Chris Matthews Screams That There Were No "Close Operational Ties" Between Osama Bin Ladin and Hirohito

Found on Free Republic:

Today we mark the anniversary of a fateful day in American history. On December the 7th, 1941, our peaceful nation awoke to an attack plotted in secret and executed without mercy. The strike on Pearl Harbor was the start of a long war for America — a massive struggle against those who attacked us and those who shared their destructive ambitions.

Fortunately for all of us, a great generation of Americans was more than equal to the challenge. Our nation pulled together and despite setbacks and battlefield defeats, we did not waver in freedom's cause.

With courage and determination, we won a war on two fronts: We liberated millions, we aided the rise of democracy in Europe and Asia, we watched enemies become allies, and we laid the foundation of peace for generations.

On September the 11th, 2001, our nation awoke to another sudden attack. In the space of just 102 minutes more Americans were killed than we lost at Pearl Harbor. Like generations before us, we accepted new responsibilities, and we confronted new dangers with firm resolve.

Like generations before us, we're taking the fight to those who attacked us — and those who share their murderous vision for future attacks. Like generations before us, we've faced setbacks on the path to victory — yet we will fight this war without wavering. And like the generations before us, we will prevail.

Posted by: Ace at 11:35 AM | Comments (18)
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Please, excuse me, but I feel that an open letter stands the best chance of making it past your cronies and yes men, those toadies too afraid to tell you what you need to hear.

Let me start off by asking you a simple question. What is wrong with this picture? (putting aside the checkered-head lunatic in the background)

I’m sure some of you are saying “Well, it’s obvious. Where’s the tie?”

Sure, a dictator has to look good AND convey formality. But the casual look has its merits. Much like the software CEO who comes to work in jeans and a turtleneck, a causal look can signal youÂ’re above the rules. YouÂ’re in control, but not uptight about it.

Also, the suit-no-tie is a clean look. Even if youÂ’re an old fuddy-duddy, think about it for casual Friday round the compound/palace. Just putting it out there as an option.

But thatÂ’s not my beef. Try again.

“Aha, the medals! Where are the medals? Without mine, I’m naked.”

True, but you can’t really fault Saddam here. Captivity and all that. While I agree with the general sentiment that ‘if you can’t wear rows and rows of flashy gold medals, what the point of awarding yourself them anyway?’ I would caution aginst excess. There comes, very early in the medals game, a point of diminishing returns.

But thatÂ’s not it either. No. My beef is with the finger.

“The finger?” you ask. Yes, the finger. Or rather, it’s elevation. Its placement. Nothing signals, “I am a ridiculous third-rate dictator” like the finger above the head. E.g:

You know who can pull off that look? Comic book super-villains and visitors from the future traveling with dire warnings we must change our ways. Forgive me, but regardless what your cronies tell you, you are neither. more...

Posted by: Dr. Reo Symes at 11:35 AM | Comments (30)
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But the person may have merely been "unbalanced."

Thanks to Greg.

Update by Harry Callahan: He's dead, Jim.

Posted by: Ace at 11:24 AM | Comments (22)
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Over at My Pet Jawa, including an expanded and special-effects-crazy "Troops" video I haven't seen yet. I've only seen smaller, less professional looking clips before.*

Best line, as Stormtroopers discuss the "domestic dispute" between Aunt Beru and Uncle Lars:

"I'm ready to shoot these people right now."

"Yep, I'm right there with ya."

Also, check out the Freegan Trading Spouses video on the linked by the words "goes public."

You're going to love this kid. Trust me.

* Actually, I don't know, maybe this is the original. When I first saw these clips, years ago, broadband wasn't available (or at least I didn't have it) so it was the age of the thirty-second low-res download.

Posted by: Ace at 10:59 AM | Comments (7)
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Giant freakin' jellyfish:

THEY are called echizen kurage and they sound like monsters from the trashier reaches of Japanese science fiction.

They are 6ft wide and weigh 450lb (200kg), with countless poisonous tentacles, they have drifted across the void to terrorise the people of Japan. Vast armadas of the slimy horrors have cut off the countryÂ’s food supply. As soon as one is killed more appear to take its place.

Finally, the quarrelsome governments of the region are banding together to unite against the enemy.

Echizen kurage is not an extraterrestrial invader, but a giant jellyfish that is devastating the livelihoods of fishermen in the Sea of Japan. NomuraÂ’s jellyfish, as it is known in English, is the biggest creature of its kind off Japan and for reasons that remain mysterious its numbers have surged in the past few months.

The problem has become so serious that fishery officials from Japan, China and South Korea are to meet this month for a “jellyfish summit” to discuss strategies for dealing with the invasion. Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party has formed a jellyfish countermeasures committee and fishermen are at work on technology to keep the marauders out of their nets.

Giant. Freakin'. Jellyfish.

Thanks to isayalotofthings.

Posted by: Ace at 10:27 AM | Comments (15)
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Kesher Talk has a blogburst about the 1972 Olympics massacre of Israeli athletes.

The excellent documentary One Day In September recounts the tragedy, and also the subequent betrayal. The German government arrested the Palestinian murderers, but then arranged, with the connivance of the PLO, to have a German plane with a minimal number of passengers "hijacked" as a pretext for releasing these thugs.

Which then led to the Israeli Mossad hunting them down. Which is the subject, of course, of Steven Spielberg's big-buzz Munich film.

Although I'm concerned that Spielberg is attempting to take the morality out of the story -- he portrays Mossad agents as conflicted, and explains the "root causes" for the terrorism; he also had uberlefty playwright Tony Kushner rewrite the script -- I'm more hopeful than worried.

Giving a nod to the "root causes" is, in today's PC climate, all but unavoidable. For those who worry that Tony Kushner has turned out a very left-wing script... well, directors, especially big directors like Spielberg, are the real writers of the script, in the sense that nothing's in there that they don't want to be in there, and everything in there is what they told the writer to put in there.

Just as George Clooney & Co. used the pro-liberation Bob Baer book as the suggestion for the anti-American Syriana -- trading on Baer's authority to give a veneer of credibility to their paranoiac fantasies -- it's quite possible Spielberg just hired the notably left-wing and anti-war Kushner to appease the left.

Spielberg is undeniably a liberal, but I don't think he's a peacenik liberal. He's Jewish, of course, which makes it hard to believe he'd actually justify the massacre of Jews, a big supporter of the Holocaust Museum, and of course a big supporter of the WWII Memorial Project. He also spoke out in support (soft, cautious support, but support nonetheless) for ousting Saddam when interviewed before the toughest pro-Saddam crowd out there -- the French celebrity journalist corps at Cannes.

Despite the anger that a lot of conservatives already have towards this project, I'm taking a wait-and-see attitude. Yes, there will be some exposition about the motivations of the killers. But that's to be expected; even in a decidedly anti-terrorist popcorn film like True Lies, the villain announced his grievances with the west ("You bomb our countries from afar like cowards and you dare to call us terrorists!"). And yes, there will be moral conflict in the heroes; but that's more a nod to the dramatic form than politics. (Not many movies are made about unconflicted heroes, after all.)

It's possible that the movie will be precisely the exercise in terrorist apologism that some fear, of course, but given Spielberg's background, and given the fact he's got all the power in Hollywood to make whatever sort of movie he likes, no matter how un-PC, I imagine it will be more like Saving Private Ryan. Anti-war/anti-violence/anti-retribution themes running through it, to be sure, but never quite losing sight of the fact that sometimes the Bad Guys have to be put down like dogs.

Plus, it's got a happy ending. Most of the murderers ended up being killed. You can put in all the mournful, uncertain trumpet music you like over the over the death-montage which will, inevitably, run at the end of the movie, but that's not going to be enough to keep people from thinking "Yessss!" when they see, as George Bush said, the terrorists being brought to justice, or, better yet, justice being brought to them.

Posted by: Ace at 10:20 AM | Comments (16)
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As a commenter pointed out (but, being a dork, of course I already knew it), the word "assassin" derives from hashassim, killers who were given hash in order to make them... I don't know, really mellow during hits or somethin'. To be honest, I never really got that. The last thing you'd want in an assassin is a bad case of the munchies and a well-nigh irrestible desire to watch Ren & Stimpy cartoons (and then insist, despite all available evidence, that the show is "sick-funny").

It's already been noted that many Iraqi insurgents are meth-heads. Noah Shachtman's always-interesting Defense Tech notes that some are now taking a potent synthetic hallucinogen, too, a drug first developed as a chemical weapon:

The story starts over a year ago with a Marine blogger in Iraq....

“We could not understand why they kept coming but they did.” The reason, it turned out, was drugs: “…these ‘holy warriors’ are taking drugs to get high before attacks. It true, as we pushed into the town in April many Marines came across drug paraphernalia (mostly heroin). Recently, we have gotten evidence of them using another drug BZ that makes them high and very aggressive.”

BZ is not your typical substance of abuse. It’s a hallucinogenic chemical weapon. This weird concept originated in the 1950’s when “better living through chemistry” was a slogan to live by and warfare without blood was the goal.

...

BZ or "Agent Buzz" is the military name for 3-quinuclidinyl benzillate, an extremely powerful hallucinogen. After experimenting with a whole stash of mind-altering substances including cocaine, heroin and LSD, the Pentagon selected BZ for weaponizing. Its major advantages are that it can easily delivered in an aerosol cloud, and it is very safe.

So, for all you libertarians out there: your continued purchases of weaponized, aerosolized 3-quinuclidinyl benzillate for "recreational purposes" are funding the terrorists.

Stupid, selfish libertarians.

Posted by: Ace at 09:51 AM | Comments (13)
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I know there are serveral frequent tipsters and commenters who have blogs... if you guys could just let me know your blogs, I'll be happy to include them. Just remind me who I'm missing.

Posted by: Ace at 09:43 AM | Comments (18)
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Kinda funny.

It's on Al Gore's Current TV website. Is it good enough to give him traffic? Eh, close enough. It's pretty sad anyway that Al Gore is now reduced to running an oscure cable channel, so what's the harm? It'll be off the air soon enough.

Thanks to Bohemian Conservative.

It's Old Preemptive Strike: Of course "it's old." Al Gore just discovered it. Al Gore is one of the four people in the United States less hip than I am.

The other three are Hansen. Although, seriously, that chick in the band is all sorts of hot.

Credit Correction: The link I provided initially was to a copycat Bohemian Conservative. The new link is to the real one.

Posted by: Ace at 09:40 AM | Comments (8)
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Global warming alert!

The inimitable Mark Steyn takes on global warming hysteria.

[Earth has become Planet Goofy], a strange lost world where it's perfectly normal for apparently sane people to walk around protesting about global warming in sub-zero temperatures. Or, as the Canadian Press reported: "Montreal - tens of thousands of people ignored frigid temperatures Saturday to lead a worldwide day of protest against global warming."

Unfortunately, no one had supplied an updated weather forecast to the fellow who writes the protesters' chants. So, to the accompaniment of the obligatory pseudo-ethnic drummers, the shivering eco-warriors sang: "It's hot in here! There's too much carbon in the atmosphere!" Is this the first sign of the "New Ice Age" the media warned us about last week?

Isn't that by Nelly?

...

But the point is, as Steven Guilbeault of Greenpeace puts it: "Global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter, that's what we're dealing with." Got that? If it's hot, that's a sign of global warming, and, if it's cold, that's a sign of global warming.

And if it's just kind of average - say, 48F and partially cloudy, as it will be in Llandudno today - that's a sign that global warming is accelerating out of control and you need to flee immediately because time is running out !

The Northeast had some unseasonably warm weather last week, which we all enjoyed quite a bit. Notice they didn't blame that on global warming. Because most people would have said "Really? I could get used to this."

Read it all. It gets better and better.

Posted by: Ace at 08:40 AM | Comments (53)
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