On FoxNews, coming up in minutes. I'll be watching and commenting.

Posted by: Ace at 04:59 PM | Comments (887)
Post contains 27 words, total size 1 kb.

On July 28, 1914 the deadliest war in European history began when Serbia did not comply with Austria-Hungary's ultimatum The ultimatum was issued because a Serbian assassin with TB shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand. What came next was four years of trench warfare in Europe, jungle warfare in Africa and Asia, sea battles in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, starvation, privation, slaughter, homicide, democide and massive displacement of peoples.

Today the last combat veteran of that war, Claude Stanley Choules died some 93 years after it ended. He was 110 years old and had served in the Royal Navy.

World War I was raging when Mr. Choules began training with the British Royal Navy, just one month after he turned 14. In 1917 he joined the battleship HMS Revenge, from which he watched the 1918 surrender of the German High Seas Fleet, the main battle fleet of the German Navy during the war

He went on to settle in Austrialia and served in their navy as a torpedo officer in the Second World War. He will be missed not only by his family, but the world as he is the last survivor of a war that cost some fifteen to twenty million people thier lives and that shaped the bloody twentieth century that was to follow. Now, no living memory remains of the War to End All Wars.
more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:06 PM | Comments (73)
Post contains 266 words, total size 2 kb.

This is one of those bad days. My internet connection is terrible, for one thing. And I'm just generally distracted.

I'll be posting but wanted to say sorry for the weak output. And also, will post about the debate tonight (9 Eastern on Fox) -- Pawlenty, Cain, Gary Johnson, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. No offense, but only one and maybe two of those guys is plausible.

Posted by: Ace at 02:16 PM | Comments (529)
Post contains 71 words, total size 1 kb.

The Blaze assumes too much here, as they guess that Obama's campaign paid for this service; it could just be one of millions of the Naked Emperor's internet praetorians.

But someone sure is giving Obama the Mission Accomplishment treatment.

I would warn them that that doesn't work out the way one might like, but let them learn that themselves.

Thanks to Johnny.

Posted by: Ace at 12:16 PM | Comments (478)
Post contains 96 words, total size 1 kb.

There was always talk that bin Laden would have his guards kill him or kill himself before the filthy infidels could kill or capture him. He certainly had plenty of time to do it once the raid started it. Well turns out Mr. Tough Guy who had no problem killing or sending others to their death wasn't so tough after all.

Sources involved in the operation that took down Usama bin Laden told Fox News the terrorist leader acted "scared" and "completely confused" in his final moments, "shoving his wife" at the Navy SEAL who ultimately shot him.

The information helps clarify the conflicting details about what exactly happened toward the end of the 40-minute raid on bin Laden's northern Pakistan compound. Sources who were part of the mission said bin Laden acted in a "cowardly manner" when confronted.

Via Melisa Clouthier's Twitter feed.

If there's video of this it needs to be released. Now. Let the cannon fodder of the Islamic world see what there leader is like when confronted not with the idea of killing unarmed civilians but warriors. I like to think the bastard shit his pants.

Of course the problem is....this is like the 231st story coming out of this administration, so it makes people less likely to believe it. If Team America Obama didn't have to have the spotlight, they could have waited and told one, correct and definitive story.

Ensuring the world knows and believes that bin Laden died a coward would be a major communications victory. It may not have the impact because Obama wanted to play tough guy.

Think that's unfair? Tell it to Obama for America.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:55 AM | Comments (165)
Post contains 287 words, total size 2 kb.

Just over FoxNews now. As the wife sister of one of the victims of 9/11 -- and a persistent critic of Obama's policies -- she used the meet-and-greet as a chance to ask Obama about an issue that concerns her.

Holder's holding indictments over the heads of CIA interrogators -- the same ones who delivered bin Ladin to the SEALs.

Burlingame asked him about that, and said "I know you can't tell him what to do" (which isn't really true), and Obama said "That's right."

Then she asked, even if she couldn't order him to drop the prosecution of the interrogators who got bin Ladin, if he would at least offer Holder his opinion that there should be no prosecutions, he answered: "No, I won't."

Huh. Big Damn Hero, huh?

She went on to note that, last May, a Dallas US Attorney sought to indict CAIR officials (for terrorist ties and terrorist funding, of course), and Holder quashed those indictments.

We're in the very best of hands, as Instapundit says.

Posted by: Ace at 10:49 AM | Comments (234)
Post contains 202 words, total size 1 kb.

They spent $19 billion on technological abilities to sniff out explosives. After six years of trying to make a bomb-detecting gadget, they found their best efforts produced only a 50% detection rate.

The plain old dog had an 80% rate.

They're trained to scent not just a stationary bomb but traces of explosive hanging in the air. Plus general watch-dog and attack-dog functions.

The Gun That Killed Bin Ladin? Well, guns don't kill people, people kill people, but the gun that a person used to kill Usama was, reportedly (though the story is shifting, like everything else in this story) a Sig P226.

Two men actually shot bin Ladin; I don't know if both used the same weapon.

Hell of an advertisement.

Thanks to gg.

Sorry: I keep getting Obama and Osama mixed up. It's become a media practice to call him Usama, a commenter tells me, to keep themselves from making the same error. I kept trying to write bin Ladin but I keep slipping up.

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (108)
Post contains 201 words, total size 1 kb.

The North Arabian sea is now being called "the Martyr's Sea." A "scholar" at Cambridge says the effort could backfire.

‘Given Muslim ideas of holiness diffusing over large areas it is possible that a pilgrimage will develop as radicals stand on beaches contemplating the virtues of their dead hero,’ he added.

I wish we had not said where he was dumped. Sure, we could be lying, but what does it matter? The important thing is what people think -- if people think the North Arabian Sea is his shrine, then that's his shrine.

Again, we play right into their hands. Here, we apparently attempted to give him a burial at sea near Mecca. Why? Why such a gesture to a monster?

Why not deep in the Pacific? Why not the Marianas Trench? Why not the Sea of That's For Me To Know And You To Find Out?

The "scholar" continues, sounding not so much like a scholar but yet another in a long list of Muslims making demands on non-Mulsims.

‘Muslim scholars have been worried about the manner in which his mortal remains were consigned to the deep, he added, saying that Islam’s most respected scholars had already decreed the sea burial ‘religiously improper.’
‘Even mass murderers deserve a religiously valid burial. We are judged on how we behave when in a position of strength,’ he said.

Two points:

Shall the Jihadi Hero also be judged how he behaved when in a position of strength -- that is, when in a position to murder 3000 unknowing, unwarned civilians?

No? That just applies, as usual, to Muslims' enemies, eh?

The other point is obvious and well-noted. This game of claiming these people "aren't true Muslims." Apparently the aren't Muslims when we start thinking about policies negatively affecting Muslims, but they are Muslims when barbarians want to rattle their scimitars and demand "respect" for Muslim heroes.

So which is he? Non-Muslim demonic apostate? Or a true Muslim?

I am so sick of Muslim double-talk and Humpty Dumpty "words mean what I say they mean when I mean them to mean what I mean to mean" nonsense.

Posted by: Ace at 10:11 AM | Comments (158)
Post contains 378 words, total size 2 kb.

I think he means that in some kind of "good way" but of course my gloss is "We sent a message that people should vote Democrat."

Condescending Elitist Media Alert: Speaking to a firefighting chief who received Obama, a member of the media actually asked him this question:

"Did you have concerns about the men's behavior in a formal setting?"

Yes, that's right -- the chief was just asked by a member of the media whether or not he feared his "men" would be able to refrain from throwing feces in a "formal setting."

A Few Quotes: He actually didn't give a formal address, unless I missed it. He just greeted the families and dignitaries there. No microphones. Then bowed his head for a moment of silence.

His quotes come from previously meeting firemen; microphones and cameras ran there. His most noteworthy quote was "When we say we will never forget, we mean what we say." He also said it didn't matter what party or what administration was in charge. Which is debatable.

Posted by: Ace at 08:24 AM | Comments (449)
Post contains 215 words, total size 1 kb.

Unlike Andrew Breitbart, NRO's Jim Geraghty might actually read the posts here, because he frequently makes reference to them in his Morning Jolt e-Newsletter.

Thought I'd return the favor today and share his thoughts on the bin Laden picture.

Well, it didn't take long for President Obama to obliterate those warm feelings he generated on Sunday night. From the moment we heard the news, I'll bet some not-insignificant percentage of the American public said, "I want to see the body." Not because we're a bunch of voyeurs, but because we've been through these false alarms with disturbing regularity since 9/11. We think we get a guy, and then we don't. We had several false alarms with Saddam Hussein, and when he was captured, they showed a short video of him getting checked out by doctors.

What's that, Mr. President? The photos are "very graphic"? So was watching people jump to their deaths from the blazing Twin Towers, you hyperactive condescending nanny. About ten years ago, we had a national traumatic experience as we all watched thousands of people die before our very eyes when the towers collapsed. Since then, we've seen Daniel Pearl beheaded, Madrid subway cars blown up, London buses and trains blown up, Bali nightclubs blown up, a Beslan school turned into a massacre site. We've seen enough death and dismemberment of innocent civilians to last a lifetime. So pardon me for thinking that our delicate sensibilities might be able to handle seeing the man with more American blood on his hands than anyone else on the planet missing an eye and with some brain matter exposed.

What's that? It might be "an incitement to additional violence"? Show me one extremist Muslim who's not going to go into a violent rage over killing bin Laden, but who will do so if he sees the photos. Go out and find him. A few weeks ago, a bunch of Afghanis went on a rampage and killed a bunch of aid workers because Pastor Pyro down in Florida decided to flame-broil a Koran. A controversial book, a cartoon, the latest conspiracy theory -- it doesn't matter. These guys are just looking for excuses to run around and kill people in a frenzy.

I am tired of my government's adjusting its policies in these inane attempts to placate the triggers of rage among unstable people -- as if it's our fault for provoking them.

The truth will set you free, even when it's ugly or gruesome.

Right on!

And also ... more...

Posted by: andy at 06:13 AM | Comments (457)
Post contains 435 words, total size 3 kb.