Things I probably shouldn't be reading early on Sunday morning

Last night I went with some friends to see Mongol, which turned out to be excellent. "The untold story of Genghis Kahn", as the title tells us, is a Hollywood-type epic spoken entirely in Mongolian (or at least I assume it's Mongolian - it was some language I don't recognize at all) with English subtitles. It borrows at times from Lord of the Rings for the battle scenes, and from Kurasawa for the central character's development. Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano gives an extraordinary performance as the man who brought the thundering hordes to half the world. Asano has been compared to Toshiro Mifume, for good reason.

Please be warned that there's a lot of violence (as you can expect), and blood spurts wildly as if Sam Peckinpah himself had been doing the battle scene choreography.

Here's the trailer,


After the movie we had something to eat outdoors at Panera. It was a lovely summer night with an indigo blue sky, and lots of people were walking about. Unfortunately if I have dinner late in the evening I don't sleep well, so this morning I was totally awake by 6AM.

So I got up and checked Memeorandum, where the top story,
Inside a 9/11 Mastermind's Interrogation, tells us that the NYT has revealed the full name of the CIA man who managed to get Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to talk. Funny how the Times and other media were full of outrage when Valerie Plame, who used to drive into the CIA parking lot every morning with the top down of her Mercedes, was "outed", but they have no problem in outing anyone else employed by the CIA.

I agree with Macsmind,

The identity of CIA employee is classified, and although illegal under the Intelligence Identities Protections ACT, the CIA did ask that his name not be published. Therefore the Ny Times is in legal jeopardy for publishing his name.

The CIA should immidately ask the DOJ to look into it.

By the way, I wonder if these clowns who rallied in defense of Plame will speak up now?

More at Pirates' Cove

After that one needs something lighter, so of course I went to Denny's, who always has wonderful music, and came across (language probably NSFW) Mashuk-Akva Term spa story:

Hey honey, let's go to the spa and have a few enemas. What a vacation!

Denny managed to beat Charles to an enema.

I checked my email and found that Maria, who spent many years in Russia, had sent me pictures of toilet signs from around the world. I like this one:


This is the second day in a row that I have posted on scatological items. I blame the lack of sleep.

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The WSJ's Five Best Books on sailing, selected by Sir Robin Knox-Johnson, the first person to sail solo and nonstop around the world:




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Today's shoes: Coach Josie Signature Ballet Flat Shoes in black.



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Benicio's Che vs reality's Che

Maria sent me the link to the NYT's review of the Cannes Film Festival review of the unfinished "saga" on the most romanticized serial murderer in the world, Che. (Erik skipped that one. It was a bore.)

There's a couple of interesting things about this film review:

First, the title of the article: Soderbergh and Che, Provocateurs, which summarizes Soderbergh's intention. Provocateur, being edgy, rhapsodizing about the revolution, and worshipping the idol of the bien pensant around the world. For that he is regarded as

one of the most protean and interesting of American filmmakers, exploring an astonishing range of genres and styles with consistent skill, intelligence and audacity

Protean indeed.
Soderbergh wasn't audacious enough to show the names of the hundreds of people Che personally killed.

Then there's the photo in the article,

Benicio in full Che drag, pistol in hand, being the very picture of the heroic bandido of popular lore.

And third, the reviewer, who gets paid to sit through the "four-and-a-half-hour exploration", at least has the delicacy to mention that

There is a lot, however, that the audience will not learn from this big movie, which has some big problems as well as major virtues. In between the two periods covered in "Che," Guevara was an important player in the Castro government, but his brutal role in turning a revolutionary movement into a dictatorship goes virtually unmentioned. This, along with Benicio Del Toro’s soulful and charismatic performance, allows Mr. Soderbergh to preserve the romantic notion of Guevara as a martyr and an iconic figure, an idealistic champion of the poor and oppressed. By now, though, this image seems at best naïve and incomplete, at worst sentimental and dishonest.

This is bad, not because preserving a romantic image of a mass murderer, but because "it is not very interesting."

Now let's examine the real Che as depicted by another interesting, skilled and intelligent man who I had the pleasure of meeting a few months ago, Carlos Eire. Carlos writes about Che the homophobe:

He thinks about that cruel ritual he has witnessed so many times, when the guards strip all the prisoners naked and parade the most handsome in front of the newly arrived inmates to find out who among them is gay. He thinks about how anyone who gets aroused is taken away for a special mandatory "rehabilitation" program that includes the application of electrical currents to the genitals.

The NYT photo from the movie gives you the impression that Che was heroic in battle, when instead

The "acrid odor of gunpowder and blood" never reached Guevara's nostril from actual combat. It always came from the close-range murder of bound, gagged and blindfolded men. He was a true Chekist: "Always interrogate your prisoners at night," Che commanded his prosecutorial goons. "A man is easier to cow at night, his mental resistance is always lower."

Humberto Fontova writes about Che's specialty:

Che specialized in psychological torture. Many prisoners were yanked out of their cells, bound, blindfolded and stood against The Wall. The seconds ticked off. The condemned could hear the rifle bolts snapping ..... finally – FUEGO!!

BLAM!! But the shots were blanks. In his book, "Tocayo," Cuban freedom fighter Tony Navarro describes how he watched a man returned to his cell after such an ordeal. He'd left bravely, grim-faced as he shook hands with his fellow condemned. He came back mentally shattered, curling up in a corner of the squalid cell for days.

And the NYT article doesn't show the firing squads of Cuban revolution:


No, the NYT writes up an unfinished movie. The same NYT which, to this day, won't bother reviewing Carlos Eire's book Waiting For Snow In Havana, even when the book won the National Book Award.

It's all a matter of priorities.

UPDATE, Monday 26 May
Benicio wins Cannes best actor award...



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"A Living-Room Crusade via Blogging"

In today's NYT, A Living-Room Crusade via Blogging

And yet Ms. Novak has become so well known in Yemen that newspaper editors say they sell more copies if her photograph - blond and smiling - is on the cover. Her blog, an outspoken news bulletin on Yemeni affairs, is banned there. The government's allies routinely vilify her in print as an American agent, a Shiite monarchist, a member of Al Qaeda, or "the Zionist Novak."

The worst of her many offenses is her dogged campaign on behalf of a Yemeni journalist, Abdul Karim al-Khaiwani, who incurred his government's wrath by writing about a bloody rebellion in the far north of the country. He is on trial on sedition charges that could bring the death penalty, with a verdict expected Wednesday.

I have the honor of having met Jane and regard her as a friend.

Go to Jane's blog Armies of Liberation right now and read this,

Welcome New York Times readers! If you want to help entrench civil rights in the Middle East, please sign this petition, click here. It's a letter campaign to the Yemeni government, US and EU for the Yemeni journalist Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani who may be sentenced to death in tomorrow for insulting his president in an article. We can't have that. No, no, no. So please click here. It will help, really!

Besides the near genocidal war in the north of Yemen that displaced 100,000 civilians, there's broad and growing civil unrest in the south regions, the 10 million Yemeni children are the third hungriest child population on earth, and the city of Taiz only gets public water every 40 days. It's terrible. Yemen released all the terrorists who were convicted in the USS Cole attack that killed 17 US sailors in the port of Aden in 2000. There's an agreement between the Yemeni government and al-Qaeda, and the Yemeni government publicly defends it. The Yemeni military and security services are all in hands of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's direct relatives, and so is all the money from the oil revenue and donor aid. Corruption and nepotism is rampant, so about half the people live on under $2/day. There's almost no heath care, educational facilities, electricity or security in the rural areas where 70% of the people live. However, there is a strong democracy and reform movement that routinely gets crushed by the government, as is happening in the case of al-Khaiwani. For more on Yemen, click the Janes Articles link above. Details and supporting links on al-Khaiwani:
While the USS Cole bombers are all free in Yemen, my friend the Yemeni journalist Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani will be sentenced May 21 in a bogus trial and likely will get the death penalty or a long prison term. He is charged with insulting the president and demoralizing the military with an article about the Sa'ada war. He is an internationally renowned journalist and one of Yemen's most prominent and outspoken democracy advocates.

This is the guy I made the online petition for in March 2005 and the bloggers all helped and he got amnesty. Since then he and I have become good friends. He loves democracy as much as I do. And he's paid the price for it. Since he was released in 2005, Al-Khaiwani has been beaten, kidnapped, censored and imprisoned. His paper was cloned, his website blocked and his children threatened.

Read the rest. Sign the petition. Save a life.

Cross-posted at PoliGazette



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A depressing state of affairs

Yesterday afternoon at about the same time I came across two very different posts on sex:

On one side, Siggy's Romantic Illusions And The Higher Self, where he explains,

With real intimacy comes a real oneness and singularity that transcends the biological imperative. With that real intimacy that transcends the biological drives, we find our higher selves. We find ways to communicate in ways outside the physical expression. We come to understand that the most powerful expressions of intimacy are outside the physical realm.

For many people, that kind of intimacy, outside the physical and biological boundaries are the real sexual attractants. Some people find their sexual attractions on a 'soullular' plane. They experience the same physical sensations and the same attractions as everyone else. For them however, the genesis of those feelings are found in the higher self and in the higher self of the other. They yearn for sexual expression, but they yearn for that in conjunction with an intimacy that is found outside the purely physical intimacies. They want a spiritual component to their union and will be satisfied with nothing less.

Siggy is talking about a higher self, real intimacy, a more perfect union.

On the other side and a generation younger, the winning essay of the Modern Love: The College Essay Contest, titled Want to Be My Boyfriend? Please Define, a thoroughly depressing account of the hook-up scene among college students.

The young woman who wrote it, Marguerite Fields, states,

I think what I have been seeking in some form from all of these men is permanence.

Sometimes I don't like them, or am scared of them, and a lot of times I'm just bored by them. But my fear or dislike or boredom never seems to diminish my underlying desire for a guy to stay, or at least to say he is going to stay, for a very long time.

She is not alone: the contest brought about hundreds of entries from college students on "their ambivalence about the no-strings-attached sexual opportunism of the hookup culture."

A young woman in college, having sexual encounters with dozens of men who are little more than strangers to her, yearns for a guy to at least say he is going to stay.

I find that extremely depressing: She wants not love,
not intimacy,
(and forget about a spiritual component to a union - that hasn't even crossed anyone's mind).

Just permanence.

How sad.

UPDATE
Porretto: Sex: The Sequel

Intercourse doesn't really make two bodies into one; except in pathological cases, the two separate soon afterward. But the interpenetration of bodies cannot be divorced from the equally urgent desire for an interpenetration of minds and souls. When we cheapen sex down to a mere satisfaction of physical desire, or worse, a slaking of need, we undermine the foundation for love. If deprived of love for long enough, we lose the capacity to love ourselves.

The "hookup culture" strains to deny these truths. But like a few others known better to our forebears than to us of 2008, they are self-evident -- and self-demonstrating. There isn't a voluptuary in the world who can escape the consequences.

The Anchoress: Progressively lonely and longing

Truly, it is an idea almost as old as civilization - monogamy, family, the unit, which blends two families and then extends out. Given the determined effort of the know-it-all boomers to "deconstruct" all of the worthless and bourgeois establishment norms that went before them - marriage and family were emphatically "out" and "repressive" - it is not surprising to see a generation unable to process the idea of commitment to anything other than "whatever there is today."

Go read every word of both posts.

And don't miss (via Neoneocon) Kay S. Hymowitz's Sex and Its Discontents, on how the "revolution" got started.

UPDATE
Obie's Sister takes a look at The Hook-Up Generation

UPDATE, Monday May 12
"Casual, careless, lighthearted and fun."

(h/t Jody)


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Death by Blogging

The NYT and most journalists can't figure out what's hit them, so now they're coming up with any which way to discredit the competition.

Allison just sent me this:
In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop

Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.

Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.

Diet, smoking habits, lifestyle, genetic predisposition? Heck, no! Blogging kills, says the Times.

Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.

Where does the NYT find this people?

Robert's clamoring, BLOGGERS of the WORLD UNITE! You have nothing to lose . . . but your pajamas!

Well, indeed: Last year some idiots were asking for a bloggers' union. We had a good laugh over that during that day's podcast.

Meanwhile, last night some of the fatally opressed were eating and drinking like there is no tomorrow before going back to the blogging salt mines:


Welcome, Instapundit readers. You'll enjoy reading about how the slaves bloggers spent their furlough here in Princeton last night. Nonstop strain, Indeed!

UPDATE
Whew! What a night!


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Frozen Grand Central, and other Sunday items

Via The Anchoress, Frozen Grand Central
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The Ronulans are coming
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Evangelicals a Liberal Can Love?

Two words for Nicholas Kristof: 39th
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Laurie gets Morgellon's disease.
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Eric clarifies some Details which give me a splitting hair ache
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Is it real, or is it Mexifornia photoshop?
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Scrambling for Africa: A Conversation with John Ghazvinian
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Left bass player - sort of
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What is “Conservative” In This Republican Race?
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Last but not least, don't miss Jon's huge Blogroll amnesty day roundup.



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"An Ex-President, a Mining Deal and a Big Donor": Clintons in the NYT

UPDATED
A sign that the The Times are changing: front-page coverage of yet another Clinton donor scandal.

An Ex-President, a Mining Deal and a Big Donor: The article starts by describing how Bill went to Kazakhstan in 2005 with Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra, undercut American foreign policy, and presto! two days later Giustra's company signed preliminary agreements giving it the right to buy into three uranium projects controlled by Kazakhstan's state-owned uranium agency, Kazatomprom.

Isn't that something.

Here's how Bill got his cut on the deal, and a big cut it is:

Just months after the Kazakh pact was finalized, Mr. Clinton's charitable foundation received its own windfall: a $31.3 million donation from Mr. Giustra that had remained a secret until he acknowledged it last month. The gift, combined with Mr. Giustra's more recent and public pledge to give the William J. Clinton Foundation an additional $100 million, secured Mr. Giustra a place in Mr. Clinton's inner circle, an exclusive club of wealthy entrepreneurs in which friendship with the former president has its privileges.

Who says money can't buy you [the Clinton's] love?

And the love continues to grow as Bill places himself as intermediary for other big deals that involve nuclear technology,

That same month, Mr. Dzhakishev, the Kazatomprom chief, said he traveled to Chappaqua, N.Y., to meet with Mr. Clinton at his home. Mr. Dzhakishev said Mr. Giustra arranged the three-hour meeting. Mr. Dzhakishev said he wanted to discuss Kazakhstan's intention - not publicly known at the time - to buy a 10 percent stake in Westinghouse, a United States supplier of nuclear technology.

At the same time as Bill was facilitating deals to provide nuclear technology to a Muslim country which has about one-fifth of the world’s uranium reserves, Hillary was signing letters to the State Department sounding "alarm bells" about Kazakhstan.

Bill must have unplugged the alarm clock, but his spokesman says that Bill finds no contradiction between his actions and Hillary's statement. Anyone who's been watching how the Clintons do things knows there is no contradiction because that's how the Clintons operate.

What I find interesting about this report is not that the third-term-co-President-to-be is deeply involved, since the Clintons have a really long record of such dealings from way back in the days when all it too was a $100,000 windfall in commodities trading, but that the NYT is giving it front-page coverage.

Maria also sent this Archived Profile: Frank Giustra, who continues to lend Bill Giustra's Giustra's MD-87 jet, complete with leather furniture and a stateroom, at least until Bill can get back into Air Force 1.

UPDATE
Across the big puddle, Clinton aide caught up in funding scandal:

The complaint against Morgan has been made by James Davenport, a former employee of Morgan Allen Moore, who claims Morgan breached the APPC code of conduct – specifically a clause governing the separation of private and consultancy activities - while working on the Hain campaign. Members of the APPC management committee first met on January 28 to consider the complaint. A spokesman told The First Post that, as a result, they have asked Davenport to provide more information and substantiate his allegations. The committee will meet on Monday, February 4 to reconsider the complaint.

Then there's The Company You Keep (and Sometimes Discard), including Hillary’s Anti-Union, Slumlord Pals going back to 1999.



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NYT glosses over FGM

As regular readers of this blog know, I have been posting about female genital mutilation (FGM) for a long time. My position is as follows:

I do not care whether this is a tribal, religious, and/or cultural tradition at all, the practice of female genital mutilation is a barbaric custom that must be stopped.

Yesterday for some (probably insane) reason I picked up the dead-tree edition of the New York Times and found that the magazine has an eight-page full-color article and spread on the barbaric practice, titled A Cutting Tradition
Inside a female-circumscision ceremony for young Muslim girls


The description by Sarah Corbett makes it sound like the girls were going for a pedicure (emphasis added):

When a girl is taken — usually by her mother — to a free circumcision event held each spring in Bandung, Indonesia, she is handed over to a small group of women who, swiftly and yet with apparent affection, cut off a small piece of her genitals. Sponsored by the Assalaam Foundation, an Islamic educational and social-services organization, circumcisions take place in a prayer center or an emptied-out elementary-school classroom where desks are pushed together and covered with sheets and a pillow to serve as makeshift beds. The procedure takes several minutes. There is little blood involved. Afterward, the girl's genital area is swabbed with the antiseptic Betadine. She is then helped back into her underwear and returned to a waiting area, where she's given a small, celebratory gift — some fruit or a donated piece of clothing — and offered a cup of milk for refreshment. She has now joined a quiet majority in Indonesia, where, according to a 2003 study by the Population Council, an international research group, 96 percent of families surveyed reported that their daughters had undergone some form of circumcision by the time they reached 14.

I was actually shaking with anger when I finished reading this.

For starters, it is not circumscision. It is mutilation. It doesn't take much to mutilate a woman's external genitals.

The procedure itself is designed to deprive a woman from enjoying her sexuality for as long as she lives and carries dire medical consequences.

My friend Phyllis Chesler was reading the NYT article, too, and has this to say, Exactly Who are the Barbarians? Female Genital Mutilation as Pictured in the West

What is a human rights atrocity with life-long and life-threatening consequences is here being presented as a "tradition," often a harmless one, sometimes not, but always a well-intentioned one.

According to the article, there is "little blood involved" - well, how bad can that be? And, "antiseptic is used" - well, this is not dangerous at all, is it? Finally, afterwards, the child is given a "celebratory gift" - what, am I the kind of westerner who, Grinch-style, would deny the child her gift in order to make my twisted, "racist" argument? As the article states , the child clutching (or drinking) her gift "has now joined a quiet majority in Indonesia."

These photographs were taken in 2006 on a day where 200 girls were genitally mutilated . In honor of the "prophet Mohammed's birthday," the Assalaam Foundation subsidized both the mutilation - and the "gift." According to the Foundation's chairman of social services, the cutting/mutilation will "stabilize her libido;" "make a woman look more beautiful in the eyes of her husband"; and "will balance her psychology."

Because you know, those husbands wouldn't want any hysteria getting in the way.

Ninety six percent of all Indonesian families have sliced their daughters’ clitorises right off.

No orgasms for you, you naughty, wicked hussy of a child.

In the article, an Italian physician who is also a World Health Organization official states: "To judge them (the female mutilators) "harsly is to isolate them. You cannot make change that way. These mothers believe they are doing something good for their children."

The Indonesian "cutting" is presented as less severe, less "extreme" than African versions. Oh yeah? Then why does one photo show us a child in extraordinary pain. Yes, right there in the New York Times. The caption is: "A girl cries as she is circumcized." Well, it's like being vaccinated, right? And there is a second photo of a highly anxious child just before the mutilation. This one is captioned: "A girl is soothed by an attendant before her circumcision."

The photographer has captured a live human rights atrocity in progress and we are seeing it in color with our morning coffee and croissants. Or bagels. Or muffins. Whatever.

Who exactly are the barbarians here? Those who genitally mutilate their daughters or those who deem the atrocity as something of a soft core "tradition" to be "enjoyed" at Sunday brunch?

Phyllis is unsparing in her indictement of the NYT's puff piece. She also links to Dr. Andrew Bostom's article, Clitoral Relativism—Female Genital Mutilation in "Tolerant" Islamic Indonesia where he quotes from the British Medical Journal

An August 1993 report in the British Medical Journal (abstracted here) on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) stated plainly, in its summary conclusions:

Female genital mutilation, also misleadingly known as female circumcision, is usually performed on girls ranging in from 1 week to puberty. Immediate physical complications include severe pain, shock, infection, bleeding, acute urinary infection, tetanus, and death. Long-term problems include chronic pain, difficulties with micturition [urination] and menstruation, pelvic infection leading to infertility, and prolonged and obstructed labor during childbirth.

Not surprisingly, FGM is outlawed in theUnited States and most Western countries, and there are concerted efforts to eradicate this barbaric practice, globally.

But just today, the barbarism of FGM is indeed referred to "misleadingly" as "circumcision" in a quintessential culturally (or if you prefer, clitorally) relative depiction by Sara Corbett published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine

My other friend Mary Madigan notices that Sara Corbett has a history of perverting the truth.

All the same, the NYT has now slipped from moral equivalence, dhimmitude and political correctness into embracing child abuse and mysogyny.

Update
Pushing the limits of cultural relativism: the lighter side of cannibalism

Update 2
Can’t Drive, But Hey! There’s a Strong Sense of Family

Unsurprisingly, todays co-called “feminist” blogs are awash with false outrage at meaningless trivialities, like Michigan Tech’s president implying that women should not be pressured into attending college if their ambition is not higher education, the societal implications of the new “skinny” offerings on the Starbucks menu, a Post-It ad, and some half-baked rant about Chris Matthew’s treatment of Hillary Clinton. There is nothing dealing head-on with the horrors women around the world are experiencing at the hands of real Patriarchal societies whose laws, practices, and yes, backward version of religion have established an inescapably oppressive construct that is now affecting a brand new generation.

It begs the question, of course: what is it that these women are afraid of? Is it so simple as a fear of the demon of multiculturalism, or a fear of being perceived as intolerant that leads them to do nothing more than pay lip service to the cruelty? Or is it something more? If this was such an innocuous practice, they certainly would not object to undergoing it themselves, but you would, rightfully, find none that would, so it cannot be that they believe this kind of thing is merely an artifact of a bygone era. Something must be preventing them from acknowledging a real cause for concern, a real plight of gender equality…something bigger.

It remains to be seen of course. Tomorrow, feminists across the country will celebrate a court decision that paved the way for international policies encouraging abortion as a legitimate reproductive right, which has in turn empowered countries to impose one-child policies, and for women in those countries to take advantage of international help to commit a genocide of the female gender — allowing nearly 60% of all female babies born in China and India to be killed.

So much for tolerance. Its time for a new idea.

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Lies, damn lies, and NYT's statistics

The NYT comes up with a charade of an article where they try to work up a Deer Hunter narrative: Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles.

Luckily Winds of Change is there to look at numbers, critically.

UPDATE, Monday 14 January
Entire NYT’s To Blame For Defaming Vets
More from Matt Sanchez

1.5 Million troops have cycled in and out of Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. Crunching the numbers and controlling for the fact that over 90% of those deployed overseas are male. The average civilian population is 5 times more likely to commit a homicide than the veteran population, including those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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News from Iraq: The Times are changin'

Via Gateway Pundit, at the New York Times,


NYT Interactive has more.

At the Times of London,
Road From Damascus
Iraqis are voting with their feet by returning home after exile:

The figures are hard to estimate precisely but the process could involve hundreds of thousands of people. The numbers are certainly large enough, as we report today, for a mass convoy to be planned next week as Iraqis who had opted for exile in Syria return to their homeland. It is one of the most striking signs that not only has violence in Baghdad and adjacent provinces decreased dramatically in recent months, but confidence in the economic and political future of Iraq has risen sharply. Nor is this movement the action of men and women who could easily reverse course and turn back again. Tighter visa restrictions imposed by Damascus mean that those who are returning to Iraq cannot assume that they could quickly retreat again to Syria if that suited them. This is, for many, a one-way decision. It represents a vote of confidence in Iraq.

The homecoming is not an isolated development. The security situation in Baghdad, while far from totally peaceful, has improved substantially in the past few months, with civilian fatalities falling by three quarters since the early summer. This has been reflected on the streets with markets, clubs and restaurants that had been closed for months, especially at night, now reopening. This good news has not attracted the attention that it should because critics of the conflict in 2003 and its aftermath have been extremely reluctant to acknowledge progress in the country. Yet even observers from publications long hostile to US policy in Iraq, such as The New York Times, are finally conceding that "the violence has diminished significantly since the United States reinforced troop levels in Iraq and adopted a new counter-insurgency strategy".

The "surge" associated with General David Petraeus is indeed paying extraordinary dividends. The positive effects were seen in Anbar province, which had become a hotbed of Sunni resistance to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and are increasingly seen in the Iraqi capital. It has enabled Sunnis to disassociate themselves decisively from al-Qaeda in Iraq, in effect switching sides, while some of the extreme Shias linked to the rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have felt obliged to observe a ceasefire. All these fundamental shifts have allowed Iraqis the chance to rebuild an economy that, particularly with oil at its current price, should be among the strongest in their region. This opportunity has been recognised by exiles such as those who have been located in Syria. Iraq can only benefit from the return of some of its most talented citizens

A.J. Strata:

But there is another statistic which is also important - the number of terrorists killed and captured, and the amount of weapons caches seized and destroyed.

At the BBC:
Iraqis return home 'in thousands'

An estimated 1,000 people a day are returning across Iraq's borders having previously moving abroad to escape the violence, Iraqi authorities say.
...
The UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR, estimates about 45,000 Iraqis returned from Syria in October - the first month of the school year.

One factor in their return is likely to be a sharp and sustained drop in all kinds of violence, particularly in parts of the capital Baghdad, over past months following a US-Iraqi military "surge".

Via TigerHawk, Ralph Peters:

THE situation in Iraq has im proved so rapidly that Democrats now shun the topic as thoroughly as they shun our troops when the cameras aren't around.

Meanwhile, at the box office...


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Conservatives aren't joking, Paul

This morning Paul Kurgman was saying that Conservatives Are Such Jokers:

Today’s leading conservatives are Reagan’s heirs. If you're poor, if you don't have health insurance, if you’re sick — well, they don’t think it's a serious issue. In fact, they think it's funny.

I don't know what conservatives Krugman may be talking to, or if he's even talked to any. Maybe he should come to Washington for the afternoon.

Yesterday seven Congressmen addressed a rally in Congress: All of them are urging earmark reform through the Discharge Petition. The petition would make each earmark's sponsor publicly defend each earmark. Here's a video:


The rally was by the attendees of the Defending the American Dream conference in Washington DC, and the focus is on

policies that are threatening to destroy the American Dream – higher taxes, more spending, burdensome regulation, and endless red-tape.

There were 200 hundred people attending the rally in the hot afternoon sun.

John McCain on pork:



Giuliani: "It's your money, it should be your choice."


Defending the Dream is posting more videos.

Kurgman believes that

What's happening, presumably, is that modern movement conservatism attracts a certain personality type. If you identify with the downtrodden, even a little, you don't belong. If you think ridicule is an appropriate response to other peoples’ woes, you fit right in.

Krugman ridicules the very people who are meeting in DC trying to bring about real prosperity and continuing growth to our country, people of every race, economic status, educational background. People on wheel chairs. Blind people. Single parents of young children struggling to make ends meet, and empty-nesters with vacation homes. People whose properties have been taken away by the government trough the abuse of eminent domain.

Krugman doesn't know what the real world looks like.

It would be a good thing if he would come and listen to the people here, because these conservatives aren't joking.


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The honeymoon is over

Kate and the Hispanic American Center for Economic Research sent an extraordinarily interesting article in the NYT on Chavez: Chavez Takes 'Crazy Battalion' of Supporters on the Road
For starters, there's the photo of Sean Penn cringing next to Hugo, who's grandstanding with a picture of Che:

After carefully reading the article I can see that the nearly two-year-long honeymoon Chavez has enjoyed in the NYT where they incessantly repeated the words from a full-page full-color Venezuelan government ad they ran in December 2005 portraying Chavez as

a-charismatic-leader-helping-the-poor-offering-free-health-care-education-adult-literacy-and-job-training-initiatives-that-help-millions-of-Venezuelans

has come to an end.

Let's examine the text carefully (emphasis added); the contrast with the AP lovefest couldn't be greater:

But rarely has the reception of foreign actors and writers been as warm as it was this week for Mr. Penn, whom Mr. Chávez, perhaps smarting from international condemnation over his government's treatment of critics in the local news media, hailed as "valiant" for his outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq and other policies of the Bush administration.

What followed, for a handful of journalists given the rare opportunity of accompanying Mr. Chavez on such a trip, was a glimpse into his government's use of imagery and pomp to court public opinion both at home and abroad.

Hugo wouldn't stop at the local mom-and-pop businesses along the road so his guests could use the facilites,

lurching ahead as desperate news cameramen and photographers yelled at the driver to start or stop. At times they cheered, as when they got shots of Mr. Penn urinating on the side of the road.

Even Sean started to demur

In a brief interview at one of the motorcade’s many stops, Mr. Penn declined to discuss any similarities that might exist between the president in the driver's seat of the Tiuna and the Southern populist, loosely based on Louisiana governor Huey Long, that Mr. Penn played in the recent film adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s "All the King’s Men."

How 'bout that. Someone other than I saw a similarity there.

And with the acumen of a politician who knows how to celebrate friends where he can find them, Mr. Chavez switched into English with a few words for Mr. Penn: "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

I certainly hope Simon Romero keeps filing reports like this one.

If he does, I might even start reading the NYT again.



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Bar imitates life

Via Babalu
Trendy spot in the big city: Socialista

And it's just like Cuban "socialism":

The bien-pensant finance it: TV producer Ben Silverman, Harvey Weinstein and Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler.
There's a two-tier system for the benefit of the elite: "gaining entrance to the upstairs lounge is a long shot for most," and you need a secret phone number.
Just like in the island-prison: little-person doorman serves as comandante.
You must pay your dues: "Unless you're amigos with investors Sting, Harvey Weinstein, and Giuseppe Cipriani, you'll be leveled a minimum tab for table service that may have you shouting 'Down with capitalism!'"
You get the same-old, same-old, but pay through the nose: "SIGNATURE DRINK Socialista (vodka, fresh citrus, spiced syrup), $16." A lot of bucks for an OJ w/vodka.
And the bulls*** flows on: "the hard knocks of elitism built on equality were on view on a recent Friday night"

Do the guys washing the dishes get free schooling and healthcare, I wonder? Do they have to swim out of the place when their shift is over?

Socialista: for the useful West Village idiot that drinks!

Hillary's stripes on parade, again

Via Larwyn, 30 letters: In the '60s, a Future Candidate Poured Her Heart Out in Letters

Some things haven't changed - Hillary's still divorced from the middle class:

"God, I feel so divorced from Park Ridge, parents, home, the entire unreality of middle class America," she says. "This all sounds so predictable, but it's true."

At least now she's not showing up in public in those dreadful striped trousers which first made their appearance in April and which the NYT shows again:

I had a similar pair of slacks in the 1970s, that era of "What was I thinking?" fashion:

However, ugly as the striped trousers are, I've never slipped down this slippery slope:

"I'm sitting here at a stolen table in a pair of dirty denim bell-bottoms, a never-ironed work shirt and a beautiful purple felt hat with a purple polka-dotted scarf streaming off it," she writes

Good lord.

NYT: We're winning in Iraq, and other items

UPDATED
See Iraq briefing
According to the NYT, Iraq - We're winning! As Allison said,

Much of it will sound familiar if you've been reading Michael Totten's dispatches.

Elsewhere, the Telegraph: Paper backs off Maliki-Petraeus row because they made up the story.

UPDATEFrom today's White House Briefing: (emphasis added)

Points From Rear Adm. Fox Briefing, Baghdad , Iraq : July 30, 2007

Our offensive operations continue with increasing evidence that the surge is pressuring terrorists, keeping them off balance, and eliminating safe havens. We have established a degree of tactical momentum that we will continue to build on.

· We continue to pressure former sanctuaries in the Baghdad Belts, around Ramadi and in and around Baqouba.

· We are denying al Qaeda Iraq (AQI) freedom of movement and disrupting extremist secret cells while increasing local citizens' confidence in the Coalition and Iraqi Security Force.

The number of caches found and cleared continues to grow.
· In the last week, Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces seized more than 120 weapons caches.
· We have seized more weapons caches in the first six months of this year than all of last year combined.

Leads and tips received from Iraqi citizens are up and helping us discover these weapons caches. Last month there were some 23,000 tips a month, four times the number at this time last year.

We are seeing more and more Iraqis turning against violence.
· On July 7, 100 Sheikhs and 400 religious and political leaders met in Ramadi for a conference called "Promise of the People."
o They agreed to "The Ramadi Covenant" - a solemn agreement between tribes and most importantly with the Government of Iraq that is a clear sign the people of Iraq are rejecting the hatred, violence, sectarianism and Taliban-like state offered by AQI.
· In Baqoubah, 50 tribal leaders met at the governor’s house on July 14 to discuss security, services, and pledged to work together in the Muqdadiyah Tribal Conference.
· On July 16 in Taji, Sunni and Shia shieks pledged unity to one another to stop the sectarian attacks, each signing a map next to their village.
· On July 23, 16 local shieks and tribal leaders in Khalis pledged on behalf of some 75 shieks to work to end the violence.

-------------------------------------------------------Via Larwyn, the Judiciary Committee Clown Show
Update: Schtackink Da Courts
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The Acorn doesn't fall far from the tree: Whose Ox Is Gored: After Bush's victory, liberals shouted "Voter fraud!" Why have they changed their tune?

now liberals are accusing the Bush Justice Department of cooking up spurious claims of voter fraud in the 2006 elections and creating what the New York Times calls a "fantasy" that voter fraud is a problem.
...
Instead, Sen. Leahy and other liberals are busy dismissing concerns about voter fraud, no doubt in an effort to make certain the Justice Department drops the issue as a priority before the 2008 election. But the blunders and politicization of parts of the Bush Justice Department notwithstanding, voter fraud deserves to be investigated and prosecuted. The Justice Department may be dysfunctional and poorly led, but the Democratic Congress seems more interested in paralyzing its activities than helping to fix the problem.

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I just finished reading HP7 and LaShawn has a nice article about it, WITH SPOILERS, Harry Potter and the Inevitable End
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Via Maria, ALLERGIC TO 'NO'
WHY 'REHAB' FAILS LINDSAY LOHAN & OTHER CELEBRITY ADDICTS
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Via CatHouseChat and Evangelical Outpost, Photosynth.
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Reminder: Podcast today at noon

Dear Ada Brunstein, and other matters

DEAR ADA BRUNSTEIN,
I was reading the NYT this morning looking for blogging material while on the road and came across your article in the NY Times Styles Modern Love section, The House of No Personal Pronouns.

We have never met and will probably never meet, but it's time someone took you by the hand and gave you some sound advice. I normally don't give advice to strangers but recently I have come across a number of people (men and women) in situations comparable to yours. Two have confided in me. Believe me, you are not alone in your dilemma. There are many Adas out there.

Let me start by pointing out that you are in a long-term relationship. You may refer to your lover as "boyfriend" but after a year of this, recognize the fact that you are in a long-term relationship. Call him boyfriend, lover, paramour or whatever else.

The short version of my advice is this:
Leave him right now, cold turkey, permanently, and don't ever go back to him.

That means getting up, walking away, throwing away the key to his house and changing the key to your place (maybe even moving to a new place of your own). Erase his phone number off your phones and block his calls.

Here is why:
In your article you mention how

"in the past my jealousies have gotten the better of me".

Allow me a small digression from your current dilemma to explain that it is not wise to engage in prolonged arguments with your man as to whether you would be OK with him sleeping with Uma Thurman, be it in theory or in practice. The appropriate response on your part would be to state in abruptly clear unambiguous terms that of course it would not be OK with you. If he protests, complains, or doesn't acknowledge that you're not putting up with any of that, it's time to break up.

If you expect an exclusive, monogamous relationship, you must make it absolutely clear.

But back to your current dilemma:
You entered into this relationship for the purpose of proving a point:

"This was going to be the new me. A stronger, cooler, nothing-fazes-me sort of girlfriend who would prove I've outgrown the formerly jealous me. I would be unconventional, brave, hip and oh-so-bohemian in my nonchalance."

Congratulations; you have proved your point. You are cool, nonchalant, bohemian, brave, and everything you set out to demonstrate. And you have done so in spades.

And here's the rub: While relationships with divorced men are very difficult because a great many men still love their ex-wives, you are in the middle of an even greater mess because he's not a divorced man.

Two questions:
Is he still married?
Is he still living in the same house as his wife, sharing living quarters?

Of course, the answer to these two questions is yes. While you would like to think that there has been a separation, that they have moved on and moved out, the physical fact remains that neither of them have. They both remain exactly where they choose to be: smack in the middle of each other's lives and living together under the same jointly-owned roof.

And now for the skinny, from two points of view:
First the cynical, since I'm not above cynicism:

A great deal of satisfaction in life comes from being able to 'play your game'. You are 'playing your game' when you are in control of your circumstances. The situation you describe where you have to ask, "does she mean to lay claim to her place while putting me in mine?" is a situation where you are playing her game. And legally it is her place.

Make no mistake: you will be playing her game for as long as you are attached to her man.

Yes, he is her man.

And the second point of view,
From the point of view of love:
Nowhere in the article did you mention the word love.

I have to assume that, since you are a writer, this is not a mere lapse.

Love is not an easy thing. Poets, philosopher, and psychologists have spent whole lives trying to decipher, explain, and understand it. All of them would probably agree that love means commitment.

This man has shown absolutely no commitment to you. In addition, by remaining in a relationship with him, you are denying yourself the opportunity to find someone who would love you , who would commit to you.

Ask yourself, Are you so afraid of love that you must remain with this man?

Give yourself a chance at love and leave this situation, where you are allowing a marriage to drag you into their very dysfunctional and downright perverse "whirlwind of ifs and thens", to use your phrase, and leave him.

You have already wasted a year. Don't waste a minute more.

I realize that the odds are that you will not read my advice, and that even if you read it you won't follow it, but you have been told. You can't use "nobody told me" as an excuse.

Update, Monday 23 July
Welcome, Dr Helen readers. You'll probably enjoy this post, too.
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In other insanities, it's time for the Carnival


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I'll be on the road for the greater part of tomorrow so there won't be a podcast, but you can listen to the Gerard and Siggy show.

The full story, the modern Wife of Bath, and today's other items

My friend Captain Ed posts on A Case Of Missing Context At The Gray Lady

Readers who want the whole story have to read the Los Angeles Times to find out what else Maliki said about the Iraqi position:

Maliki, a Shiite, put on a brave face in the wake of the rising demand in the U.S. among Democratic and Republican legislators for withdrawal from Iraq.
He pleaded for time, pledging to achieve the passage of legislation that Washington has demanded as a condition of its continuing support, including an oil revenue sharing law, a revised constitution and the easing of government work restrictions for former supporters of President Saddam Hussein, who was captured, tried and executed after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Maliki also said that Iraqi security forces could use more training from U.S.-led forces and needed more weaponry.

You know the NYT's faltering when you get the full story from the LAT.

Also via Captain Ed, a terrific article by Rod Liddle, Having a torrid time at the BBC - Busy Blurting Confessions. Nobody lets it rip like the Brits, and Liddle's in fine form. Read it all, but here's a sample,

Then came the television news teams 'fessing up that they may have inadvertently misled the public over the single European currency, the inherent competence and decency of Hamas, Fatah and the Taliban, the desirability of unconstrained immigration and the notion that bunging loads of money in aid to Africa would solve that continent's problems. Oh, and a whole bunch of other stuff about the dangers of smoking and global warming and being fat. The BBC's "gypsy unit" turned up too, to confess that not everyone who had reservations about encroachment by Britain's traveller community were necessarily racist middle-class bigots. They were late, though, because their cars had been nicked.

Rod Liddle knows what he's talking about since,

Rod Liddle left his post as editor of the BBC's Today programme in 2002, after a row about impartiality in an article he wrote for The Guardian.

Rod, if you're reading this, email me when you come to Princeton and I'll buy you a beer.

Rod also writes about Jane Felix-Browne, a.k.a. Zaina Mohamad al-Sabah, the latest incarnation of the Wife of Bath who was fond of pilgrimage and fond of a much younger man. Jane/Zaina, like the Wife, has been married five times, is middle-aged (if people live to be 102, since she's 51), enjoys travel, and married a much younger man (a 26 yr-old).

There ends the resemblance to the WoB: the WoB might have been madly in love with her young husband but she wasn't crazy enough to marry the 1380s equivalent of Osama Bin-Laden's son and move to Saudi Arabia.

One must consider, however, that the WoB was a woman of the 14th Century, and Jane/Zaina's now the daughter-in-law of a guy that wants to send us back to the 10th Century, so it's all in the spirit of the times.

Time and time again I have seen many marriages fall apart where the age difference was >15 years (but never one where the husband already had another wife since I've never met any polygamists), but let's just say that'll be the least of Jane/Zaina's troubles.

Osama, or so they say, is praising the martyrdom of others:

"The happy (man) is the one that God has chosen him to be a martyr,"

says he, while depriving himself of that happiness. it's time to resurrect one of my old limericks from back in 2004:

There once was a boy named Osama
who never respected his mamma.
He blew up the World Trade
and is now in a cave,
hiding away, like Saddam-a

I realize that my limerick is a rerun, but so is Osama's video; that completes the trio.

Venezue-lan-born Vladimir Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a.k.a. Carlos the Jackal, sneers at Al-Qaeda's 'amateur' killers from his prison cell in France.

Not that that makes them less deadly.

On to unrelated stuff:
The French are a lot bigger optimists than I thought: Now they have free bicycles. Bon chance on that, mes amis!

Francis Porretto has a post on Fred Thompson which convinced me that the Dems must see Fred as the first viable Southern Presidential candidate since Bill Clinton - and they are scared.

Never mind men's neckties; how do you walk in these?

Should a country this crazy have nuclear weapons?
Speaking of insanities, Dr Sanity has the Carnival




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A few thoughts by the beach

Every day when I first wake up I pray a Rosary in thanks, for I live a most privileged life filled with blessings.

Some of it may have to do with my name.

In Spanish, the name Fausta is most unusual for a woman. There are many Faustos, but women are usually named Faustina, which carries a softer connotation as the ina ending is also used as a diminutive. There are very few diminutive aspects to my personality, as those who know me well will tell you.

Faust in any language, to anyone familiar with Western opera and literature, connotes being gypped by unsavory characters. Frequently the person inquiring about my name is not fully familiar with the Faustian plot, and I have been asked if I was named after the devil. (I have developed a number of cutting remarks which have come in handy for those inquiries, thanks. Some day I'll post about that.) Classical scholars do know that Fausta was the wife of Constantine the Great, and she was up to no good. Probably becasue of this, many new visitors to this blog think Fausta is a pseudonym, when it actually is my real name.

I'm happy to report that I have not engaged in any Faustian dealings and that I was named after my grandma, a nice little old lady with flawless fair skin and snow-white hair, not after any conniving Roman empresses.

Fausta, on the other hand, is also an adjective in Spanish, meaning fortuitous, and also, happy in a splendid way. So I have been blessed with the life my name invokes.

Granted, mine is a simple mind and I derive great joy from the simplest things. Like stair-climbing, for instance.

Yesterday I went up and down four flights of stairs several times during the day. It was a hot and humid day and I was perspiring heavily (almost as much as that time I went to the aerobic yoga class, but not quite). To me it is a wonder that I can actually do that. It is an outright miracle. Several years ago I was really sick and despaired of ever doing such a simple thing again.

So there I was yesterday, going up the stairs for the umpteenth time (yes, the building has an elevator, but I wanted to go up the stairs because I could) and my heart was singing. No, it wasn’t palpitations. It was sheer delight. As I reached the fifth floor, I nearly said to a lady who was heading down, Look, I can do this!.

I'll never know if I woul feel that way if I hadn't been so ill. All I know is that I do now. I can not go back to find out, since there is no going back.

I derive a great deal of enjoyment from the most common things.

A fresh peach, eaten on the balcony overlooking the ocean.

The smell of the early morning.

The feel of cool clean linens.

The sight of a four year old hosing off the sand from his bellyboard.

The sound of a groom and his best man hugging each other in silence, just before they head to the wedding.

Blogging and podcasting are two other things I truly enjoy. Blogging and podcasting enrich my life in many wonderful and surprising ways. If I weren't blogging I would have never witnessed this wonderful event yesterday, for instance.

Yes, I have a most privileged life filled with blessings.

Since I'm on vacation I have had a chance to ponder these things while I haven't been keeping up on the news as much as usual, but I have heard from friends who do. Several of these friends I have met because of blogging, and they are very well informed.

They are expecting that things are not going to get better; indeed, they are expecting things to get a lot worse for a long time. Several of those friends are preparing for the worst.

They certainly have good reason to.

• A glance at the so-called newspaper of record shows the complicity of the mainstream media with crackpot Communist dictators.
• Academia has debased itself into a morass of dogmatism and moral blindness to the point where 87 faculty members of a major university judge three young men as guilty by "reason" of their race and background.
• Unprincipled secular societies in the West can not ever begin to understand fundamentalist Islamists because they are unable to fill a void with a void.
• We are in an existential struggle and Democrat candidates are running on the premise that there is no war at all. Listen up, democrats, look at what really happened in the Middle East. There have been 8,638 terrorist attacks since September 11, 2001. It's not Methodists doing it.
• The leadership in Washington is faltering in ever-worse ways. Both parties are out to find the most disastrous way in the least time.
• Even when I'm not keeping up with the news I know that the US and Israel will be arming Fatah. Have they lost their minds? We are arming our enemies. The enemy of my enemy will turn against us. They have before and will again.

So while I'm enjoying everyday pleasures and posting about them, I too have the temptation of wanting to go back to the the age of 1990s blindness, where a corrupt president was lauded by the media and where terrorist attack after terrorist attack was ignored and pushed aside because it didn’t fit the script of Clintonian happiness so many want to return to today.

They think that by bringing back the same-old same-old and singing the new campaign song it's all going to be Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So lets sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again,as if the words alone would make it so. It didn't happen in the 1930s. Then, as now, appeasement didn't work. But oh, those words would make anyone feel so good.

The problem is, words alone are not cutting it. Being blessed with a name does not alone make for a happy life as of itself. Ignoring an enemy set on destroying our very culture where I can write these words will not win a war.

There are many things I don't know, but there is one thing I know: there is no going back.

Don't close your eyes to reality.

Enjoy every moment you have.

And pray.



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Time Commons looks at the Times

Town Commons blog posts on The NY Times on PM Maliki and the Surge - a Study in Spin

One wonders if the NYT editors bother to read the news. Or is it that their partisanship has reached the level where they are simply lying to America in support of the anti-war Democrats?

Go read the entire post.

Why Joe outed Valerie, and today's items

All the outrage over Valerie Plame's outing. But did Joe Wilson outed her? When And Why Joseph C Wilson IV Outed Valerie Plame (h/t Larwyn).

TownCommons posts about The New York Times at their most irresponsible and disingenious. Why are so few people outraged at the NYT??

Speaking of what the media doesn't cover, Michelle Malkin has a sensational round-up of the Gathering of Eagles. Follow every link! Jane has the pictures.

Patrick Hynes has a post and video of McCain's New Hampshire visit, and notes,

My friend Hugh Hewitt makes a point that candidates for high public office cannot reach their target audiences without the aid of conservative media. Hugh says this not because he is a member of the conservative media, but because it is true. No candidate, including my client John McCain, will successfully navigate the primary process without communicating with and through the talk radio/blog/Podcast/YouTube nexus.

If you haven't watched it yet, you must: Make time today and watch the entire 1-hour-and 15-minutes of The Great Global Warming Swindle:

Update: Dr Sowell writes,

"Global warming" is just the latest in a long line of hysterical crusades to which we seem to be increasingly susceptible.

(end of update)

Speaking of ecological shell games such as Global Warming, Dinocrat has an excellent post on The pimping, pumping, primping and propping of China's accounting and why Purchasing Power Parity is not a substitute for GDP figures (h/t Larwyn).

Louisiana Conservative posts brain bullets

Dr Sanity has The Carnival of the Insanities:

In a lighter mode, Maria sent the NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK The F'in Departed: The Acadamy Award winning best picture of 2006 in under two minutes. Had Maria sent me the link two weeks ago, I would have rented a different video!

Ace explores why Why Are Women So Easy When It Comes To Giggles? I laughed so hard when I did my podcast with Steve of Hog On Ice that one of his commenters asked if I have a speech impediment. (Steve's making pizza - go check it out).

I'll be blogging more later. Possibly because of the Gore effect (was Al in NJ two days ago?) we still have a couple of inches of ice on the driveway, so I'll be staying in today - might as well blog!
Update The temps went up to 40F and the ice melted enough that it could be scraped off the driveway. I like that.