Good news:

According to CNN, the official favorite cable news network of The Country Pundit, our boys in beige have laid the smack down on the Fedayeen Saddam, inflicting 46 KIA, 18 WIA, with an additional 8 POWs. Our people suffered no KIA and 5 WIA; 3 of the latter have been transported to hospitals with injuries that do not appear life-threatening.

The Baathist attacks were upon two different targets but were launched "simultaneously", according to CNN. In both instances, American convoys were targeted.

The Country Pundit's favorite part (other than the announced kill ratio):

Troops from the 1st Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment and U.S. military police responded with a barrage of cannon fire from tanks and armored personnel carriers, [Master Sergeant Robert] Cargie said. When the attackers put up a makeshift barricade in an attempt to block one convoy, U.S. armor steamrolled over it, he said.

The Baathists provoked our 120mm and 25mm cannon fire with improvised explosive devices, rifles, mortars, and the by-now ubiquitous rocket-propelled grenades. Apparently the state of education in Saddam's Iraq was such that these guys were dumb enough to think that they'll get away with this one. Deliberate suicide attacks might be rather difficult to stop, but I bet these schmoes thought they were going to be getting the bling bling (or something) for spilling American blood. What they didn't get told was that the only bling bling in it for them was the approximate sound of American cartridge cases hitting concrete. Muahahaha.

Woo friggin' hoo. In the immortal words of video game hero Duke Nukem, "Come get some!"¹ I can only get a Calvinesque big evil grin on my face coupled with a guttural laugh of "Heh heh heh" when reading about this. It's just too perfect---I'm glad we're whipping up on these people.²

Message for the Fedayeen Saddam: Your beatings will continue until resistance ceases.

¹ I am aware of the fact that Bruce Campbell's Ash utters these words ahead of Duke in terms of a popular culture timeline, but Duke Nukem 3D was the first time I'd ever heard the phrase.

² Despite the obviously celebratory nature of this post, the Pundit is a Christian man and will remember the souls of the dead in his evening prayer, wishing that it didn't have to be this way---it doesn't; go home and build the new no-Saddam Iraq---but not wavering in his resolve to support seeing the mission through and getting our people out. Every time some third-world militia tries to kill our people, I usually cheer at their failure but then I'm also reminded of the words uttered at the 1898 Battle of Santiago Bay by the captain of USS Texas, John Woodward Philip, as his ship helped pound the Spanish Oquendo: "Don't cheer boys, the poor devils are dying." I hate war.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Dana at Note-It Posts, home of America's #1 Pin-Up Girl, for the notification.

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This just in, from Rod Dreher at NRO's Corner:

Members of Egypt's persecuted Coptic Christian minority have been putting icthyus (fish) bumper stickers on their cars, announcing their Christian identities. Muslims have responded by putting hungry shark stickers on their bumpers.

The full story is available here from a source of unknown reliability, but there seem to be ties to the Associated Press and Media General, which does happen to have a significant presence in Virginia as a news-services company in television and print media.

Part of me is amused by this response. On the surface (no pun intended) this would be a cute little game of one-upsmanship between fans or something in another one of those ridiculous college rivalries held dear by so many booze-swilling alums. I can't help but chuckle when I think of it. If my undergraduate institution's enemies had a fish for a logo, I'd certainly think about a shark motif to show the Way Things Will Be.

On the other hand, being cognizant of the context in which this occurs makes me a little less likely to be charitable when Egypt comes crying for American dollars. One response that comes to mind is to think that there's something akin to Klansmen displaying a noose on their vehicles in response to a theoretical symbol of something (oh, say that distinctly colored cloth---kinte?---that is somehow tied to their history/heritage) on vehicles.

If you accept that the Coptic Christians of Egypt are indeed a persecuted minority¹ then these sharks are downright threatening. I don't like this, no sir, not one bit. It smacks of anti-Christian activity, or at the very least the deliberate creation of a hostile environment. I would be less certain of my finding if the Islamics had taken to displaying a crescent-and-star or something, but who in the world worships a shark? That doesn't have too many uses, and it does signal some sort of danger.

The historical parallel between Rome and Egypt is chilling---once again, people united by display of the second-most popular historical Christian symbol are under the boot of an oppressive government. This time, however, they're not alone, or so I would hope. Ideally, ol' Hosni Mubarak would get the proverbial horse head-in-the-bed or a pleasantly worded suggestion that it would be in his best interest to back off on policies that persecute these Coptic Christians.

I'm never happy when I see Christians under the boot of government and I very rarely excuse it. (Befuddled leftists who are more akin to apologists for Communism or the like, protesting American deployment of the Pershing II while the Soviets deploy the SS-20 generally fall within the latter class, if disapproval or arrest after illegal entry can be described as being 'under the boot'.)

Things like this will continue to happen, and I suppose that for the moment it can be excused, but if this erupts into open violence, I expect the bloody government over there to crack down. I wish I could follow that up with a threat of American intervention, but for a variety of reasons that threat could never be made, much less followed through on.

Ende.

¹ I'm not offering this for the truth of the matter but rather to show that the statement has been made. Evidence-law bloggers, descend and shred me on this, since the Federal rules of evidence are arcane to me.

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N.Z. Bear's Ecosystem is a wonderful thing, even if it is manipulated by some to nefarious ends. Why do I say this?

Because, through the link lists at my results page (which showed a terrible dropping off recently), I found a blog that referenced me and which I would have otherwise never found. I say this because it seems that my earlier post about getting Donald Rumsfeld in the Bush Administration quiz has gotten a little bit of attention way outside my normal blogging rounds.

A fellow named Charles Stewart saw fit to link to me in his post of his results. He got President Bush, and mentioned your humble correspondent as one of the powers behind the throne. (We're doomed. --Ed.) Mr. Stewart's site is chock-full of highbrow musings on various things, some of which I can understand. The rest of it (i.e. the theoretizing on the Internet et cetera) pretty much goes over my head.

The site it's hosted on, advogato.org, is a resource for freeware developers, and is thus something I can regard as being akin to magic. ("Whaddya mean hit * to quit? What's *?") but it could be of use to some in the readership.

Thanks for the mention, Mr. Stewart!

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Thanks to Comrade Commissar and his Gulag of Fun, we've got something new to play with:

It's a clickable map of the Commonwealth of Blogosphere States! I must thank Comrade Commissar for this, because it appears that the Supreme Soviet (or whoever had the power to do this; I'm not a Kremlinologist) saw fit to name a town in Reynoldssia after your humble honest (Stop lying or there'll be Dean donation receipts drawn on your accounts in your Christmas stocking. --Ed.) correspondent.

Now I've got to find what's near Kountrypundsk, and annex it. Muahaha. All power to the Southern soviets! (I wish I was in the land of kotton; the proletariat there is not forgotten!) Sooner or later I'll figure out how to become the Kountrypundsk SSR, and then all the West will tremble (With laughter or amusement, I'm sure. --Ed.) at the might of the Soviet Blogosphere!

NOTE: This entry has been heavily revised in order to more accurately reflect the fact that the Commissar has done something nice. I originally had it grouped in with two other points that were mostly about this blog, and which had no relevance to the blogosphere map. Therefore, I decided to split the posts up. If this is a problem, yell at me and me alone.

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Since today's Thanksgiving, I've got zero original content other than to say that Macy's was a disappointment. I was almost reduced to a red-faced rage when Harvey Fierstein appeared in Herald Square.

Little children watch (or used to watch, in my case) the NBC telecast of the parade for the cute stuff like Big Bird balloons and so forth. We tolerated these annoying intrusions of mediocre pop stars and people that no one outside of Broadway knew. Who at ten years old cares about the cast of Cats or some far lesser show? (Not you; they didn't have warships or automatic weapons. --Ed.) So that's the background I brought to Macy's. I've also seen it live, back in the mid-1990s. Watch it on TV, unless you're at Herald Square or are willing, like me, to stand in freezing temperatures for hours to watch the balloons.

Instead of a pleasant homage to Thanksgiving and years gone by, we get Harvey frickin' Fierstein in drag. What the---?!? No! Lots of kids probably started crying and asking their parents why that woman was so fat, so ugly, and had such a voice. The answer? Son, I'm afraid that sometimes, men don't want to be men. They want to be women. That's one of 'em. Or something. Had the Country Pundit any children (And a wife, or even reasonable prospects in those areas. --Ed.), he would have explained that NBC's having technical difficulties and that they should really be refilling their cereal bowls or something---go help your mother or something.

I didn't pay close attention to the telecast, and didn't watch with stopwatch and statistical breakdown of the percentages of broadcast time allotted, so my next point can easily be shot down by anyone with the information. Nevertheless, Macy's seemed to go by a lot faster this year. Maybe they focused on that dreadful team of Couric & Lauer more, or something; the turkey came through earlier than I remember, and Santa Claus arrived pretty quickly. I do, however, remember Lauer making some snide crack about the Texas bunch that sang in the double-breasted button shirts, one that I figured couldn't have been extended (safely) to other parts of our wonderful rainbow patchwork quilt society without the Reverend Jesse Jackson of the First Self-Righteous Church getting angry.

Oh well. At least the midday meal was good. We had my grandmother over from her place, and that's always a major accomplishment due to her being 91 and fragile. Good food and all that, plus the obligatory reading (by me, !@#$) of a Thanksgiving poem about "Over The River and Through the Woods".

And of course, the Commander-in-Thief needlessly spent taxpayer dollars in lying to the American people about Iraq again.

I was impressed by the President's Baghdad detour; it was, at the least, sorta gutsy¹, and seems to have been well calculated. That is, at least until Henry Waxman and Company get into the books and declare that Bush squandered precious taxpayer resources and that the American people deserve reimbursement from the President for his meal.

New chant for the anti-war protestors: BUSH LIED, THE TURKEY DIED!

¹ Admittedly, I'd hate to have seen the sad sack who would have drawn straws to take a shot at Air Force One. Shooting at a defenseless DHL cargo plane is one thing. Shooting at the Leader of the Free World's airplane is another.

Addendum: Two purchases, one of X-Men 2: X-Men United and the Don Davis soundtrack to The Matrix: Revolutions. Commentary later.

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Ninety years ago today, HMS Warspite, a fast battleship of the Queen Elizabeth-class was launched at Devonport Dockyard, Plymouth.

Warspite is arguably one of the Royal Navy's most famous battleships, and participated in both World Wars. While serving with the Fifth Battle Squadron at Jutland on May 31, 1916, her rudder jammed and she made two complete turns while exposed to Reinhard Scheer's High Seas Fleet. One source credits her with absorbing multiple hits of various caliber, and yet Warspite returned home to Scapa Flow.

She would be modernized between the wars, altering her appearance. For a variety of photographs, see this site.

During World War II, she fought in the European and Mediterranean areas, participating in the sinking of both Kriegsmarine and Regia Marina units. Her list of battle honors, as compiled in the authoritative work on her (HMS Warspite, by Stephen Roskill), are reproduced here:

Narvik 1940

Calabria 1940

Matapan 1941

Crete 1941

Libya 1942

North Africa 1943

Sicily 1943

Salerno 1943

Normandy 1944

Walcheren 1944

It was in combat with the latter at Calabria that Warspite established what appears to be the world record for naval gunnery, achieving a hit on the Italian battleship Guilio Cesare at over 26,000 yards. (Sources suggest either 26,400 or 26,600; the point is moot because the distance is fifteen miles either exactly or with a tenth of a mile on the side.)

Warspite also had the distinction of being one of the early targets for guided weapons, as she took a hit from the German Fritz-X/FX-1400 guided bomb. Fritz-X was, in the words of Emmanuel Gustin, "the first successful guided bomb. It consisted of a 1400kg armour-piercing bomb, fitted with four wings in a cruciform arrangement, and a tail ring with spoilers for control. It was usually carried by specially equipped Do 217 or He 177 bombers. In the launch aircraft, an operator steered the bomb to its target using a radio command link." Warspite survived this encounter with the Fritz-X, but was seriously damaged and was never fully repaired.

Her last service was as a fire support vessel, lending her 15" main battery to the landings at Normandy. At this point, one of her 15" turrets was out of service, and she had concrete patches (!?!) keeping her afloat. The FX-1400 had done with one shot what the might of the Germans in two wars and the Italians in one could not do. She also struck a mine on June 13, 1944, and added insult to injury. She saw action also at Walcheren but was otherwise essentially inactive throughout the remainder of the war period.

Sadly, she would not be preserved as was Admiral Lord Nelson's Victory. In March of 1946, the Admiralty handed down her death sentence in seven short words: Approved for HMS Warspite to be scrapped. Yet, the story of this defiant battleship wasn't over. On her way to the breakers in Faslane, Warspite ran aground at Prussin Cove, Mounts Bay, Cornwall on April 23, 1947. Her shattered hulk remained there for nine years as she was scrapped in place. See here for a picture of Warspite shot during this period.

I forgot to publish this after saving. Mea culpa.

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To follow up with something I agreed with in my prior post about Orson Scott Card, a quick opinion on the conduct of the security operations in Iraq:

"What To Do"

Right now, we're in a fight for the hearts and minds of Iraqis. There are two basic paths to victory I think we need to be proceeding on:

1. Restoration of a civil state. This means fix the power grid, get running water restored, and establish basic governmental services. From what I understand, we're doing pretty good on that mark. This also means the creation of a pluralistic government which does something approaching Western concepts of a limited government, instead of using its subjects for mulch. This will take some time, and it isn't a fool-proof process.

2. Secure the Iraqi people. The model for here came to me in the context of gangsters. Moral arguments about using gangsters aside, it seems like a useful framework to proceed. Basically, what we've done is knock off the neighborhood thug, like opposing interests tried to do to Don Corleone in the early sequences of The Godfather. However, our Corleone, Saddam Hussein, still has his men running around trying to keep fragments of his power.

We must treat the situation over there as if we're the new guys muscling in, because that's exactly what we are. That means that we've got to be tough about the old guys, and we've got to win the loyalty of the people. How do you win loyalty? A simple exchange: You, the new boss, make it worth the people's while to be loyal to you. Essentially, it boils down to protection. We must protect the people of Iraq from Saddam's enforcers.

At some level, Baathist thugs are probably running around saying things like, "Saddam hears all! Saddam remembers your loyalty to him/disloyalty to him!" Well, fine. Let him hear everything---hopefully what he hears will be "Eff you" in Arabic. I read somewhere on the 'net that graffiti was being seen now that said, in a message to Iraqi children, "The hand that waves to Americans will be the hand that is cut off", approximately. This is utter barbarism, and we have seen it before, in the steaming jungles of Southeast Asia practiced by the Viet Cong. More on that later.

One thing that I keep hearing that the Iraqis are afraid of is the return of Saddam. Given the stakes, their fear is justified. What we do about that fear is demonstrate conclusively that the game is over and that Saddam Hussein is no Comeback Kid. No amounts of 'Hail Usay' passes are going to work.

Given what I see as the realities of the situation, the way to do the above is through a systematic application of two things: Protection, for the common people of Iraq, and annihilation for the soldiers of Saddam.¹

Protection and annihilation comes from one thing: Clearly and unequivocal establishment of the fact that any attempt to enforce the writ of Saddam leads to the rapid and inescapable death of his enforcers. How do we do this? By protecting the people.

The Iraqi people are roughly in the position of the undertaker who comes to Corleone and asks for things to be made right with respect to his, the undertaker's, daughter. How did Corleone respond? He said "Yes". The man was loyal after that, to the point of working on Sonny Corleone's body after his murder. This is our opportunity.

When the local Baathist thug decides that he's going to threaten a citizen, that citizen should be able to come to the nearest American (or the Iraqi Police) installation and ask for protection. When he asks, he will be told "yes", with the only questions being asked are the ones that get our troops in position. We ought to promise his protection in exchange for his loyalty.

When Saddam's thugs show up, the United States Army meets them at the door and instantly introduces the Baathists to the consequences of meddling with our people. Drag the bodies of the Baathists out in the street and announce loudly that anyone who tries to enforce Saddam's law will meet the same fate. Repeat this throughout the land, and I think you'll see a change for the better in Iraq.

Otherwise, we're leaving these poor people to suffer the fate of Vietnamese villagers who were brutalized into cooperation with the North Vietnamese. We'd come by and offer food, shelter, and things like that if the villagers would help. The Viet Cong came by and disemboweled, raped, tortured, and murdered whoever they suspected of being less than 100% in Uncle Ho's corner. That we didn't engage in systematic and similarly single-minded defense of these villagers is probably something we'll answer for some day. We have an opportunity in Iraq to erase a mistake of Vietnam in that respect, and I hope America takes it.

A two-fold message must be delivered: To the Iraqi people and the world at large, "Sic semper Baathists". To the Baathists themselves, "Your time is over, and you leave with nothing."

This is not a perfect strategy, and it's downright dangerous at some levels. I do, however, think that if America is willing to make things expensive for Saddam's thugs, the Baathists will find a curious shortage of men willing to go canvassing for terror. Hopefully, the intelligence deficit I hear our commanders suggesting as the big problem right now will dry up if we give it a reason to. Similarly, it is possible that the spectacle of American troops being mutilated after their deaths might not be repeated---citizens wholly loyal to us and the new government would not tolerate an act likely to anger their benefactors.

I don't suggest this because I'm particularly a fan of the mafia. I suggest it because I want our troops home and I want a stable, republican Iraq² to join the community of nations. The only way to those ends is through the roadblock we call 'Saddam Hussein'. I suggest we remove that roadblock with as much force as we can muster.

¹ By "soldiers of Saddam", I mean those fighting under his name now; I don't really care about the late Iraqi army in terms of this discussion.

² Admittedly, I heard an interesting proposal yesterday on National Public Radio, submitted by the chief foreign correspondent for the New York Times, one that suggested segmenting Iraq into three separate states, comprised primarily of Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis, respectively. I haven't read his article yet, but I'm generally fond of the idea of fixing the mistakes of partition made 75-odd years ago or more.

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Orson Scott Card, of Ender's Game note, has written a column that discusses the war on Islamists. It's definitely worth a read, even if you haven't read his books or don't know who he is.

Several extracts:

To think that the war is "over" and we should be working on an "exit strategy" is as stupid as saying, after Allied troops drove the Germans out of North Africa, that it was time for our boys to come home -- with France and Eastern and Northern Europe still in chains.

. . . .

As for Saudi Arabia, well, it's not so much that we can't trust the government there, it's that they're barely holding on to power, and their most likely successors, if they fall, will be a group of fanatics who think Osama's a wimp.

If they ever get control of the Muslim holy places, then any action we took against such a government would serve to unite all the Muslim world against us. It would be a disaster of the worst order ... and yet it's hard to see how we can prevent it.

Our only hope is to have finished our job before the Saudi government falls. If fanatics take over Saudi Arabia, but they find themselves surrounded by powerful democratic Muslim nations that are firm enemies of terrorism, then America will not have to be involved in the struggle over control of Muslim holy places.

If we're very, very lucky, that's how it will play out.

. . . .

President Bush's consolation can be this: When Abraham Lincoln was conducting the Union side of the Civil War, he faced exactly the same kind of vicious stupidity -- and he had to do it without the benefit of competent generals to lead the troops. It took him years of trying incompetents like McLellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, and, yes, even Meade, before he got his winning team.

Mr. Card's entire essay is well worth reading. Part of it is triumphant, part of it is chilling, and part of it is ire-inspiring. Mr. Card also notes his belief that,

It is possible to be critical of real problems and raise real questions, while remaining loyal to our soldiers and to the mission of defending the United States (and the rest of the world) from Islamicist terrorism.

This I agree with. Now, my quasi-Nixonian mind clicks and spins for hours (not really) on How to Win, and my whole preference for "watch what we do, not what we say" so I tend to wind up deciding that the people in the current administration have the best operable plan at any given time. This is partly because I defer to those who have classified intelligence (since I do not and do not want it) and also because I have perhaps the naive belief that men and women find much of their ideology set aside when dealing with threats of this order to the Republic, and will act more or less in the interests of America. Our government is large, and it has good people serving in it---at some level, good people will, to steal a phrase from George C. Scott's George Patton, "know what to do".

That's not just some cockamanie theory I concocted to defend George W. Bush; I'm quite willing to extend it to any Administration until I'm convinced that they're not acting in our interests. Thus, I'm somewhat divided on Clinton---I thought DESERT FOX was a good idea, but I also wondered about the timing---but I'll commit to a measure of honesty and reserve judgment to some time in the future when the third-rate tell-alls are through and objective historians can assess his record.¹

Anyways. I haven't delved into the host site of Mr. Card's essay, so I can't vouch for its ideological position. To be honest with you, I'm sort of unconcerned about it.

Please allow me a personal note: When I first started thinking about getting in on "the blog thing" (apologies to Eugene W. Roddenberry), it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, this could be the forerunner of the very things a man named Orson Scott Card described in his book, Ender's Game. Peter and Valentine Wiggin, both children and siblings to Andrew (who's off learning to be a child strategic genius) begin posting their political opinions (kind of like a future Federalist Papers) to various global networks, and eventually they, using the names of Demonsthenes and Locke, get to the point where they are able to influence government policy and public opinion.

Maybe I, and every other pundit-type who hammers away on keyboards, from the fringes of the far left to the fringes of the far right, are perhaps laying the groundwork for that. Or perhaps we'll be the shoulders of giants upon which those two children stand. I'm not entirely sure where this blog thing will lead, but it'll be an interesting trip.

¹ My position on this comes from an old, old copy of the American Heritage magazine, in its "Brushes With History" (approximately) section. The following is a vague memory of something that was read in the early 1990s, so if anyone can find this and correct me, please do.

A man observed a student in the 1960s, all full of vim and vigor, come up to an old man and harangue him about the failures of Alexander Kerensky's government in Russia and how they should have done this, and that, and so on. This continued for several minutes, while the old man (apparently a lecturer at the university) listened without comment.

He turned to the student and said, "We did the best that we could", and Alexander Kerensky shuffled away, hanging his head.

For some reason, that story has colored my views of outsider critiques of governments ever since.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Kevin Patrick at Blogs for Bush.

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This time, I'm sending you to his site. Mr Free Market has been good enough to reward us with three images of England's fairer sex cheering on its rugby team, and we'll let him reap the benefits of his munificence.

The post in question also has a wickedly funny analysis of Chirac-ian spin applied to various events throughout the history of Anglo-French relations. Go there now and see more rugby girls. Keep it up, Mr Free Market!

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Well, not really to arms, but rather to your local polling place for the Democratic primary to be held here on 10 February 2004.

According to Tim Graham at NRO, the campaign of Governor Howard Dean, M.D. , is looking at our beloved Commonwealth as a place to demonstrate that he can win in the South.

Undoubtedly, some traitor to the Commonwealth has gone and told the Doctor that Virginia "isn't really one of those Southern States, and is a good place to show that you're the man". Initial reports indicate that the rogue in question is former Lieutenant Governor Donald S. Beyer, who was defeated by Attorney General James S. Gilmore, III, in the 1997 governor's campaign.¹ Mr. Beyer has disgraced the long and proud tradition of Democrats in Virginia by associating himself with Governor Dean, and hopefully will come to regret this on a political level.

What do all right-thinking Virginians do? GO TO THE POLLS.

Our glorious Commonwealth in its wisdom does not maintain a partisan register of voters, and the various polling organizations may not require your oath to support the Democratic nominee. If you can find out the truth of the matter, and you can honorably vote for a Democrat in a primary, then I urge you to go to the polls and vote for anyone other than Dr. Dean.

Since I'd like the Commonwealth to preserve its image as a bastion of civilization, sanity, and wise choices for government, I'd prefer that we go overwhelmingly for say Representative Richard Gephardt. Mr. Gephardt is talked about as being the possible alternative for the Democrats, and that is fine. He will, I think, lose regardless, because Virginia, like many other States, will vote to re-elect the President.

General Clark's staff thinks that their campaign in Virginia will come to a good end---this cannot be allowed. Virginia's choice for someone other than Dr. Dean or General Clark will demonstrate that we are an inhospitable place for those who sneer at our Southern heritage or who try to use the military as a smokescreen for a hodge-podge of leftist ideas.

The fevered dreams of Dr. Dean's unwashed legions can be thwarted and the entire Democratic field can be thrown into turmoil if Virginia will reject the candidate of the sordid Northeast. Virginians have a history of causing trouble in the campaigns of those who are ill-suited for government, be they various incompetent governors appointed by George III or sundry officials throughout the history of the Republic.

Our mission is clear, and our cause is just: Send Howard Dean back home with the proverbial bloody nose, bloody mouth, and blacked eyes as the reward for his slurs and the national Democratic Party's slurs against the good and decent people of the Commonwealth. History must demonstrate conclusively that the South is ignored, cast off, insulted, and sneered at by the coastal urban elites at their electoral peril.

1 Sources at the University of Virginia's Cavalier Daily have confirmed the identity of the foul traitor.

This exercise in old-style political bombast brought to you by remembering the kind of florid rhetoric practiced by orators in the 19th century, along with a deep-seating feeling of disgust at Howard Dean hoping to further his ridiculous campaign on the backs of Virginia Democrats. And yes, I'm at least half-serious about people going to vote for Gephardt or whoever's a competitor to Dean. I'd suggest John Edwards as a regional favorite son, but this vote has to count. Hang the national strategy; we've got Virginia's honor to think of.

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It appears that the George Soros money is beginning to pay off, at least in national ideas outreach. George's son, Jonathan, is going to coordinate with various entertainment industry figures to select and broadcast an ad targeting President George W. Bush.

I held my nose and went to the organizing website to dig up just who all the judges were:

Jack Black
Benny Boom
Donna Brazile
James Carville
Margaret Cho
Hector Elizondo
Al Franken
Janeane Garofalo
Stan Greenberg
Ted Hope
Michael Mann
Moby
Michael Moore
Mark Pellington
Tony Shalhoub
Russell Simmons
Michael Stipe
Gus Van Sant
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Eddie Vedder

Link omitted because I don't want to get charged with violating various decency acts.

In regards to this list, you have got to be kidding me. Hopefully for Democrats, there's some sort of weighted vote for Carville and Brazile, because a lot of these other types don't strike me as being capable of figuring out what the Electoral College is, much less performing the level of analysis necessary to find a good anti-Bush ad that will resonate with the undecided voters and make them vote for whoever the Democrats nominate.

If I was a Democratic pundit instead of a Republican-voting conservative pundit, I'd be burning up the lines to Terry McAuliffe or someone with an ounce of sanity and trying to convince them to keep nitwits like these away from our already troubled 2004 effort. I'd almost be curious if this is more of a vanity project for the celebrity types, as opposed to being a real political effort. Sure, the final product may be an excellent piece of Hollywood art, but that's not what sways voters.

Obligatory Derbyshire-style gloomery: There are probably plenty people in this country who're stupid enough to be swayed to the message of the ad simply because of who's on this panel. Someone remind me why we made suffrage universal again, please.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Daniel Moore at Blogs for Bush.

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The good Comrade Commissar of The Politburo Diktat has produced a Politburo Special Report. In this report, the Commissar relates to us how the Howard Dean campaign will reach out to another group of guys with something installed on their personal mode of transportation.

I'm certain that the KGB did its utmost professional job in obtaining these documents, and surely Comrade Commissar will be handing out medals and shopping privileges soon.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Comrade Commissar.

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According to a story in the Houston Chronicle, the State of Texas and others are vying to get CV-34 USS Oriskany. Great, right?

Wrong.

The Oriskany is no longer a fighting flat-top in America's navy, and she's not being considered for a museum. (Would that the Texans could have preserved her in the mode of the Texas...) Indeed, her fate is now to be converted into an artificial reef, as the U.S. Maritime Administration will do with her what neither the North Koreans nor the North Vietnamese could do to her during the Cold War, namely sink the thing.

Part of me knows that we can't preserve every warship that the Navy's ever owned, but another part of me is always saddened when I hear of yet another warship going to her fate. Pictures of the scrapping of HMS Warspite produce a catch in the throat and a twinge of regret. Similarly, seeing for example South Dakota with her superstructure erased and her main battery carved up is an unwelcome image. (That one's in a book, but here is a shot of the SoDak on her way to her end.)

This even extends to vessels in the modern era: Having grown up with pictures of the freakishly beautiful and cutting edge Long Beach, I was saddened to hear that she'd been reduced to wreckage at Puget Sound. I was also incensed that Senator John Warner hadn't been able to preserve USS Virginia, which is also "featured" on the Don Shelton Puget Sound Naval Shipyard page. This is less logical than conventional-fired ships; I'm not sure you can actually keep an atomic-powered vessel around, although happily Nautilus is proving me wrong.

Anyways, back to the Oriskany. The first time I ever heard of her was in Top Gun, when CDR Mike 'Viper' Metcalfe mentioned flying with Duke Mitchell off of the ship in Southeast Asia. I don't know much else about her, but she served us well, and I wish that she could be preserved for the foreseeable future as a memorial to the Cold War. Alas, Oriskany.

Two useful links with regards to the vessel are:
The Navy's Naval Historical Center
Oriskany Reunion Association Website

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Jed at Boots and Sabers for the link.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The Dixie Flatline has some unwelcome news posted, and it's the kind I don't like to read. Apparently, some of the people that we spent good American and British lives liberating have decided to go Somali on our troops.

Apparently, some guys from the 101st Airborne were driving in a vehicle that came under attack. For whatever reason, their vehicle crashed into a wall, and the men were dragged clear by Iraqis. Unfortunately, they were not dragged to safety, but rather to a grisly mutiliation, having their heads bashed in by concrete blocks.

I can only hope and pray that our men were dead beforehand.

It's times like this that I really have to remind myself that I'm a civilized human being and that my immediate response isn't the one that would work. What's my response? Call the airbase at Diego Garcia and order up a three-ship cell of B-52H Stratofortresses loaded with Mark 82 500-pound bombs, detailed for area saturation bombing. Send 'em in low over the city of Mosul so that the people can hear them¹ and obliterate the area where this took place. To get the point across send in some people to get out the message of, "Don't mess with us. We're here to liberate you from a monster, but they don't call us the Great Satan for nothing. Do not request a demonstration."

That ain't the right way to think about things, but darned if I can't suppress the urge to reach out and throttle the punks that did this. I bet they think they're real tough, eh. If they're so tough, let's see them take those blocks after an M1A2 Abrams. Concrete block beats head, 120mm armor-piercing fin-stabilized depleted-uranium sabot round beats concrete block. As RoboCop used to say, "Your move, creep."

Winning hearts and minds is the proper macro-strategy, but I can't help thinking that from time to time an abject example ought to be made of those who would desecrate the bodies of our dead. Little monsters. Where's Mr. Blonde when you need him?

1 "Do you hear that, Mr. Iraqi Concrete Block-wielding Punk? It is the sound of an incoming Stratofortress. It is the sound of your city's death. Goodbye, Mr. Iraqi."

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to The Dixie Flatline for this story.

UPDATE: Psycho Dad, over at The Psychotic Rant was kind enough to mention me in his dispatch, and suggest that people read my remarks. Much thanks, PD

Posted by: Country Pundit at 01:14 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 500lb bombs? Are you out of your mind? I have a much better solution. More bang for the buck if you will. Think - Massive Ordinance Air Burst - MOAB - or as it is better known, the Mother Of All Bombs. 21,500 pounds of precision guided high explosive. Hmmm, 3 or 4 of them should get their attention. More info here Here's the link incase the html above doesn't work: http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/affacts/blmoab.htm

Posted by: Psycho Dad at November 24, 2003 03:39 AM (4q6vH)

2 Heh heh heh, he said MOAB. I'm not making an efficient military decision. I'm simply going for mass destruction as delivered by the aircraft that has stood for "END OF THE WORLD!" for half a century. Nobody's scared of a C-130, unless it's an AC-130U in which case you run away and die tired. A reference book I've got on the B-52 (and other sources as well) seem to indicate that the aircraft can carry up to 51 Mark 82s in the area attack role. I figure 153 bombs released within a short interval will do the job in such a way that the little punks responsible will either a) be obliterated or b) spend the rest of their lives in sheer terror any time they hear a jet engine, because they'll remember the contrast between the fun they had mutilating our boys, and the absolute panic of seeing a wall of explosions march towards them. For comparison, my method puts ~76,500 pounds of explosives in the target area and it takes a little while to get there, generating the desired psychological effect. The MOAB, while being a really cool weapon and all, doesn't fit what I want this hypothetical raid to do.

Posted by: The Country Pundit at November 24, 2003 11:02 AM (52RT4)

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All right-thinking peoples are probably concerned about the content and underlying motives of news coverage, whether it be by CNN ("What human rights violations in Iraq? Hear no evil, speak no evil, and for darned sure report no evil.") or FNC ("We report. You buy our personalities' books unquestioningly.") A cautionary tale can probably be issued to both Eason Jordan or Walter Isaacson and Roger Ailes: Be careful how you report. People make decisions based not just on the content of your broadcast, but the style thereof as well.

Luckily for us, the style of recent broacasts concerning events in Iraq has had a pro-Bush effect in one man. John of Argghhh!!! relates the story of one man who goes by the name of Psycho Dad. (I didn't know your father blogged, TCP. --Ed. Get bent. --TCP) In his post entitled I'm Joining the Right!, Dad tells us of his prior ambivalence and disinterest in politics, but which have been turned into strong support for the President, all based upon the content of broadcast media reports in the last little bit.

I reckon he's tired of hearing the modern-day equivalent of, "American troops today landed at Normandy and successfully established a beachhead on Omaha Beach. However, American troops failed to capture Hitler and neither liberated Paris nor defeated Imperial Japan."

Welcome to Blogs for Bush and to the Right as a whole, Psycho Dad. As a brief introduction to our activities (aside from using Mary Matalin to keep James Carville in check¹), we're involved in various projects such as:

-robbing cavefish of their sight²
-holding back electric cars
-making Steve Guttenberg a star
-keeping the metric system down

We've been less successful at the Guttenberg project lately, and rigging every Oscar night hasn't always been successful---see the Denzel Washington & Halle Berry wins---but we're doing pretty good.

Glad to have another participant in the generally rightish area of influence.

1 Talk about sleeping with the enemy! She deserves a medal, for crying out loud! I still wish Tucker Carlson had slapped the trashcan that Carvile put over his head in November 2002 after the Republicans picked up more seats.

2 Actually, we accomplished this one but it's still cool to talk about.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 12:40 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 Heh,heh... Funny stuff. Glad to be RIGHT.

Posted by: Psycho Dad at November 24, 2003 03:41 AM (4q6vH)

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This test comes courtesy of John of Arrgghh!, who got Mr. Anderson when taking this test. I, being one of the folks who likes the series, was drawn to taking it. Here's the result:

You are Persephone, from "The Matrix: Reloaded."
Tough cookie, you are, yet there are strains of
sadness and desire that lie beneath you- of
course, you wouldn't want anyone to know.
You're too busy putting up a facade.

What Matrix Persona Are You?

I don't disagree with some of this, but at the same time, I would rather have gotten Agent Smith. You can't go wrong with a Desert Eagle of some mark, a black suit, and dark sunglasses.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to the crew at the Imperial Arsenal of Doom.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 01:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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England has won the rugby World Cup, defeating Australia. That sour contrarian Andrew Stuttaford dug up a story wherein Jacques Chirac found a way to celebrate the victory:

This deserved victory is also a victory for Europe. Thanks to the extraordinary talent of the English players, the World Cup is coming to the northern hemisphere for the first time. All lovers of rugby in France and in Europe share the joy of the English fans.

Uh huh. Quit trying to elbow in---from what I understand, the men of England sent Team Metrosexual packing. Anyways, the final game seems to have been a close one, and I'm happy that England won, although I wish it hadn't been at the expense of Australia.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 12:55 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Yesterday, I went out and got two DVDs, thus furthering the economic recovery. Chew on that, Waffle-Powered Howard. In the order of purchase, they were:

Galaxy Quest
The Others

The GQ DVD is defective; bloody thing skips oddly when it makes the layer transition (I think) and therefore I can't watch part of it. Nevertheless, once you get through the painful first few minutes (mostly at the convention) it's a great movie. Whatever Sigourney Weaver's politics (I don't know; I don't care) she's good in this film,

The Others is arguably one of the most creepy films I've watched in a while. I don't generally spook (as opposed to jump when the music stings or a xenomorph in its second stage (i.e. facehugger) pops out after Ripley and Newt, which still happens even though I know darn near every second of Aliens) but The Others kept me moving about a bit uneasily. I don't have words for it at this point, but my "self" (as opposed to a purely physical sense) was roiling about after seeing the end of this film. It ain't often that I reach over and flip the light on immediately at the end, so I'm quite impressed by this effort. There's just something about it that draws you in; I'm not quite sure what creates this effect. It may be the sparse nature of the film, with only about five characters in it. There isn't a whole lot going on and it's a restrained picture that leaves one's brain to run amuck. Early episodes of Space: 1999 wowed me with their sparse look, so that may be the attractive thread. Or perhaps something else; I'm not entirely certain that I'm not just fond of directorial restraint and displays of artistic skill.

Words can not describe just how beautiful Nicole Kidman is in this picture. I am convinced that somehow, she's evidence that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Are we in 2003 America supposed to believe that Jennifer Lopez in a green sheet is somehow beautiful, and that a properly-arranged woman from the 1940s (done up like Mrs. Grace Stewart) isn't? If you believe this, you can stand in line with lots of other slavering pigs to root about with J.Ho; I'll gladly take a retro-Kidman.

Having raved about her beauty, I'll simply note that I think she probably deserved at least an Oscar nomination; good grief, the woman acts well in this. I'd never seen a movie with her in it before (curious, but just one of those quirks of moviegoing) so I was a tad cautious about getting the film, but hey, it worked out. Miss Kidman carried the film quite well, and I was taken with the character. Where's my Grace Stewart, dagnabbit? A solid Christian girl who can give orders, use a shotgun, has a backbone of steel, and who ain't afraid of the dead, all while looking absolutely lovely. What's that? I'm not guaranteed that? Pout.

It was interesting seeing Christopher Eccleston (no relation to that once-comely FNC reporteress, Jennifer "Miss Shock & Awe" Eccelston) playing something other than the ruthlessly intense Duke of Norfolk in Elizabeth. The little brother in the movie did well, but darned if he didn't look like a pudgy Dennis Kucininch. Any minute you'd almost expect him to break out say something about a Ministry of Peace to settle the situation.

Two solid purchases marred only by a manufacturing defect. No complaints about either film. I'm now scrounging around to get the funds for the soundtrack to The Others, 'cause that seemed to have been an important component to the film.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This here's my first vote in the New Blog Showcase run by The Truth Laid Bear.

I'm voting for the Free Market Fairy Tales based upon a post written by Mr Free Market and available at the following URL: http://www.fmft.net/archives/cat_economics_politics.html#000039

The whole post's a good one, and I appreciate his Americophile stance. Good luck to him.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 06:31 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It appears that an apology is in order.

I cheerily linked to a quiz earlier in the week that let you see which member of the Bush Administration you were most like, and I got Rumsfeld. To me, that's something to celebrate at a whimsical level. I did not immediately realize that the quiz wasn't entirely er, sincere, something that should have been obvious after I read the description of Rumsfeld as 'subtle'. The man's about as subtle as a shotgun blast in the face at ten paces, and I should have detected a certain irony.

I didn't, however, say anything 'cause I wasn't too worried about the mischaracterization of Rumsfeld. My response was to brush it off as silly humor. I should have figured something was up when I saw the text for President Bush.

Bottom line: I didn't post a link to that test out of malice, and I didn't know that the thing would hamfistedly try to smear AG Ashcroft by calling him Heinrich Himmler and implying that he was a totalitarian. Heck, from what little I know about Ashcroft, I like him. Anyone willing to stand up and admit, "We have no king but Jesus" in this day and age can't be all bad.

My apologies.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 06:01 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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