratic. In Germany, Hitler was elected democratically. In much of Africa, democracy in practice has meant, "One man, one vote -- one time," as elected leaders put an end to both elections and freedom.

I probably have stuff to add, though, and this just may get me thinking about it a bit more.

Before people on the right and the left get all lathered up from their respective perspectives about the title and his rejection of nation building (for which he makes a great case), he sums up by saying what I keep saying:

This is not a plea for withdrawal. Whatever the situation when we went in, international terrorists have chosen to make this the place for a showdown battle. We can win or lose that battle but we cannot unilaterally end the war.

It is the terrorists' war, regardless of where it is fought.

Sectarian Violence measures: Sunni-on-Sunni, Shiite-on-Shiite?

The leftist web is all abuzz over an article written by Paul Krugman in the New York Times on 09/07 called "Time to Take a Stand". (I know this because while trying to find the source of Krugman's claim via Google all I was overwhelmed by references to the column by lefty blogs. I've yet to locate the source.)

What they're mostly abuzz about is this particular sentence:

Here’s what will definitely happen when Gen. David Petraeus testifies before Congress next week: he’ll assert that the surge has reduced violence in Iraq - as long as you don’t count Sunnis killed by Sunnis, Shiites killed by Shiites, Iraqis killed by car bombs and people shot in the front of the head.

Now since I can't find the source of Krugman's assertation, I can't be sure of this. But smell something rotten, and I have a sneaking hunch that there's at least as much bait and switch going on here as he claims Petraeus used.

See, it all boils down to context, as usual. Paul says that Petraeus will "assert that the surge has reduced violence." But what Petraeus asserted that the surge has reduced sectarian violence, which is a specific goal in counterinsurgency -- where his expertise lies.

Al Queda violence, contrary to the MSM & Democrats' (but I largely repeat myself) constant efforts at blurring or erasing the line between the two, is not sectarian violence. AQ is forigners trying to start sectarian violence, or keep it going. And no, we don't want that, either. But that's not what Petraeus is addressing here.

If your mission is to reduce sectarian violence, you first of all will want to try to measure what violence is sectarian and which is not. And since most murderers don't leave a little card or note on the scene specifying their motives, the military had to come up with some way to figure out what "sectarian" violence looked like.

It looks to me like they decided that Sunni-on-Sunni violence or Shiite-on-Shiite violence is not sectarian. Seems like a pretty reasonable assumption to me.

They further decided that car bombs are not a signature tactic of sect-A vs sect-B.... it's more a signature of Al Queda, perhaps. I don't know. I'm not an expert on it and I doubt Mr. Krugman is. Apparently they also decided that most sectarian killings were carried out execution style -- ie, shots through the back of the head. Not the front. I don't have trouble buying this. Is it always true? Maybe not. But when you're trying to get a general idea, I can see it being a good indicator.

The implication being spread all over the web is that the Military is not telling the truth about "the violence" because they are excluding some of it from their statistics. I seriously doubt this is true. It's in the overall numbers, and all of that was presented.

When the military talks about drops in sectarian violence, they are talking about certain kinds of killings. When they talk about overall violence, the numbers are different. What the left is cleverly doing here is taking the General's words out of context and putting them in a context where they would not be true, and then claiming it is he that is lying.

Here's the deal. As long as the same formula is used for all the periods being compared, we're comparing apples to apples. And if the fruit you want to look at is apples, then excluding oranges makes no difference as to how many fewer apples rotted. It doesn't matter that just as many or more oranges and overall fruit rotted. Not when your priority is apples. Part of Petraeus' mission was to reduce sectarian violence to foster better trust between the two major Iraqi Muslim groups. Petraeus didn't say that "violence" had been reduced. He said sectarian violence had been reduced. That was a specific mission goal.

Would we like it if all violence had been reduced? Of course we would have. And hopefully as Al Queda fades and the government gets stronger, it will. But Petraeus is reporting on his mission, not on the headlines.

To say the man is lying because you assert that he is saying something he is not, in fact, saying at all -- is disingeneous.

Sunnis, who used to support Al Queda before the surge, now have a better idea who the real enemy is, and Al Queda is being run out. Might a major drop in Shiite-Sunni killings possibly have something to do with this?

The truth is no amount of progress in Iraq would be enough for the Left. As a matter of fact, it has become very clear that they don't want progress in Iraq at all. What they want is vindication. They want to be able to point at Bush and say "he failed. Bad. Bad Bush! Bad Voters! You should have elected our guy." Well they say it every day, but until "everyone" agrees with them they will not stop. What that failure would mean to the country is not important. As a matter of fact, success would be disaster for them, and a few of them have said as much. They claim they're all about peace, but while peace can be patriotic (to paraphrase a leftist slogan to bring it more into line with the truth), vindictiveness is not.

Hence, Krugman et. al are constantly looking for "lies" to catch anyone related to the Bush administration in. When you're looking that hard, you're liable to see things that aren't there because that's what you want to see.

Quote of the day

Hat tip to Morgan:

" I’m losing my tolerance for the amount of tolerance I’m supposed to tolerate. "

-- Parent from a school in New Jersey

Greenspan says it: Blood for Oil

Or does he?

Greenspan favored the war on the grounds that it would stabilize the flow of oil, even though that wasn't the war's political underpinning. "I was not saying that that's the administration's motive," Greenspan told Woodward, "I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential."

(emphasis mine)

Another excerpt from the article -- very observant:

Perhaps the answer is that when it comes to bashing Bush about the war, no accusation is inaccurate -- even if it contradicts all the accusations that came before. Some say it's all about the Israel lobby. Others claim that Bush was trying to avenge his dad. Still others say Bush went to war because God told him to.

Which is it? All of those? Any? It doesn't seem to matter. It's disturbing how many people are willing to look for motives beyond the ones debated and voted on by our elected leaders.

Polar Ice Cap Smaller Than EVER!!!!

A little light reading for you.

Thirty Five Years! Ever!

It's best when someone says "in history" or "ever" that you find out just excactly what "ever" or "history" their data really covers.

Democrats on the Surge over time

This is something worth a good looking over. It jives with my memory pretty well.

Republicans on Democrats' position(s) over time on the surge.

The Dems' rhetoric and timing are all pretty telling.