NASA's 'Nevermind'

I've long argued America's space program is hopelessly kaput, victim of an untamable bureaucracy and a fundamentally flawed shuttle design. Fourteen deaths and $250 billion too late (with more to come), Michael Griffin, NASA boss since April, says "my bad" in a frank discussion with USA Today:

The space shuttle and International Space Station — nearly the whole of the U.S. manned space program for the past three decades — were mistakes, NASA chief Michael Griffin said Tuesday.

In a meeting with USA TODAY's editorial board, Griffin said NASA lost its way in the 1970s, when the agency ended the Apollo moon missions in favor of developing the shuttle and space station, which can only orbit Earth.

“It is now commonly accepted that was not the right path,” Griffin said. “We are now trying to change the path while doing as little damage as we can.” . . .

Griffin has made clear in previous statements that he regards the shuttle and space station as misguided. He told the Senate earlier this year that the shuttle was “deeply flawed” and that the space station was not worth “the expense, the risk and the difficulty” of flying humans to space.

But since he became NASA administrator, Griffin hasn't been so blunt about the two programs.

Asked Tuesday whether the shuttle had been a mistake, Griffin said, “My opinion is that it was. … It was a design which was extremely aggressive and just barely possible.” Asked whether the space station had been a mistake, he said, “Had the decision been mine, we would not have built the space station we're building in the orbit we're building it in.”

So what next for NASA? Griffin's preaching some of that old-time religion:

Only now is the nation's space program getting back on track, Griffin said. He announced last week that NASA aims to send astronauts back to the moon in 2018 in a spacecraft that would look like the Apollo capsule.

The goal of returning Americans to the moon was laid out by President Bush in 2004, before Griffin took the top job at NASA.

Dumb and dumber. Though the romance of space still wows some, what's inspiring about setting the "Wayback" machine to 1969? And though Mars is a genuine challenge, is post-Katrina America ready to pledge billions on "welfare for scientists?" Indeed, some skeptics question any value in manned missions.

NASA's become a paradigm for big government: another agency outliving its purpose. Perhaps the private sector can carry on, risking (value-based) capital from investors, not taxpayers. NASA's now just pork--which Congress, and citizens, won't miss.

More:

Jesse at Space Law Probe makes the NASA-pork link, but comes down in the middle:

[A]s the new age of commercial space, personal spaceflight and space tourism takes shape, space will be a mixed bag of federally and commercially funded missions and projects. In America, where everything is still possible, we can have our space and cut the ham too. So for now, if you think we are shooting into space too many or too few of your hard-earned tax dollars, don't just blog about it -- e-mail or call your reps in Congress. But whatever you do, don't offer to take them to lunch.

(via Kobayashi Maru, Instapundit)

Comments Screen

Is spam-bombing a sign of success? Regardless, I've activated word verification. I hope humans continue to comment; I hope bots crash and quit.

More:

$^^%*^@@(&^~`!!! Now my comment flag and link has vanished. Is free blogger worth the cost?

Still More:

10:05 pm: Fixed. I think.

Poster Child

From Laika The Space Dog at The People's Cube:



(via Independent/NeoLibertarian Reader)

Europe's Next Export

In April 2001, the Dutch became the first nation to legalize gay marriage. The new law went beyond same sex "registered partnerships," available since 1998. So, what does the Netherlands example teach?

First, some background. Using data from Scandinavia and the Netherlands, conservatives such as Stanley Kurtz argue gay marriage undermines the institution of marriage, increasing single-sex parenting, thus upping welfare costs borne by taxpayers, even taxpayers opposing gay marriage. Leftists dispute both the numbers and the claimed causal link. Conservatives, especially conservative lawyers, also claim gay marriage is impossible to distinguish legally from legalized polygamy; that one would invariably legitimate the other. Some gay marriage advocates dispute the link. A few concede they favor both gay and plural marriage.

What's the point? This, from Brussels Journal:

[I]n the Netherlands polygamy has been legalised in all but name. Last Friday the first civil union of three partners was registered. Victor de Bruijn (46) from Roosendaal “married” both Bianca (31) and Mirjam (35) in a ceremony before a notary who duly registered their civil union.

“I love both Bianca and Mirjam, so I am marrying them both,” Victor said. He had previously been married to Bianca. Two and a half years ago they met Mirjam Geven through an internet chatbox. Eight weeks later Mirjam deserted her husband and came to live with Victor and Bianca. After Mirjam’s divorce the threesome decided to marry.

Obviously, this tends to vindicate the much-disputed link between gay and plural marriage. Are we sliding down the much-mooted "slippery slope?"

But, I hear you say, a polygamous civil union isn't marriage. Possibly, but not to the newlyweds:

Victor: “A marriage between three persons is not possible in the Netherlands, but a civil union is. We went to the notary in our marriage costume and exchanged rings. We consider this to be just an ordinary marriage.”

One hundred twenty-five years ago, the Supreme Court upheld state prohibitions on polygamy (Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1878)). I've wondered whether Reynolds remains good law. I've predicted activist liberal judges would invoke the unpredictable "living Constitution" to decriminalize both polygamy and adult incest within a few years. Now that the Supremes' ok-ed use of foreign law, make that a few months.

More:

A different prediction from SC&A: "This turn of events is going to put a huge burden on wedding planners."

(via Michelle Malkin)

Ding, Dong, Another Witch is Dead

Say good night to the so-called "International Freedom Center," thanks to rare unanimity between New York's Republican Governor, its Democrat junior Senator and NYC's former Mayor:¹

After a summer of furious and steadily rising criticism, Gov. George E. Pataki evicted the proposed International Freedom Center museum yesterday from its place next to the World Trade Center memorial site. With that, the museum declared itself to be out of business. . .

"The I.F.C. cannot be located on the memorial quadrant," Mr. Pataki said in a statement. That quadrant, at the southwest corner of the trade center site, contains the footprints of the twin towers.

Critics said the sacred precinct of the memorial was no place for a lesson in geopolitics or social history, particularly when a separate memorial museum devoted solely to 9/11 was being planned entirely underground, within the trade center foundations. . .

On Aug. 11, John C. Whitehead, the chairman of the corporation, instructed the Freedom Center to submit a report on its plans and programs, saying that its tenancy in the Snohetta building was at risk.

That report, issued last Thursday, did not assuage opponents, including three Republican congressmen, the police officers' and firefighters' unions and, as of last weekend, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York.

Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who is identified strongly with the events of 9/11 and it immediate aftermath, supported Mr. Pataki's decision yesterday. "The governor has made the right decision," he said.

The critics were correct--the IFC was poised to turn Manhattan's Ground Zero into an anti-imperalist-running-dog re-education camp. Kudos to Debra Burlingame, sister of of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, pilot of American Airlines fight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon on September 11th [two friends were passengers--ed.]. Her June 8th Wall Street Journal article was the first to blow the whistle on what Jeff Jarvis called "constructing a 'Why They Hate Us Pavilion.'" Burlingame and others started the "Take Back the Memorial" group; job well done!

Noting the IFC's decision to disband, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs supplies the coda:

This seems to be a clear admission that their goal was to exploit Ground Zero; if not, why couldn’t they simply relocate?

More:

Back in May, the New York Times questioned IFC's content and design:

By echoing the ramps down into the memorial pools, the downward spiral implies a direct connection between the cataclysm of 9/11 and a global struggle for "freedom" -- a bit of simplistic propaganda. (An early rendering of the Freedom Center that was circulated at the development corporation's offices included an image of a woman flashing a victory sign after voting in the recent Iraqi elections; that image has been replaced by a photo of Lyndon B. Johnson and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.)

But because the memorial became a conservative cause célèbre, the Times shifts into mourning:

At the root of that vitriolic protest was one question: "Why here?" Why imagine creating an institution that would celebrate freedom and foster discussion of its meaning, and the meaning of 9/11, within the memorial quadrant of ground zero? Wouldn't that dishonor the dead? We have never thought so. We believe that the site is sacred to more than death. It is sacred to life and to the principles - as well as the people - attacked there on Sept. 11, 2001. We believe that this country can be made stronger only by free speech. We believe that the power of that site should be used to consider what happened that day and to see what lessons we can derive from it, not only to mourn the dead.

Earth to planet Times: the Center's mission statement isn't an Ollie Ollie Ox In Free for "simplistic propaganda."

Kevin at Wizbang agrees with LGF. And Law Hawk rounds up other media reactions.
_________________

¹ The current, faux Republican, Mayor of New York City was "disappointed that we were not able to find a way to reconcile the freedoms we hold so dear with the sanctity of the site." Translation: Bloomberg's a terrorist apologist.

Speculation of the Day

Whatever their positions before, I imagine Louisianians of all political stripes are glad the Kelo decision came out the way it did.

A Marine's Missive

Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy posts a reader's email--Marine MGySgt Kuzniak, now in Iraq:

I think you would be amazed at the morale of the young military people here. I know I am. I’ve been in for over 28 years and I have seen good and bad. These youngsters are getting the job done in a way I would never have imagined. They go on convoys, get shot at or have IEDs go off, then they return still in high spirits. The trick here is to convince the bad guys they have been beat. The idiots at the peace rallies are what’s really hurting since the stated goals of the insurgents is to break down public support for the war in the US. I heard the other day that 52% of the people back home think we are losing. I would be worried if it was 1995 and this was the case, but Bush doesn’t govern via polls like Clinton did. That’s one thing we all appreciate about the president; he sticks to the plan.

Beth's response: "Did you get that? Peace rallies serve THE INSURGENTS. Protesting the war is NOT “supporting the troops,” and no one with a shred of common sense believes it does."

My response: "Why the heck does anyone still believe the NY Times, PBS, Dan Rather, Air America, France, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Howard Dean, Nan Aron, Kim Gandy, Barbra Streisand, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, Ramsey Clark, Dick Clarke. . ."

Slow-Mo Invasion

Recently, I've been debating whether the Blue-State/Radical Islam alliance is a threat to the West. Well, that debate's over, after reading this story at Ekstrabladet; an English-language website in Denmark (Denmark.dk) covered the same incident:

A Pakistani man's alleged shooting of his younger sister in a so-called 'honour killing' over the weekend has led members of the Pakistani community to discuss ways of halting the practice.

The Organisation of Pakistani Students and Academics intends to discuss the practice during an upcoming debate forum, according to the organisation's chairman Qasam Nazir.

'Many (Pakistanis, ed) are very disappointed that this problem has again appeared in contemporary Denmark,' said Nazir.

Many members of the Pakistani community were shocked over the weekend to hear reports that a 29-year-old Pakistani man was apprehended on Saturday, accused of shooting his 19-year-old sister and her Afghan husband on Friday. The sister died shortly after from her gunshot wounds.

(source: LGF)

It's bad enough in Pakistan. Now, honor killing is creeping into Europe via Muslim immigration. Is America next?

Is the brutal practice commanded in the Koran? Some say no, others maybe and a few claim it's compelled. It may be significant that the Koran considers criminal rape "waging war on allah" (along with kidnapping, banditry, and robbery), punishable by "execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land." (Surah 5:33).

I don't pretend to know the answer. But I can identify the source of the problem--the Koran's treatment of women:

Islam addresses the differing needs of man and woman comprehensively. The need of woman, in child bearing years, feminism notwithstanding, is sustenance and security. A pregnant woman requires care; a nursing mother and infant require protection; a wife, mother, sister require respect: these are their rights. Equal rights, in proportioned measure: the way of Islam is honest and clear-sighted. To safeguard the one from the oversights of the other; to remind the one of the requirements of the other; the balanced checks of Islam work in supreme rationality: "Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has made one of them stronger than the other, and because they spend out of their possessions (to support them)." (Surah 4:34). Women have the same rights as the husbands have on them. But man is the burden-carrying partner; with the weight of duty and responsibility, comes a measure of fair recognition: "But men are a degree above them (women)." (Surah 2:228). These are the basic injunctions of Islam concerning women. They revolve around the rights of women, not their restrictions. Injunctions placing restrictions on women in the Qur'an, emerge chiefly in connection to the greater curbs placed on men. For male lust, that primary, but blindest of drives, is not allowed to become the driving force of society. Thus the Qur'ânic injunctions recommend modesty, for both men and women. (24:31; 33:35). Where the parade of enticement and seduction prevails, Islam upholds the standard of straight forward human dealings, inner mettle to inner mettle. Sex and beauty stay at home; neither commodity nor potential incentive in wider social relations, their power is curtailed to strangers, enhanced to the bonded partner. Where promiscuity runs rampant, Islam builds a society where children know their fathers, and fathers are responsible for their wives and children. By severing the loose ties of lust, Islam restores the lasting ties of partnership. Where the sexual society objectifies, Islam humanizes.

Try explaining that to your bride.

I agree with Robin Burke, who recommends preventing and policing honor killings -- whether or not sanctioned by the Koran. And that goes double when you're in my home.

(via LGF)

Another One Bites the Dust

According to the Telegraph (UK):

Tony Blair has admitted that the fight to prevent global warming by ordering countries to cut greenhouse gases will never be won.

The Prime Minister said "no country is going to cut its growth or consumption" despite environmental fears. . .

Mr Blair admitted that there would probably never be a successor treaty to Kyoto, which expires in 2012, and said the "answer" was merely to try to introduce "incentives" for business and large-scale energy users to make cut-backs. He said: "To be honest, I don't think people are going, at least in the short term, to start negotiating another major treaty like Kyoto."

One of the problems surrounding the Kyoto Treaty was that the harsh carbon emissions targets did not apply to developing countries such as China and India. Mr Blair said in New York: "China and India... will grow. They are not going to find it satisfactory for us in the developed world to turn around and say, 'Look, we have had our growth. You have now got yours so we want you to do it sustainably even if we haven't'."

Politically, neither France nor Germany could confer a comparative advantage in emission reductions on British competitors. Thus, Blair's U-turn should doom Kyoto.

And not a moment too soon.

(via The Royal Flush via Greenie Watch)

Photo Fisk

It's a great day for Fisking, so be sure to read Zombie's photo series of a political child-abuse communist and the left wing media that protects her. While there, check out Zombie's galleries of kooks at Saturday's rally in San Francisco, with more at Susan and Mike.

(via LGF)

On Condemning Certainty

Barking Dingo praises this quote from Mark at Liberty Just in Case:

I've always believed that the more certain you are of your political opinions, the more chance there is that you are mistaken. When I believe I'm 100% correct, that's a warning sign to take a long look at the other side of the argument.

I normally agree with Mark. But Mark and Dingo are well wide of the mark here.

Initially, I'm not plumping for ignorance. Those taking political positions have an obligation to be fully informed. This necessarily requires both an appraisal of the facts and logic of others and the willingness to re-assess should circumstances change. But, thereafter, certainty isn't a sin; that's a nihilistic corollary of faddish postmodernism, as Charles Krauthammer recently explained:

The campaign against certainty is merely the philosophical veneer for an attempt to politically marginalize and intellectually disenfranchise believers. Instead of arguing the merits of any issue, secularists are trying to win the argument by default on the grounds that the other side displays unhealthy certainty or, even worse, unseemly religiosity.

Why this panic about certainty and people who display it? It is not just, as conventional wisdom has it, that liberals think the last election was lost because of a bloc of benighted Evangelicals. It is because we are almost four years from 9/11 and four years of moral certainty, and firm belief is about all that secular liberalism can tolerate.

Do you remember 9/11? How you felt? The moral clarity of that day and the days thereafter? . . . A few years of that near papal certainty is more than any self-respecting intelligentsia can take. The overwhelmingly secular intellectuals are embarrassed that they once nodded in assent to Morrow-like certainty, an affront to their self-flattering pose as skeptics.

Thus, certainty isn't a sign of stupidity. Indeed, sometimes certainty is too severe a standard, as Tony Blair farsightedly clarified before the Iraq invasion:

We cannot be certain. Perhaps we would have found different ways of reducing it. Perhaps this Islamic terrorism would ebb of its own accord.

But do we want to take the risk? That is the judgement. And my judgement then and now is that the risk of this new global terrorism and its interaction with states or organisations or individuals proliferating WMD, is one I simply am not prepared to run.

This is not a time to err on the side of caution; not a time to weigh the risks to an infinite balance; not a time for the cynicism of the worldly wise who favour playing it long.

Their worldly wise cynicism is actually at best naivete and at worst dereliction.

In other words, in an American context, Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon, respectively. By contrast, President Reagan understood this; his "success was founded on his unparalleled ability to simplify, a truth that draws hoots and smirks from liberals."

Animals depend on instinct. Humans, on the other hand, have the capacity to acquire, improve and exploit judgment. It would be a sin -- even for secularists! -- to discount it. And though both our process and conclusions may differ, we needn't fear confidence:

Sometimes, I'm certain about my judgment. I might be wrong . . . but there's no one else’s judgment on which I can rely.

So supply statistics and syllogism showing my slip-up. But don't skeptically slight self-confidence as a shortcoming.

Arrogant Assumptions

IraqPundit fisks anti-American blogger and Professor Juan Cole to within an inch of his life:

Cole can present himself as an Iraq expert because he spent time in nearby countries. That's all the respect he has for his region of expertise. In one stupid sentence, he lumps all the Arabs in one pile. Because I'm Iraqi, I might as well be Lebanese or Egyptian? Most of us would not dare present ourselves as an experts on neighbouring countries.

But not Cole. He is the spokesman for Iraq. He even trashes the neoconservatives for their wishing for a democratic Iraq. For all their serious flaws, at least they respect Iraqis enough to know we can live in a democracy. Not Cole. The supposed expert thinks we are so unsophisticated that we need to be controlled by a dictator.

(via Instapundit)

Dan Don't Get It

Former CBS reporter Marvin Kalb interviewed retired CBS anchor Dan Rather on CSPAN. Dan still thinks the Texas Air National Guard had proportional font, superscript-enabled typewriters in the Mesozoic era, and blames the blogosphere:

RATHER: [T]here are some strange, and to me, still mysterious things, certainly unexplained things that happened about how it got attacked and why, even before the program was over. But I try not to bog down on it. What I learned is there are bloggers who have as much integrity as I or the most integrity-filled people I know have, and who feel that it's their mission in life to ask questions and keep on asking questions.

There are other bloggers, and I'll go ahead and say it, that some of the quote, "mainstream press" seemed to take, if not delight in our dilemma, uh, they picked up pretty quickly on those bloggers who were partisan politically affiliated and/or had ideological axe to grind with us.

And instead of saying, well they've raised these questions, for example, about the documents, are these questions true? Next thing I know, they were in mainstream newspapers, and away it went. . .

We dealt with a story that had thermonuclear potential for reaction. And instead of saying, we have to be prepared to respond quickly to any and all criticism, we were remarkably unprepared for that. I think it's fair to say and again I just speak for myself but I believe it to be true of CBS and I think it was true of a lot of news organizations, unaware or not knowing enough of how quickly bloggers could strike. And strike is kind of an emotionally-laden word, I guess. But both those who didn't wish us well and may have been organized for their own partisan political purposes but others who were saying hey, I don't believe this. You just don't want to overgeneralize, but we were not prepared to meet that thing. . .

I believed in the story. The facts of the story were correct. One supporting pillar of the story, albeit an important one, one supporting pillar was brought into question. To this day, no one has proven whether it was what it purported to be or not. In terms of [unintelligible "myself"?] it was he stuck by the story, I stuck by the story because I believed in it. He stuck with my people. Listen, I've made nearly every mistake in the book. But my attitude when we go into stories--we go into them together, we ride through whatever happens and we come out the other end together. And I, you know, I didn't give up on my people, uh, our people, I didn't and I won't. [Applause]

KALB: Dan, thank you. You said, I believe you just said that you think the story is accurate.

RATHER: The story is accurate.

"And I am Marie of Romania."

More Outcry

Christopher Hitchens, "who knows the sectarian makeup of the Left very well," excoriates protest sponsors ANSWER and United for Peace and Justice, as well as the MSM shielding them:

To be against war and militarism, in the tradition of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, is one thing. But to have a record of consistent support for war and militarism, from the Red Army in Eastern Europe to the Serbian ethnic cleansers and the Taliban, is quite another. It is really a disgrace that the liberal press refers to such enemies of liberalism as "antiwar" when in reality they are straight-out pro-war, but on the other side. Was there a single placard saying, "No to Jihad"? Of course not. Or a single placard saying, "Yes to Kurdish self-determination" or "We support Afghan women's struggle"? Don't make me laugh. . .

There are only two serious attempts at swamp-draining currently under way. In Afghanistan and Iraq, agonizingly difficult efforts are in train to build roads, repair hospitals, hand out ballot papers, frame constitutions, encourage newspapers and satellite dishes, and generally evolve some healthy water in which civil-society fish may swim. But in each case, from within the swamp and across the borders, the most poisonous snakes and roaches are being recruited and paid to wreck the process and plunge people back into the ooze. How nice to have a "peace" movement that is either openly on the side of the vermin, or neutral as between them and the cleanup crew, and how delightful to have a press that refers to this partisanship, or this neutrality, as "progressive."

This is a must-read. I'm glad Hitchens saw the light and moved right. Why are other journalists still fooled?

More:

Combs Spouts Off:

Honorable and reasonable people opposed the invasion of Iraq, including many libertarians. Some are people I admire, like, and consider friends. But as far back as the earliest pre-invasion demonstrations, I argued that regardless of one's position on Iraq, no decent person should participate in, lend support to, or join forces with any "anti-war" movement organized and run by the totalitarian scum of International ANSWER and the Worker's World Party. . .

If you're opposed to the war against Islamofascism and/or the battle in Iraq, the very fact that such contemptible thugs are the major force that shares your point of view ought to make you think hard.

Danger Will Robinson!

CAUTION: disturbing hyperlinks

Dismayed by the pre-scripted arrest of Cindy Sheehan -- concededly not without mirth -- her leftist supporters reacted true to form: by stripping.

(via LGF, twice)

Cris de Coeur

Leon at RedState.Org:

The protest this weekend convinced me that my priorities need adjusting. As I watched the most anti-American elements of society rub shoulders this weekend, given legitimacy and free press through their attachment to a growing anti-war sentiment in this country to a fully complicit American Left that is seeking to capitalize on a growing anti-war sentiment, I came to realize that these people are not in this fight for the war. They are in it for political victory. . .

[O]ur most dangerous enemy will not seek to defeat us with military force, it will seek to defeat us by demoralizing us. And its base of operations isn't in the mountains of Afghanistan, it's right here in our own country.

And if their success is not to repeat itself, we must not allow them to succeed again. They must be defeated at all costs.

Sigmund, Carl & Alfred:

There was a time that only the left side of the political spectrum provided the moral voice of America. That is no longer the case. Throughout the globe, the right, in the shape of the religious community, are addressing the injustices the left no longer engages.

In what has to be one of the most stunning ideological reversals in this country's history, the standard bearer for human rights is now the political right. The left ceded that role with barely a whimper. . .

The left faced a choice. Reclaim their long held place as the face of American aid, or step aside. They chose to step aside because helping the oppressed would enrage their new backers- in many cases, the very purveyors of oppression. There was an unholy agreement. The left would ignore the oppression and their backers would give them a place in front of the cameras. Tyrannical regimes had nothing to fear. The left, America's conscience, would leave them alone. . .

The left have become a part of the Arab world , complete with conspiracy theories and visceral hatred, and the justification of the most heinous of violence. They demand rights without addressing obligations and have little tolerance for those with different ideas. It is acceptable to call for the death of an opponent, and no one objects. There is no debate- only name calling and calls for the destruction of those they cannot agree with or those who get in their way.

Dr. Sanity:

These people are not "antiwar". They do not stage protests about the killing of innocent people from Al Qaeda jihad. They do not demonstrate against the 100 million or more people murdered by communism in the last century. They do not express their rage at the mass graves of Saddam.

They are anti-American. They are only protesting because America chooses to defend itself against Islamofascist thugs who want to create a new Islamic caliphate by waging....war.

Let's face the truth. If there are "innocent" and "fine, sincere people" who are participating in these demonstrations, then they have to be the most clueless, vapid, and seriously intellectually challenged individuals in history. They joyfully support the ideologies that stand behind these demonstrations; and that makes them complicit to the most savage and vile behavior that has ever been perpetrated on the human species. It is their "peacefulness" that has led to the slaughter of millions of their fellow human beings. It is their cluelessness that has enabled and supported dictators and oppression throughout history.

MaxedOutMama:

[T]he left in Europe and America has become almost reflexively anti-Semitic. I find it very hard to distinguish between the extreme left and the extreme right these days. They both admire dictators, they both seem terrified by the idea of individual freedom, most especially freedom of conscience, and they both seem fueled by contempt and hate. Only the names differ.

Agreed. After Vietnam, two roads diverged -- JFK's internationalist liberation idealism or the tyranny of helpless, over-intellectualized multiculturalism -- and leftists took the one towards yellow woods.

And that has made all the difference.

Reader Poll

I've never conducted a poll; I don't know PERL, and can't use the fancy HTML codes or CGI scripts on Blogger. So respond in comments to a question based on today's news:

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who said last year she would not raise her child in the United States because her homeland is too dangerous, has changed her mind. . . "I'm sticking around."


In January 2004, she said: "I worry about bringing up a child in America.

"At the moment there's a weird, over-patriotic atmosphere over there, like, 'We're number one and the rest of the world doesn't matter.' . . .

'(Last year), I just had a baby and thought, 'I don't want to live there.' Bush's anti-environment, pro-war policies are a (disgrace).'"

The question is: should we allow Paltrow to return? Vote in the comments.

(via NIF)

A Better View

U.S. News & World Report's Michael Barone looks at current press-pushed perceptions:

Television news tends to center on bombs going off in Iraq and has mostly ignored several million people voting in Afghanistan. We see footage of angry Palestinians, but not much about the ongoing progress toward democracy in Egypt. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in turn have dominated the news and have made it difficult to get a sense of what is happening in the world.

A world spinning out of control: That is what the old-line broadcast networks seem to be showing us.

Barone acknowledges "the news is not positive everywhere," but fears many don't keep "the big picture in focus":

Polls show that most Americans think the economy is in dreadful shape, even though almost all the numbers are good: Inflation and unemployment are low, and growth is robust despite the exogenous shocks of Sept. 11, Enron and Katrina. After a generation of almost constant low-inflation economic growth, perhaps we Americans are only satisfied when we have bubble growth, as in the late 1990s, and are unimpressed when the American economy proves once again to be amazingly resilient. This is all the more astonishing when you consider that we are going through a time of increased competition and change, as China and India, with 37 percent of the world's population, are transforming their economies from Third World to First World. Such a large proportion of mankind moving rapidly upward: This has never happened before and will never happen again. . .

But even if things are going well, isn't America hated around the world? By the elites and chattering classes of many countries, yes, and by much of the American elite and chattering class as well. But we are not competing in a popularity contest. In a unipolar world, the single superpower will always arouse envy and dislike. The relevant question is if we can live safely in the world; the French may dislike us, but we can live comfortably with France.

Panglossian? Perhaps. But also: "'Probable!' replied the philosopher, 'I maintain that the thing is demonstrable.'"

More:

Irina of IgNoble Experiment:

Politics can (and often do) get boring, dirty, and repetitious.

Magic never does. . .

All is not lost...

And the Best is Truly Yet to Come!

(via Betsy's Page)

Magazine Article of the Week

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift circulates the ne plus ultra inane idiocy:

[Chief Justice nominee John] Roberts has led such a charmed life that heading the Supreme Court may not be the end of the road for him. Sid Davis, former Washington bureau chief for NBC news, has a recurring dream that Roberts will become president someday. This is the scenario: Roberts looks like William Holden, a Hollywood leading man when Ronald Reagan was still a B actor. A son of privilege with a Kennedyesque family, he recalls the heady days of Camelot. He’s a man of great intellect, and in about 10 years time, maybe longer, he’ll be bored with the high court, and a Republican Party starved for charisma will draft him to run for president. “I’ve been floating the idea and people think I’m nuts, but I don’t think I’m nuts,” says Davis.

Beldar spots the significance of such silliness:

[T]hat Ms. Clift and her editors at Newsweek could devote bandwidth to this sort of fantasy is an indicator of how thoroughly they perceive the Supreme Court and the rule of law to be just another variety of political game. John Roberts' career has been that of a secular monk dedicated to the study and preservation of pure law at its most highly distilled and refined level. It was his absolute dedication to and mastery of that realm which enabled him to shrug off every political entreaty or demand thrown at him by any senator. But members of the mainstream media are like ex-jock football commentators being asked to speak intelligently on, say, architecture or origami.

(via Howard Bashman)

Moonbats on Parade

Yesterday, I visited the zoo. Not the National Zoo in Rock Creek Park, home to Giant Pandas Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, but a louder and scruffier display by anti-war activists on the National Mall.

I roller-bladed down about 2pm, stayed for 10 minutes and avoided the speeches. Frankly, I was bored. I didn't bring a camera. So, since other bloggers have more extensive coverage, I'll use theirs.

• A Small Crowd: Everyone agrees the morning events drew few followers. Protest sponsor Answer claims the main event drew 100,000 demonstrators, an estimate relied on and echoed by the Washington Post and the BBC. Again, quoting protest organizers Reuters claimed 300,000. The ever-feverish Armando at Kos ups the ante to 500,000.
  
  As a veteran anti-Vietnam protester in my liberal youth, and a Washingtonian protest observer for a quarter century, this demonstration seemed smaller than clamed. During the annual July 4th concert/fireworks, crowds of up to a half-million literaly freeze any movement on the mall. Below are three tourist promotion photos from 2001:
  
  
  
  (source: DC Pages)
  
  
  
  (source: DC Pages)
  
  
  
  (source: Beyond DC)
  
  In contrast, there was plenty of room yesterday:
  
  
  
  (source: Daily Kos)
  
  
  
  (source: Getty Photos)
  
  There were some dense areas--but in limited-size pockets:
  
  
  
  (source: DC Indymedia)
  
  Objective evidence of crowd size confirms my impression,¹ especially this Reuters overhead shot and its more truthful caption:
  
  (caption: A large rally of anti-war demonstrators gathers on the Ellipse near the White House (top) as seen from the top of the Washington Monument in Washington D.C. September 24, 2005. Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in the nation's capital in support of anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan, who lost a son serving in the U.S. armed forces in Iraq, and demonstrated for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and an end to the war in Iraq. REUTERS/Jim Bourg)
  
  And, as Jeff at Protein Wisdom points out, not everyone at the mall was at the protest:

  The 2005 National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress and hosted by first lady Laura Bush, will be held on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2005, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., between 7th and 14th streets from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (rain or shine). The festival is free and open to the public.

  Last year, the Book Fest drew 80,000 people.
  
  MaxedOutMama says:

  Perhaps the truth about the "massive" anti-war protest will never seep into DU's collective mind - especially given the best efforts of reporters thinking wistfully of 60's demonstrations, cheap drugs, lots of skanky sex and no gainful employment. Those were their glory days. But for the rest of us, they weren't great days.

  I was on the mall yesterday; it was anything but glorious. Two bloggers said it best:

  Charles Johnson: "What If They Gave a Protest and Nobody Came?"
  
  Gay Patriot: "If Iraq is like Vietnam, how come the rallies keep getting smaller?"

• An Anti-American Crowd: Anti-war leftists insist they're tolerant but not anti-American. This shouldn't fool any objective observer, especially anyone who read ANSWER's own propaganda, such as David Adesnik at Oxblog:

  The global anti-war movement must be a movement of international solidarity against the U.S. empire. (Page 2)
  
  The Iraqi people have a fundamental right to determine their own destiny...Since 1958 when a mass uprising overthrew the British-imposed king, Iraq has been a genuinely sovereign country. (Page 2) [I wonder of the sovereign Iraqi government committed any human rights violations after 1958. Unfortunately, the brochure doesn't say!]
  
  The US kidnapping of President Aristide follows more than a century of U.S. intervention in Haiti...Since the election of Aristide to a second term in late 2000, with 92% of the vote, Washington has maintained economic sanctions against the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. (Page 3)[Wow, 92%. I bet ANSWER provided all of the elections monitors!]
  
  From its inception in 1948, Israel has been a colonial state based on "ethnic cleansing"...[Israel] launched devastating wars against Egypt, Syria and Jordan. (Page 4)[That surprise attack on Yom Kippur in 1973 really took a lot of chutzpah!]
  
  [The Cuban] revolution remains strong and is a source of inspiration for people throughout the hemisphere. (Page 6)
  
  Korea has been punished ever since [1953] with economic sanctions and the occupation of the southern half of the country by 37,000 US soldiers. (Page 6) [Fortunately, the anti-US insurgency in South Korea hasn't inflicted too many casualties on our force.]
  
  The [Bush] administration has launched a domestic war at home against the people of the United States that complements its global war for empire. (Page 7)[A war at home? Send the troops abroad now!]

  Saturday's signs reflected a movement both anti-American and hateful:
  
  
  
  (source: Michelle Malkin)
  
  
  
  
  (source: GOP Liberty)
  
  
  
  
  (source: DC Indymedia)
  
  
  
  
  (source: GOP Liberty)
  
  
  
  
  (source: Michelle Malkin)
  
  
  
  
  (source: Chris Christner)
  
  
  
  
  (source: EU Rota)
  
  
  
  
  (source: EU Rota)
  
  
  
  
  (source: DC Indymedia)
  
  
  
  
  (source: Mike Freeland)
  
  Quod erat demonstrandum.



• The media's still in the tank: Several speakers addressed Saturday's mall rats. Cindy Sheehan ranted, decrying an "out-of-control criminal government." But she strayed from the script, confusing the crowd:

  Sheehan: We have to show the world that Americans don’t torture and it’s not OK for anybody to torture another human being.
  
  Audience: [Huge applause.]
  
  Sheehan: Americans don’t invade countries and occupy countries preemptively that are no threat to our country.
  
  Audience: [Huge applause.]
  
  Sheehan: And it’s not OK for other countries to do that either.
  
  Audience: [One whistle, half-hearted golf claps.]

  Other kooks filled the gap. Anti-Semite Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-Mars) cautioned that:

  A cruel wind blows across America. . . . It blew disenfranchisement into Ohio and Florida. . . . We were forced to endure fraud in the elections of 2000 and 2004.

  An Arab-American activist called the U.S. a society of fear. GOP Liberty summarizes others, ranging from Community Labor United asking for an end to the "war against poor, black, uneducated people," to AFL-CIO Executive Counsel member Nancy Woolforth charging that "FEMA creeps who would not rescue 150,000 black and poor people." Wait a minute: That's not far at all. Basically, Saturday's activists were protesting Plessy v. Ferguson.
  
  Was any of this reported? Nope, hardly a word, though the media covered Cindy embracing America's head race hustler. But the MSM fired their fact checkers and now prints the far-left's press releases. The AP described Saturday's events as "parents mourning their children in uniform lost in Iraq, and uncountable families motivated for the first time to protest." Yet, no one sends "children" to Iraq and the protesters were professionals, not novices. The British press provided a platform for a grieving parent blaming Blair and demanding the Prime Minister withdraw from Iraq--despite the fact that his son was never in Iraq and died, tragically, in a traffic accident in Kuwait.
  
  Saturday's protest was flat-out anti-American--but few called it so. Hub Blog says, "It's just embarrassing to see the MSM cover up the political dynamics of 'antiwar' events -- while at the same time denying it has a liberal bias." It is embarrassing. But we've seen it before. Don't expect any change.

Saturday proved the anti-war, anti-American "BusHitler" crowd's getting smaller and shriller. That counts as a win. So I declared victory, re-clamped my roller blades, and pulled out.
__________

¹ The Scotsman estimated the protest in London, expected to draw tens of thousands, numbered in the "hundreds."