June 07, 2009
— Open Blog While youÂ’re waiting around for the overnight thread to appear, hereÂ’s a class project you can all work on (and it doesnÂ’t require any ElmerÂ’s glue or those annoying safety scissors): Little Miss Attila passed on some information about a list compiled by Wikio in which they rank The Top 100 Political Blogs.
These lists are always kind of goofy, but something seems to be sorely lacking from this one though. CanÂ’t quite put my finger on it. Read onÂ…
There’s a chain of links to get to the list (did you think we were going to make this easy for you?) so you start off at Little Miss Attila’s place, then you’re off to Instapundit’s house where his link takes you to an ABC News Blog called “The Note,” which is run by some news critter named Rick Klein and humbly subtitled “Washington’s Original and Most Influential Tipsheet.” (It should be noted that “The Note” didn’t make Wikio’s top 100 list). Rick would like you to know:
But hereÂ’s an interesting tool I recently came across: From Wikio.com, itÂ’s a ranking of political blogs -- emanating from everywhere from living rooms, mainstream media organizations, and the White House.
I think we can certainly agree with the tool part. Some of your fellow morons have already paid a visit to the comments there. They seemed unimpressed. Finally, The Note provides you a link to the Wikio list. Wikio states what their methodology for the rankings are and it seems to be based entirely on links from other blogs, without really taking much of anything else into account. IÂ’ve copied it below the fold. Anyway, something to keep you amused.
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04:09 PM
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— DrewM I like to think the White House is happy about this, I know I am
Heavy turnout in Christian districts returned to power a Western-backed coalition in the Lebanese parliament on Sunday, thwarting a bid by the Islamist Hezbollah party to increase its influence.Preliminary results showed that the March 14 coalition of Sunni Muslims and Christians won at least 70 seats in the country's 128-member parliament. The group currently holds 70 seats, but vote counting in several closely contested districts continued through the early morning and could add to the total.
In brief victory remarks, coalition leader Saad Hariri said the country's competing factions must "give a hand to each other and have the will to go back to work." Hariri is the son of the former prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri, a Sunni whose 2005 assassination helped sweep the March 14 group to power.
And a big "Screw You" to Syria as well? Yeah, that calls for Lebanese protest babes!
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04:01 PM
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— Dave in Texas Russ and Drew noted the passing of the anniversary yesterday with a couple of very good posts. I didn't really have anything to add until xbradtc pointed me to this article in the Atlantic, November 1960, recounting the first wave landings of two companies, Able and Baker, 116th Infantry, 29th Division, at Omaha Beach.
Most who have read accounts of the Normandy invasion of June 6 1944 are aware, at some level, that it was bad at Omaha Beach. We know, the outcome was not at all certain. We have some awareness about how the first units that came ashore suffered horrendous casualties, foundered. Fought to enter the fight, and fought to survive that entry.
Within seven minutes after the ramps drop, Able Company is inert and leaderless. At Boat No. 2, Lieutenant Tidrick takes a bullet through the throat as he jumps from the ramp into the water. He staggers onto the sand and flops down ten feet from Private First Class Leo J. Nash. Nash sees the blood spurting and hears the strangled words gasped by Tidrick: "Advance with the wire cutters!" It's futile; Nash has no cutters. To give the order, Tidrick has raised himself up on his hands and made himself a target for an instant. Nash, burrowing into the sand, sees machine gun bullets rip Tidrick from crown to pelvis. From the cliff above, the German gunners are shooting into the survivors as from a roof top.
Inspiring and heartbreaking stuff.
Sixteen screen scrolls or so (if that makes any sense). Very much worth your time.
Posted by: Dave in Texas at
01:46 PM
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— Open Blog This was mentioned in Gabe's open thread last night:
Gov. Palin was in Auburn, NY yesterday to commemorate that city's native son, Alaska-acquiring Secretary of State William Seward. She also gave a speech, which you can see here, or embedded below the cut.
The local Rochester paper has a very nice story, or you can read the innuendo-laden account at WaPo.
Update: muffy notes that Palin is in Westchester and Long Island today. Ack, great day for me to be out of town... more...
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06:27 AM
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June 06, 2009
— Open Blog Some miscellany for a Saturday night:
Item #1: Looking for a site with “hilariously detailed recaps of movies, TV and more?” Maybe The Agony Booth is for you. Or at least it claims to be. You can thank or blame kbdabear for the link.
Item #2: Or you can go check out the WorldÂ’s Largest Model Railway which is in Hamburg, Germany (Link is to a YouTube vid which itself has a link to the museum where itÂ’s located. Very extensive and detailed it is. IÂ’m almost 99% sure that just before 3 minutes into the video they actually have a little scene where tiny plastic rescuers are pulling a tiny, plastic, dead, naked body out of a creek.) Thanks to sickinmass, whoÂ’s favorite scale of model train is HO, obviously.
Item #3: Finally, itÂ’s time to start thinking about your summer travel plans. Maybe a nice island vacation? Cracked makes scheduling your itinerary a breeze with its guide to 6 Real Islands Way More Terrifying than the one on Lost.
Tonight's overnight thread is sponsored by the nachos that none of you heartless bastards provided last night.
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03:33 PM
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— Dave in Texas Former CIA deputy director at both the CIA's Office of Terrorism Analysis and the National Counterterrorism Center Phillip Mudd withdrew yesterday.
Ostensibly because senators were going to ask him hard questions about his role at CIA on interrogation.
Uh huh.
When, near the end of a two-hour session, they went over Mudd's CIA positions from 2001 to 2005, it became apparent that questions about harsh interrogations, renditions and allegations that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had links to al-Qaeda would have to be explored, according to a person at the session who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the matter."Since he was deputy director of the counterterrorism center, he was going to be asked whether interrogation produced useful intelligence, and if it didn't, why didn't he stop it?" the source said.
Funny, you don't have to ask that second question if the answer (you'd just as soon not hear) is that it did produce useful intelligence. It becomes, what's the word, moot I think. Yes, that's the word.
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02:33 PM
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— Gabriel Malor You guys look like you need some room to grow.
/atrios
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02:32 PM
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— DrewM
Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have
striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The
hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.
In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on
other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war
machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of
Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well
equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of
1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats,
in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their
strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home
Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions
of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.
The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to
Victory!I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in
battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great
and noble undertaking.
SIGNED: Dwight D. Eisenhower
As those once young men pass away from this world, we should be thankful for what they did. We should also be thankful that a new Greatest Generation has once again stepped forward to pick up the torch and carry it forward. Today's Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen fighting around the world are worthy descendants of the men of D-Day. God truly has blessed America.
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05:54 AM
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— Russ from Winterset You know what I did this morning? Maybe it would be better if I told you what I didn't do this morning.
I didn't have to spend over 12 hours on a transport ship in choppy water, then clamber down a cargo net into a plywood landing craft, all while carrying up to 100 pounds of gear on my back. Then, I didn't ride through the rough surf in that little plywood target, only to have the steel ramp (the only part of the little plywood boat that was even remotely bullet-resistant) flop down and drop me into the cold ocean water in front of a beach filled with steel obstacles, mines, flying bullets & exploding artillery rounds.
I didn't fly over enemy occupied territory at 1000 feet in a C47 cargo plane and then jump out of the plane into the teeth of enemy anti-aircraft fire. I didn't have to worry about my bright white silk parachute making me a good target for troops on the ground who wanted to use me for target practice, and after I landed, I didn't have to worry about engaging a vastly superior force with only the gear I carried with me (providing that said gear wasn't ripped off by the turbulence I encountered exiting the plane) with whoever I could gather together from the other troops dropped behind enemy lines the same as I was.
I didn't march into a plywood glider (PLYWOOD, as we've already established, is NOT very resistant to gunfire and explosions) and sit quietly while I was towed into anti-aircraft fire, only to be released and experience a controlled crash into trees, buildings or apparently open fields that were booby trapped with wooden poles and steel cables by the enemy.
I wasn't asked to take my place in a McGyvered together amphibious tank, where I would most likely be swamped by the waves and sink to the bottom of the English Channel like....well, like a tank rigged for amphibious operations with lumber and canvas. And if I DID happen to get to the beach, I would have been the prime target of every enemy artillery piece for miles around.
I wasn't asked to sit in a command bunker deep beneath London looking at casualty projections that predicted that we would lose 60% of the airborne troops committed to this battle and a good chunk of the troops storming the beaches, and I also didn't prepare a letter taking full blame for the possible disaster in order to protect my political leaders.
You know what? Now that I've told you what I DIDN'T do this morning, what I actually DID seems pretty freakin' trivial. Veterans of the Normandy landing are becoming scarce now that we're sixty-five years down the road from that horrible day, but if you know one of them, make sure to thank them on this day. And don't limit yourself to D-Day vets - whether it was Normandy, Okinawa, the Chosin Reservoir, the Tet Offensive, Grenada, Panama, Mogadishu, Fallujah, or just some godforsaken mountain road at the ass-end of Afghanistan, EVERYONE who served this country in uniform deserves a hearty handshake and our everlasting gratitude on this day.
And those veterans who never saw a shot fired in anger? Thank them too. As John Wayne once said in his last movie role, "It's not about being the fastest gun: Its about being WILLING." Everyone who wore the uniform was willing to "go see the elephant", and that willingness sets them apart from the rest of us.
God help any nation that cannot produce men and women like them. Remember that on this day.
Posted by: Russ from Winterset at
05:04 AM
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June 05, 2009
— Open Blog SorryÂ…political-free zone tonight. ItÂ’s Friday after all. Now get into the kitchen and start whipping up margaritas (make mine a triple). And would it kill you to make me some nachos ferÂ’ chrissakes?
Item #1: Popular Mechanics has a 40th anniversary retrospective about the Apollo 11 moonshot which includes tons of interactish stuff like videos and audio for you to look at and/or listen to. After you make the nachos of course.
Item #2: With the 65th anniversary of D-Day on Saturday, we might as well get into a martial mood with CrackedÂ’s list of 7 WTF Military Weapons You WonÂ’t Believe They Actually Built. IÂ’d believe it of course, but the rest of you are heretics and unbelievers. And where are my damn nachos anyway?
Item #3: Since weÂ’re dreaming of things weÂ’ll never have (like my nachos), might as well dream big. Leave it to Gizmodo to let us know how pathetic our earning power really is by flaunting a Saudi PrinceÂ’s $485 million A380 Flying Palace. Some highlights:
”What's 239 feet long, flies at 647mph, and has three floors that include a grand staircase, four giant full suites, boardroom with hologram projector, a full spa, concert hall, car garage, and a space-age lift that drops onto the runway?”
I guess weÂ’re supposed to be impressed or something. WhereÂ’s the swimming pool? Harem quarters? What about the bowling alley and on-board ski slope? Petting zoo? I bet the galley has nachos though. Served on the nubile bellies of naked wenches.
Which all reminds meÂ…probably time to stop by the gas station soon and fill up the truck. And maybe pick up a bag of Tostitos.
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07:52 PM
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