Ann Althouse's commenters have the goods (and prove once again that there's more combined sense and knowledge among a host of commenters than there is in any one journalist or blogger).

It boils down to this observation: the photo released by the White House, which is so obviously snapped as a souvenir by one of the escort pilots, cannot possibly be the reason for the flight. The Friday afternoon sacking of the White House military liaison was meant to shut people up and give the White House press corps a reason to let the whole thing go.

See the sunlight reflected off the window in the upper right? The edge of the cockpit in the lower right corner? This is an amateur photo, not the product of a professional photo op.

Update: Several commenters are mentioning the EXIF data. Per Althouse's commenters (linked above), the EXIF data was removed (probably with Photoshop). Slublog sends along this link with more info.

Another update: Nice Deb has digitially enhanced versions with analysis.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:45 AM | Comments (106)
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I have written and posted videos joking about the differences between Special Forces and Rangers and obviously my sentiments fall with the longer of the tabs. But in the end it's just some bad-assed professionals doing amazing work. Matt from Blackfive and I spent the weekend at Ft. Benning covering the Best Ranger Competition and got to see the top dogs from that community fight it out in a grueling test of guts and skills. Here is a light-hearted look at some of the stuff Rangers do (video below the fold) more...

Posted by: Uncle Jimbo at 07:25 AM | Comments (18)
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This story made the rounds over the weekend but I thought I'd save it for prime time here at the HQ.

Just click the link.

Two bits of warning...the video starts automatically, so if you are trying to pretend that you are working be warned. Second, if tearing up in public bothers you, wait till you get home.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:19 AM | Comments (25)
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The upcoming issue of the Weekly Standard has the best treatment of the Notre Dame situation that I've seen. The author recognizes that for Catholics this isn't about politics--or not just about politics. It's about what it means to be a Catholic institution.

What all these critics of Glendon share is a sense that Catholic unhappiness with Notre Dame must be about politics. "There is a political game going on here, and part of that is that you demonize the people who disagree with you, you question their integrity, you challenge their character, and you brand these people as moral poison," Fr. Kenneth Himes, chairman of the theology department at Boston College, complained to the Boston Globe. As James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal noted, this was the same Fr. Himes who in 2006 wrote the faculty a letter objecting to an honorary degree for Condoleezza Rice--a letter that read, "On the levels of both moral principle and practical moral judgment, Secretary Rice's approach to international affairs is in fundamental conflict with Boston College's commitment to the values of the Catholic and Jesuit traditions and is inconsistent with the humanistic values that inspire the university's work."

You could cut the irony with a knife: It's only demonizing when conservatives do it. Still Fr. Himes joins Douglas Kmiec, and America, and Commonweal, and the administration of Notre Dame, and most of the newspaper columnists who've weighed in on the controversy, and a surprising number of conservatives. They all look at the Notre Dame protests and think it must be about politics. Bad politics or good politics, take your pick. But politics all the way down.

As it happens, they're wrong. Politics has very little to do with the mess. This isn't a fight about who won the last presidential election and how he's going to deal with abortion. It's a fight about culture--the culture of American Catholicism, and how Notre Dame, still living in a 1970s Catholic world, has suddenly awakened to find itself out of date.

The role of culture is what Fr. Jenkins at Notre Dame and many other presidents of Catholic colleges don't quite get, and their lack of culture is what makes them sometimes seem so un-Catholic--though the charge befuddles them whenever it is made. As perhaps it ought. They know very well that they are Catholics: They go to Mass, and they pray, and their faith is real, and their theology is sophisticated, and what right has a bunch of other Catholics to run around accusing them of failing to be Catholic?

But, in fact, they live in a different world from most American Catholics. Opposition to abortion doesn't stand at the center of Catholic theology. It doesn't even stand at the center of Catholic faith. It does stand, however, at the center of Catholic culture in this country. Opposition to abortion is the signpost at the intersection of Catholicism and American public life. And those who--by inclination or politics--fail to grasp this fact will all eventually find themselves in the situation that Fr. Jenkins has now created for himself. Culturally out of touch, they rail that the antagonism must derive from politics. But it doesn't. It derives from the sense of the faithful that abortion is important. It derives from the feeling of many ordinary Catholics that the Church ought to stand for something in public life--and that something is opposition to abortion.

This is the calculation that the Notre Dame administration failed to make. Take it as a given that it would and will ignore the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which instructed Catholic institutions not to honor individuals who act to support abortion. The university has always held itself apart--it is, after all, the most prestigious Catholic university in the country--surely the rules don't really apply to it. The administrators recognized the prestige attached to a visit from the Historic President and, well, damn the rest. Catholicism can wait for tomorrow, right?

To be honest, this isn't unexpected. Catholicism itself has been mainstreaming for forty years. Vatican II gets blamed a lot, but the USCCB went above and beyond in its accommodation to divorcing Catholicism on Sunday mornings from Catholicism the rest of the week. Relaxing instruction and expectations in "core" Catholic institutions, including at Mass and in religious education, is something all Catholics are used to by now. (This was hilariously and accurately parodied with Dogma's Buddy Christ.)

No bishop has spoken up to support Notre Dame, but the Notre Dame administration is probably thinking: "I didn't leave them, they left me." The administration is not wrong. The USCCB has decided that it has come this far, but no farther. Will its late-recognized authority be recognized? I doubt it:

A better place to make all this public might have been the Sacred Heart University dinner this spring, which honored the pro-abortion activist Kerry Kennedy. Or the Xavier University commencement, which is honoring the pro-abortion political strategist Donna Brazile. Or the University of San Francisco graduation, which is honoring the pro-abortion district attorney (and prominent Proposition 8 opponent) Kamala Harris.

For that matter, the fight should have been held in April, when Georgetown University accommodated President Obama's handlers by covering up the IHS, the monogram for Jesus, on the wall behind the rostrum when Obama spoke on campus. You'd think this really would mark the end for Georgetown. The school typically shrugs off criticism of its lack of Catholicism by proudly declaring its "Jesuit Tradition," but the IHS monogram was the symbol for the Jesuits that St. Ignatius Loyola himself chose when he founded the society in the 16th century.

Read the whole thing.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:51 AM | Comments (98)
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When in doubt, go with a talking point the media refuses to challenge:

WASHINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) - High U.S. budget deficits are being driven by an economic crisis that President Barack Obama inherited, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said on Monday.

Put another way:

For the current year, the government would borrow 46 cents for every dollar it takes to run the government under the administration's plan. In one of the few positive signs, the actual 2009 deficit is likely to be $250 billion less than predicted because Congress is unlikely to provide another $250 billion in financial bailout money.

Update - AP fact checks Obama. Hopeychangey rhetoric, lefty trolls hardest hit. (h/t: Instapundit)

Posted by: Slublog at 06:10 AM | Comments (85)
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Obama Hates the Unemployed. I'm reminded of classic Mel Brooks: "Fuck the poor!"[krakatoa]

Posted by: Open Blog at 05:35 AM | Comments (1)
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:21 AM | Comments (68)
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You can take this CNN story in a number of ways, none of them good. It's regarding an Army vet who served in Iraq and and was convicted last Thursday of rape, murder and a host of other crimes. Four other members of his unit have already been convicted on charges related to the crime and are currently serving time.

As far as I'm concerned, if he's guilty of these crimes (and apparently is), he needs to get aquainted with a firing squad as soon as possible. Though it seems like a waste of perfectly good bullets.

That said, it's not the point of this post, merely background on the story. CNN could've just written it up as a straight news story, but simply couldn't help themselves:

""All of my buddies were getting killed over there. My lieutenant got his face blown off. ... George Bush and Dick Cheney ought to be the ones that are arrested."

Green, a high school dropout, was a product of Bush's hometown of Midland, Texas. He had enlisted in 2005, leaving the hot, dry, oil-rich land of the Permian Basin for another hot, dry, oil-rich land.

"Joining the Army was the worst decision I ever made," he said."

Yep. That added a lot to the narrative article. But I suppose that's what you come to expect from a news organization apparently staffed by people who write at the level of 12-year-olds. And not very bright ones at that.

Nicely done, you pieces of worthless shit. If only I could travel back in time to, say 9th grade, I'd hope to do a better job this time of beating the living fuck out of your smarmy A/V club asses. Apparently I didn't do a thorough enough job the first time around.

Posted by: Open Blog at 02:05 AM | Comments (56)
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Timelapse video of an itty-bitty tanker on its way out to sea. It's a gorgeous trip.

0:40 - 610 Bridge
0:54 - Lyondell Turning Basin
1:10 - Crown Bend
1:44 - Jesse Jones Bridge (aka Beltway 8 bridge, aka 2 dollar bridge)
2:13 - Battleship Texas (on the right, mostly unlit)
2:17 - Lynchburg Ferry Crossing
2:20 - Peggy's Lake
2:37 - Baytown
2:46 - Fred Hartman Bridge
2:58 - Morgan's Point
From then on it's Galveston Bay.

This is a Panamax tanker--that is, the largest tanker that can make it through the Panama canal. They get considerably larger.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:11 PM | Comments (48)
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It is inevitable, I suppose, that any company dependent on the non-conformist consumer to compete against an entrenched juggernaut will eventually become that which it espouses to rebel against.

Apple is to benefit from the University of Missouri's school of Journalism requirement that students must have an iPhone or iPod.

Before you protest that it may seem ridiculous, lavish, or favoring Apple to force students to pick up one of these expensive pieces of hardware, Brian Brooks, associate dean of the journalism school, told the Columbia Missourian that the requirement "will not be enforced, however, and there will not be a penalty for students who chose not to buy an iPod touch or iPhone."

Sure, sure. It won't be enforced... for now. After a few semesters though, don't be surprised to see Justin Long-coiffed stormtroopers beating freshmen into compliance.

Related: Google CEO Eric Schmidt is raising anti-trust flags since he sits on the boards of both Google and Apple.

The irony is that Microsoft intends to cite Google as an antitrust example when it defends itself against anticompetition charges before the European Commission next month, arguing that any mandate to force Microsoft to promote competing browsers would strengthen Google's stranglehold on the online advertising market.

Remember those innocent days when Apple was going to rescue us from Big Brothers IBM & Microsoft? more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 05:02 AM | Comments (67)
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