"Gothic Serpent" may not ring a bell but the book and movie based on it will...Blackhawk Down.

Jonn Lilyea emailed me the reminder and has a remembrance of a friend he lost that day, Master Sergeant Tim “Griz” Martin (Delta Force) at This Ain't Hell.

Though I suppose a lot of fights could claim the title of the first battle of the current war on terror (or whatever Obama renamed it), we should never forget that one Osama bin Laden watched and learned from our Somalia withdrawal after this battle.

America assumed the titles of world leader and master of the new world order. After a few blows, it forgot all about those titles and rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace, dragging the bodies of its soldiers. America stopped calling itself world leader and master of the new world order, and its politicians realized that those titles were too big for them and that they were unworthy of them. I was in Sudan when this happened. I was very happy to learn of that great defeat that America suffered, so was every Muslim. ...

The lessons he drew from that ill fated day and intervention only applied to the leadership of the time. Bin Laden would soon come to find out that a new American President wouldn't be so easily pushed around and that the fighting skill shown that day in Somalia by American forces (2 were awarded the Medal of Honor) would infuse a whole new generation of American servicemen and women committed to the fight.

While thousands have since died in battlefields around the world in this same war, we should never forget the 19 Americans, including Master Sergeant Martin, who died that day.

Posted by: DrewM at 03:32 PM | Comments (100)
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I was just telling someone how awesome this (old) video is is. But I couldn't find it, since Depeche Mode has gotten it taken off every site where it's appeared.

I found it again. But hosted on a site with dirty porn-type ads.

I'll link it below and hope that no inappropriate ads show up. (At the very end, there is one inappropriate ad bundled in: A racy one for Adult Friend Finder. But it's not so bad (except you know what Adult Friend Finder's all about) and you can avoid it by not letting it run to the very end.)

It's really superbly done. When it was created, it portrayed Obama's campaign as creepily messianic. It still does that, of course, but now it's also bitterly ironic: the testament of a God Who Failed.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:24 PM | Comments (171)
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You have to see this comparison.

You won't be surprised to hear a lot of extremist groups sponsored this "grassroots" march.

And you want diversity, you got it. The march was full of a diverse sampling of bussed-in union workers.

The union presence was so ubiquitous and so organized that it made for a kind of color coding in the crowd. Looking around, there were large groups of people bunched into separate areas, all wearing the same color T-shirts to mark their union affiliation. There were groups wearing the purple SEIU shirt, others wearing the red CWA shirt, others wearing the blue AFT shirt, and still others wearing green shirts and yellow shirts and so on. There were long rows of tables where union workers sat waiting to get people connected to their groups and their buses. There were thousands of union-printed signs.

Organizers will deny that the march was a total union job, compared to the more grassroots character of tea party gatherings. And it's true that union allies like the NAACP also played a big part in staging "One Nation Working Together." But it's safe to say the rally would have been nothing without labor's money and organizing strength.

...

Kathryn Riss said she attended the 1963 rally at the Lincoln Memorial, when she was just 16 years old, and came back 46 years later for the inauguration of Barack Obama. This time, she traveled from New Jersey on what she called the "peace bus" ("the Communications Workers of America very graciously paid our way," she explained), and she held a homemade blue flag with a white dove stitched into the middle.

As Michel Barone said, they assumed the Tea Party was a bought-and-paid for false demonstration because that's what theirs are.

And Glenn Reynolds says "I told you so."

Despite my pleasure in saying “I told you so,” I don’t deserve all that much credit. It was easy to see this coming if you paid attention.

Both political parties are out of touch, and ordinary Americans are very unhappy about it, as they watch the Treasury being looted, the economy sink, and the political, journalistic, and financial ruling-class figures escaping the consequences of their ham-handed and self-serving actions.

But while ordinary Americans are mad as hell, this time they really donÂ’t have to take it any more. Institutions have failed them, but Internet tools like blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, and personal tools -- like the cheap handheld video cameras that beat back bogus charges of Tea Party racism again and again -- mean that they donÂ’t have to rely on failing institutions.

...

But those establishment GOP figures who think that theyÂ’ll cruise to victory and a return to the pocket-stuffing business-as-usual that marked the prior GOP majority need to think again. This election cycle is, in a very real sense, a last chance for the Republicans. If they blow it, weÂ’re likely to see third-party challenges in 2012, not only at the Presidential level but in numerous Congressional races as well.

For the national GOP, it’s do-or-die time. So guys, you’d better perform -- unless you want me to be writing another “I told you so” column in 2013. And trust me, you don’t.

One thing I've advised people in a bloodletting sort of mood is to bear in mind how quickly this all happened, and how enormous it is. And I say that as a way of suggesting, "Allow those who didn't quite get it a little leeway in catching up with the new normal."

I thought the Tea Party would influence the GOP. I did not think that the GOP would wind up influencing the Tea Party. Know what I mean? I thought the Tea Party would be the tail that dog wags; but it turns out, the Tea Party is the dog, and the GOP merely the tail.

This sudden upheaval was entirely unpredictable... except, of course, to those who predicted it, but for those of us who didn't predict it, it was entirely unpredictable, we're still catching up.

I say this in interests of promoting peace. We're not enemies; some of us are just nine months behind the news, you know?

Posted by: Ace at 12:54 PM | Comments (217)
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They're shameless, and they can't stop The Narrative.

Here they begin by stating that a film about Algerian terrorists taking hostages (both Christian and Muslim) is raising the terror level in Europe.

What's chilling about this is that the media has long been a stalwart on the right to free expression. After all, it's how they make their living. And they are steeped in that 60s hippie mentality that Expression is Everything. (Sidenote: this meme has actually become dominant on the right too -- I'm not saying it's a bad meme or anything.)

But they are willing -- eager, really -- to sacrifice it on the altar of "respect" for Islam. Actually submission, but they won't call it that.

After implying that a film is now the new Root Cause of Terrorism (TM), they turn, of course, to political expression, which must be suppressed so that They Won't Kill Us.

What’s new is the rising power and influence of xenophobic, anti-Muslim parties that are making Europe an ever-more target-rich environment for the terrorists. “The far right and the jihadis need one another,” says anthropologist Scott Atran, who is frequently consulted by U.S. government agencies about the social and organizational characteristics of terrorist organizations. In Europe especially there’s a growing impression that Muslims with immigrant backgrounds are “being thrown to the wolves,” says Atran. That fear plays directly into the jihadists’ propaganda. “This is politics,” says an architect of French counterterrorist strategy, declining to be named talking about his bosses. “But it does not help stop terrorists.”

No, what's new is Muslims killing the shit out of people over their unending list of grievances, or, rather, what's new is people deciding they've had enough of Muslims killing the shit out of people over their unending list of grievances.

Thanks to William Amos.

Bad Blogger Apologies: I really disappeared there for a while, huh? Apologies. I have no defense except I got really, really wasted. And felt kind of burned out, I guess.

Posted by: Ace at 11:07 AM | Comments (174)
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Don't forget your moron football picks, you moron football pickers. You can't possibly do worse than me, unless you really, really suck.

Best thing about week 4 is the Cowgirls can't lose today.

Vote early, vote often.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:12 AM | Comments (285)
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Publishers have known for a long time that the book-reading public skews heavily female -- probably by a 70-30 margin over men. This wasn't always the case, of course, but the numbers of male readers started to decline in the 1970's and never recovered.

Some genres of fiction that used to be heavily male-centric like detective novels and police procedurals have in recent years become almost completely female-centric. In the old days, female mystery fans could choose from Agatha Christie's Miss Marple or the dapper Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and men could have the more hard-boiled fare from Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler or James M. Cain. But in recent years, the most popular mysteries seem to skew female: Tami Hoag, Sarah Paretsky's "V. I. Warshawski" books, Sue Grafton's "alphabet" mysteries, and so on. The "hard boiled PI" character has given way to female leads who juggle relationships and job pressures with gunfights with the bad guys. more...

Posted by: Monty at 04:20 AM | Comments (386)
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I'll spare you the music vids until the end of the post, but just this one time. You owe me. (It's because videos posted above the fold tend to slow down page loading and I wanted the following to be the lead-off. See? You learned something new and technological-ish tonight. We're all about eddicashun here at the HQ)

How NOT to Behave When Getting Tattooed: Is it old? Probably. Is it hilarious? Decide for yerselves:

At least she uses the word "persnickety," which in itself is comedy gold. Or maybe comedy bronze.

Originally found at Dori Monson's place where he also has a Lady Gaga airline safety video posted. (Well, not actually her narrating the safety video but rather flight attendants dancing to...uh...well, just go watch it) If, like me, you can't get it to load there, try this link.

More useless crap below the fold... more...

Posted by: Genghis at 06:00 PM | Comments (520)
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This kid is great. (Content warning: language.)

A couple of Halloweens back, I was a pirate. While practicing my cockney-based piratese, my accent kept dropping out--and into Australian, Irish, and Scottish. This would have helped then. Link via BoingBoing.

Open thread.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 03:44 PM | Comments (139)
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Dude, maybe you should have looked at the job description a little closer before signing up for 4 years.

Being president is a 7x24x365 job performed while living in a fishbowl and scrutinized with a microscope. Its not a 9-5 union gig where you don't have to take the job home with you.

You better get used to being woken up in the middle of the night over a coup in some obscure corner of the globe. You better get used to having your waffles interrupted by generals who need an executive decision NOW on how to respond to some deteriorating situation in a rathole somewhere.

Yea, this job you so eagerly sought is going to leave your Wagyu cold sometimes, and that arugula will be kinda wilted by the time you get back to it on occasion.

Maybe this job isn't what you really thought it would be? Maybe you might be better off in another position?

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 11:22 AM | Comments (422)
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Not to beat a dead horse, but Jay Cost has more on Gallup's phony generic ballot polling that has been used by some candidates and many libtard bloggers to claim Democratic momentum as we enter the home stretch. Gallup just released another poll suggesting that the generic ballot is tied again.

This is the biggest reason why registered voter polls are so problematic this cycle: Republicans are much more enthusiastic to vote than Democrats, and in relatively non-stimulating midterm elections such as this, enthusiasm counts for a lot. More Gallup:

Given the usual Democratic advantages in party identification among the general public, it is rare for Republicans to lead on the generic ballot among registered voters. This was the case even when Republicans were the majority congressional party from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. Turnout is crucial in midterm elections. With at least 80% of Americans registered to vote but only about half that number likely to vote in the midterm elections, registered voter and actual voter preferences can differ significantly.

All things considered, IÂ’m not entirely sure why Gallup would even put this number of registered voters out there. Clearly, it thinks the GOP has a lead in voter preferences for the House. Why publish a poll that shows a dead heat? On top of that, in the previous six cycles (1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 200 , Gallup had already released its likely voter generic ballot by this point in the cycle. Its first likely voter model of this cycle is not due out until early October. ThatÂ’s pretty peculiar.

I do not know what explains this delay, but regardless: be wary of registered voter polls from this point forward.

Plenty more at that link, click over and read the whole thing.

My recent nattering about momentum, Gallup's unreliable generic ballot, and framing poll results are here and here.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:48 AM | Comments (137)
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