An important number today.

Don't bother... it's a dreck piece that says Hillary is leading Obama 50% to 21%. Put out there for the knuckleheads. "Hillary! leads Barak by 50%" to whatever, it doesn't matter... the important number in the news today is "Hillary 50%".

It's so no one will associate this 50% number with Hillary!

On the same day. Wonder if that will work?

Probably.

It's a really old joke (really old, really lame) but it still makes me laugh.

I'll bet it's the zombies.

more...

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 06:16 PM | Comments (15)
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No "real" Al Qaeda in Iraq, part 63,833.

An Algerian fugitive suspected of playing a key role in the Madrid terror bombings of 2004 died in Iraq while fighting U.S.-led forces, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Spanish investigators learned from foreign intelligence services that Daoud Ouhnane died in Iraq in October or November 2006, El Pais said, quoting a confidential police report.

The report said that after fleeing Spain following the string of bombs that targeted the Madrid commuter rail network on March 11, 2004, Ouhnane was in contact with suspected Islamic extremists in Spain's northeast Catalonia region in 2005 and 2006, El Pais said.

Police could not be reached for comment on Sunday.

Spanish investigators have said another key suspect in the Madrid attacks, Moroccan Mohamed Afalah, is believed to have died in a suicide attack in Iraq in 2005.

Can we please now redeploy to Okinawa where all the real Al Qaeda terrorists can be found?

The True Face of Al Qaeda Terror:
Chozen from The Karate Kid, Part II

You insult my honor, Daniel-San. Now I kill you.

Thanks to dri.

Posted by: Ace at 04:26 PM | Comments (45)
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"They can either go quietly or they can go loudly, but either way, they will go." -- Governor-elect Bobby Jindal (R), on Louisiana's corrupt establishment

Posted by: Ace at 02:26 PM | Comments (34)
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I thought everyone had seen this, but when I mentioned it to someone he didn't know what I was talking about.

Anyway, kinda funny.

Posted by: Ace at 02:16 PM | Comments (21)
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Rounded up by the Blogometer, by candidate.

Posted by: Ace at 01:10 PM | Comments (13)
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BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

I've always known that the American left was made up of booger eaters. It appears that the Australian left is fixated on quite another slimy secretion.

Watch the video. The leftist mucus-monkey engaging in the "Barrier Reef Wax Diet" is none other than one Kevin Rudd. (He also looks a little like Adam West in this clip.) Rudd is attempting to beat America's best friend, John Howard, in the upcoming Australian parliamentary elections.

I wonder how that goes with a Fosters?

Kick his ass, Howard. And don't let him get too close to your ears.

Posted by: Jack M. at 12:52 PM | Comments (12)
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At And I Still Persist.

Meanwhile, CNN can't manage to break from all-day coverage of the fires -- repeating the same basic information and same photography all day -- in order to note the posthumous award of the MoH to Mike Murphy.

They support the troops.

Hey, didn't he die in heroic action in the war the MSM and left claims to support -- the "Forgotten War" in Afghanistan?

I guess the MSM and left are so delighted to call Afghanistan "The Forgotten War" that they seem to have forgotten all about it themselves.

Until Iraq is brought up, when they suddenly remember it and also remember how we're supposed to put the entire US military into Northwest Pakistan.

Posted by: Ace at 12:48 PM | Comments (17)
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My headline, not his. But that's the thrust.

After recapitulating the recent history of military successes and plunging rates of violent death -- well-known to blog readers, but neatly hidden from the American public -- Ledeen writes:

How is one to explain this turn of events? While our canny military leaders have been careful to give the lion’s share of the credit to terrorist excesses and locals’ courage, the most logical explanation comes from the late David Galula, the French colonel who fought in Algeria and then wrote “Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice” in the 1960s. He argued that insurgencies are revolutionary wars whose outcome is determined by control of, and support from, the population. The best way to think about such wars is to imagine the board game of Go. Each side starts with limited assets, each has the support of a minority of the territory and the population. Each has some assets within the enemy’s sphere of influence. The game ends when one side takes control of the majority of the population, and thus the territory.

Whoever gains popular support wins the war. Galula realized that while revolutionary ideology is central to the creation of an insurgency, it has very little to do with the outcome. That is determined by politics, and, just as in an election, the people choose the winner.

In the early phases of the conflict, the people remain as neutral as they can, simply trying to stay alive. As the war escalates, they are eventually forced to make a choice, to place a bet, and that bet becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The people have the winning piece on the board: intelligence. Once the Iraqis decided that we were going to win, they provided us with information about the terrorists: who they were, where they were, what they were planning, where their weapons were stashed, and so forth.

...

But [a mere preference for short-term occupation by lawful US troops over a long-term occupation by psychopathic terrorists] isn’t enough to explain the dramatic turnaround.... As Galula elegantly observed, “which side gives the best protection, which one threatens the most, which one is likely to win, these are the criteria governing the population’s stand. So much the better, of course, if popularity and effectiveness are combined.”

...Instead of keeping too many of our soldiers off the battlefield in remote and heavily fortified mega-bases, we put them into the field. Instead of reacting to the terroristsÂ’ initiatives, we went after them. No longer were we going to maintain the polite fiction that we were in Iraq to train the locals so that they could fight the war. Instead, we aggressively engaged our enemies. It was at that point that the Iraqi people placed their decisive bet.

Herschel Smith, of the blog Captain’s Journal, puts it neatly in describing the events in Anbar: “There is no point in fighting forces (U.S. Marines) who will not be beaten and who will not go away.” We were the stronger horse, and the Iraqis recognized it.

Perhaps we're getting ahead of ourselves (though I think not), but the MSM should be somewhat embarrassed that informed people are already reporting the "Why" and "How" of our recent success before the MSM has even acknowledged it's happened at all.

First draft of history? Uh-huh. At this pace the historians will easily outscoop the journalists.

Posted by: Ace at 12:42 PM | Comments (44)
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Today the President presented the Medal of Honor to the parents of Navy SEAL Lt. Michael Murphy.

Hot Air Has the Video.

You can read more about Lt. Murphy at Blackfive.

Thank God for men and women like Lt. Murphy. May our country be worth of their service and sacrifice.

The full citation is below the fold.
more...

Posted by: DrewM. at 12:08 PM | Comments (11)
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A Ted Turner produced "documentary" about the Soviet Union -- back when there was a Soviet Union, in 1988 -- is a must-listen jaw-dropper.

In only 43 seconds, they tell the tale.

"The right to religious freedom is enshrined in the Soviet Constitution?"

Really?

Really?

And... This is a good call from a journalist for other journalists to finally admit their biases -- in order to correct them and insure that their pieces don't end up as biased as they are as people. Of course it will be ignored.

everal years ago during a leadership seminar at Poynter, one of the participants approached me during a break.

"Can I tell you something about myself?" she asked.

"Sure," I said.

"I'm a conservative," she said as we walked past the library and the rows of books about journalism –- good, bad and ugly.

"And I'm the only one in my newsroom."

She paused, and before I could respond, added: "And none of the others know it. I wouldn't dare tell them. I'd never hear the end of it."

How about your newsroom? Would this editor feel comfortable revealing her political ideology to you and your colleagues?

Are you sure?

* * *

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I have two proposals:

First, I propose that it's time for journalists to stop wasting the precious few moments we have on this earth by denying that we are biased.

We just are. We're human. Besides, bias is not a dirty word. My biases, after all, help define me. And if I'm vigilant, they won't define my work.

But to be as vigilant as possible, I need help. Thus my second proposal:

Let's make our newsrooms safe for journalists to acknowledge their biases as a first step toward using them to improve our staff's work.

Let me explain.

On a day in August when I was in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to talk with the staff of The Oak Ridger about journalistic bias, another newsroom made news on Romenesko. Several members of The Seattle Times staff, responding to the announcement of Karl Rove's resignation, broke into cheers during the news meeting. The outburst prompted Executive Editor David Boardman to remind the staff in a memo to "keep your personal politics to yourself."

I agree with Boardman that partisan cheerleading among journalists is inappropriate. And I was impressed by something else he wrote in a memo to the staff:

"One of the advances of which I'm most proud over the years is our willingness to question and challenge each other as we work to give our readers the most valuable, meaningful journalism we can."

I've never worked in the Times newsroom, but I like the atmosphere Boardman described: a roomful of journalists so committed to the pursuit of excellent journalism that they're willing to challenge one another's assumptions, question one another's assertions, help one another acknowledge -– and compensate for -– their blind spots.

Now, what's the best way to achieve that atmosphere?

I ask that because my experiences –- and the last decade's newsroom scandals –- tell me that dynamic is not often at work. Journalists don't challenge each other nearly enough.

...

What does it take to create an atmosphere in which everyone in the newsroom can feel comfortable enough with their views -- or in their skin -- to speak out on behalf of fairness, accuracy, better journalism?

Boardman's right: We don't get that atmosphere by engaging in partisan outbursts. But I can't help thinking what an opportunity was squandered in that conservative editor's newsroom because she felt too insecure to say to her colleagues, "Listen, I have a problem with this story. I happen to share this person's point of view, and I can help you understand it. I can help you avoid faulty assumptions, if you want to do that."

...

Can we master an admittedly difficult balancing act: how to bring our whole selves -- biases and all -- to the office, and put them to good use on behalf of better journalism?

To do that, a newsroom leader needs to start with an honest assessment of the room's diversity: not just how much diversity exists, whether it be political, racial, ethnic, lifestyle, whatever, but how safe it is for people to express their differences.

* Can they trust that their questions and observations won't be dismissed or ridiculed?
* Can they trust that their colleagues are open to different points of view?
* Can they trust that they won't be labeled troublemakers –- or, in the current vernacular of pop management circles –- assholes?

Sure they can, you say. In my newsroom, everyone is invited, encouraged, expected to speak up.

I hope you're right. But you might want to check.

Read the whole thing, as they say.

Posted by: Ace at 11:32 AM | Comments (32)
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