He gave Jimmy Carter some shit over Haiti.

That counts.

RIP. *tip via wiserbud

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:17 PM | Comments (56)
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The son of my oldest friend (he is sooo old) serves on the USS Momson (DDG-92). It is not an Evarts-class destroyer. Arleigh-Burke. They did this video thing.

Anyway, I'm posting it for everyone who has someone they love who serves. God bless em. More are now in harm's way, keep them in your thoughts. They serve the nation and we are damned fortunate for them. Am reminded of the quote from "The Bridges at Toko-Ri".

"Where do we get such men? They leave this ship and they do their job. Then they must find this speck lost somewhere on the sea. When the find it they have to land on its pitching deck. Where do we get such men? "

incidentally, and by that I mean it isn't incidental at all, Ronney's dad was a Naval aviator in WWII.

I miss that cigar-smokin gentleman. May he rest. more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 01:56 PM | Comments (77)
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Paul. I'll give it two stars -- not worth seeing in theaters and only barely worth renting.

They always say you should review the movie they actually made, rather than postulating a different movie they could have made in your own head and comparing it to that. There's probably something to that advice, but I can't help it: I could not watch this movie without thinking UR DOING IT WRONG almost the whole time. I kept thinking that almost every major choice they made was wrong and a different, more obvious choice was much, much closer to right.

Maybe that's unfair -- but I can't help but thinking there was a much better movie here that never made it on to film.

First up, given that this is a conservative blog -- if you're a Christian who doesn't believe in evolution, observe the warning that in this film's 100 minutes running time a good 10 minutes are spent on making fun of those who don't believe in evolution and the Christian worldview generally.
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Posted by: Ace at 09:39 AM | Comments (233)
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I suppose I should give them points for sheer consistency.

Out: Kite-flying children

In: Wildflowers

In a Field of Flowers, the Wreckage of War in Libya

By KAREEM FAHIM

BENGHAZI, Libya — The attack seemed to have come out of clear skies onto a field of wildflowers.

Littered across the landscape, some 30 miles south of Benghazi, the detritus of the allied airstrikes on Saturday and Sunday morning offered a panorama of destruction: tanks, charred and battered, their turrets blasted clean off, one with a body still caught in its remnants; a small Toyota truck with its roof torn away; a tank transporter still on fire. But it did not end there.

For miles leading south, the roadsides were littered with burned trucks and burned civilian cars. In some places battle tanks had simply been abandoned, intact, as their crews fled. One thing, though, seemed evident: the units closest to Benghazi seemed to have been hit with their cannons and machine guns still pointing towards the rebel capital.

To the south, though, many had been hit as they headed away from the city in a headlong dash for escape on the long road leading to a distant Tripoli.

“They were retreating,” said Col. Abdullah al-Shafi...

Damn these neocon warmongers.

More: Qatar's the first Arab country signing up for actual military contribution to the Coalition effort.

Here's a video that really belongs with Drew's story about the Arab League suddenly changing its position. It appears, as many predicted, Arabs just like taking any position opposite the West.

It's my nature, said the scorpion.

The British commentator can hardly disguise his contempt for childish Arab politics as he relates their brand-new position: no-fly zone, yes, but apparently we were to not hit ground targets like radar stations and anti-aircraft positions because "civilians" might be killed in such strikes. So the idea was that our pilots fly around over hostile enemy airspace getting shot up.

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Posted by: Ace at 07:24 AM | Comments (466)
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We've heard how important Arab League support for the operation in Libya was and is. Supposedly its support was pivotal in getting the west moving and its participation would insulate us from charges of "imperialism" and "killing more Muslims".

Arab nation leadership in efforts to stop violence in Libya has played a key role in mobilizing the international coalition, Clinton said. Clinton said that the Arab League with its “pivotal statement” changed the “diplomatic landscape” with regard to the approach toward the United Nations Security Council resolution this week authorizing “all necessary measures,” including a no-fly zone to end violence and protect civilians in that country.

Apparently, the Arab League has a "Reset" button of its own.

The Arab League on Sunday criticized Western military strikes on Libya, a week after urging the United Nations to slap a no-fly zone on the oil-rich North African state.

"What has happened in Libya differs from the goal of imposing a no-fly zone and what we want is the protection of civilians and not bombing other civilians," Arab League secretary general Amr Mussa told reporters.

Mussa by the way is an Egyptian and is likely to run for President there. Smacking the US and the West around probably wins a few votes back home.

Watch how quickly people stop talking about the central role and knocking down the Arab League's importance. There's a guy on CNNI doing it already. Amazing.

According to Obama and Clinton we're not leading this thing. That of course is absolute crap and the world can see it.

On the upside, Admiral Mullen says our initial strikes degraded Libya's capabilities enough to start the actual No Fly Zone mission. If one wave of stand off missile attacks were this effective, it really makes me wonder why we didn't do it 3 weeks ago when it would have mattered more.

Mullen also said it would be possible for this to end with Gadaffi staying in power. The ast time we bombed but didn't kill Gadaffi, he responded by blowing up PanAm 103 over Lockerbie. But I'm sure if he survives this time he'll just let these attacks slide with no retaliation against American civilians. Amazingly we might go from a situation where we have an uneasy peace with Gadaffi to the point where he's targeting Americans again...all in the name of saving Libyan civilians. Brilliant!

Despite my manifest reservations of this adventure, I'm hoping it succeeds. And I will just as soon as someone tells me what, beyond no American and coalition casualties, I'm supposed to hoping happens. Perhaps when the President gets back from South America, he'll let us know.

Added: I don't like the idea of playing politics with war but I can't pass up commenting on the liberal reaction or lack thereof. This was Media Matters for America's Eric Boehlert yesterday.

Interesting Obama put together, in 7 days, the type of coalition vs. Libya that Bush spent 7 mos trying and couldn't get vs. Iraq.

Aside from the factual inaccuracy about the Iraq coalition, it should be noted that Bush's "coalition of the willing" held together more than 24 hours.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:50 AM | Comments (120)
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Every week during the book thread, there are always questions about how good the various E-Readers are and whether it makes sense to buy one. I decided to use today's book thread to discuss the pros and cons of the e-book reader I have (the Amazon Kindle). The same benefits and caveats probably apply to the Barnes and Noble Nook, Apple's iPad, the Sony Digital Reader, and others. And Google Books is now operating, a browser-based reader that works in any browser.

Be aware too that each e-reader has specific benefits and drawbacks that the others do not share. The B&N Nook Color, for example, is a color touchscreen device. (In fact, it can be "rooted" and turned into a generic Android-based tablet computer.) But it also has a significantly shorter battery-life than the non-color Kindle. Apple's iPad is sold as a general-purpose tablet computer, but Apple hosts their own online bookstore and both Amazon's Kindle software and B&N's Nook software can be run on the iPad as well.

In fact, this leads me to my first point: "e-readers" are software programs and network services first and foremost. They can (and do) run on all kinds of hardware devices, from cellphones all the way up to desktop computers. If you buy a book on the service, that book is usually available on whatever device you are running the software on. The book exists "in the cloud" and is pulled to the device in most cases. The Kindle reader, for example, is a special-purpose piece of hardware that runs the Kindle software (underneath, it's basically a Linux and Java-based computer).

So let's move on to the generalized pros and cons of "e-readers" as a class.
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Posted by: Monty at 06:24 AM | Comments (117)
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Ah, the stench of misogyny rises from a disappointed liberal at the Nation. He can't bring himself to hold President Obama to account for his decision to go to war, but he knows just who to blame:

We’d like to think that women in power would somehow be less prowar, but in the Obama administration at least it appears that the bellicosity is worst among Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Power. All three are liberal interventionists, and all three seem to believe that when the United States exercises military force it has some profound, moral, life-saving character to it. Far from it. Unless President Obama’s better instincts manage to reign in his warrior women—and happily, there’s a chance of that—the United States could find itself engaged in open war in Libya, and soon. The troika pushed Obama into accepting the demands of neoconservatives, such as Joe Lieberman, John McCain and The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, along with various other liberal interventionists outside the administration, such as John Kerry. The rode roughshod over the realists in the administration.

Women and Jews "neoconservatives." You know that I'm opposed to intervention in Libya, but somehow it never occurred to me that I could just blame it on the women.

There is so much liberal idiocy in that one quoted paragraph it would take all day to unpack it (so I won't inflict the rest of his screed on you, dear reader). Here are just the highlights: First, the U.S. is already "engaged in open war in Libya." The shooting has commenced and the U.S. and its partners are in violation of Libya's sovereignty, such as it is. Second, the shot at the military's character reveals he's not just anti-war, he's anti-U.S. military, though that's not so much of a surprise coming from a leftist. Far from it. Third, apparently in this bozo's mind Obama isn't even responsible for his own actions; he's just there to ride herd on the troika*. Bonus point: it's "rein" not "reign", dingus. Also, while I'm thinking about it, who the fuck is "we"? You got a little mouse in your pocket?

*From the Russian: a team of three horses abreast. Okay, also for triumvirate, or, well, three but come on. You can't use "rein" (or "reign", heh) with "troika" without conjuring up a mental image of horses. You'd think a fancy-shmancy Nation writer would see the problem with horse allusions in a piece already attacking women.

Anyway, Don Surber has other liberal reactions to the war. Whichever of you morons guessed that American black leaders would excoriate Obama for attacking an African nation, you get a free month's subscription to the HQ. Louis Farrakhan is not happy with the President. Not at all.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:40 AM | Comments (108)
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Talk amongst yourselves. Here, I'll give you a topic:

Joe Biden is an idiot.

Discuss.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:07 AM | Comments (60)
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Cruise missile strike.

In the strikes, 112 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired at more than 20 coastal targets to clear the way for air patrols to ground Libya's air force.

While U.S. defense officials cautioned that it was too early to fully gauge the impact of the onslaught, the official said that given the precision targeting of the Navy's cruise missiles, they felt that Libya's air defenses suffered a good deal of damage.

The Golfer in Chief weighed in. ""We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people there will be no mercy," he said in Brasilia.

We cannot stand by idly while we figure out how to deploy these thingys on the big board.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:43 PM | Comments (353)
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What, again no basketball thread? Did you guys do something to piss off Dave?

Posted by: Genghis at 06:36 PM | Comments (557)
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