The Speaker-Elect's Iraq Visions.

Nancy Pelosi said to Charles Gibson on ABC World News that conflict in Iraq will cease once American forces leave. Why? Well, once we leave, there'll be nothing to shoot at: according to San Fran Nan, the only reason that the "bad guys" (her phrase) are there is that we are there. Pelosi claims there's no real interest by the "bad guys" setting up a "bad place" - a terror state, that is. Kinda like Indochina, we assume, but with no messy boatpeople problem to worry about?

Whizbang follows up...

Occam's Politicks.

Well, tonight is Election Night, and there have been the predictable "why do so few vote?" news articles. The familiar litany of reasons is invoked: indecipherable ballots, too many steps between the parking lot and voting booth, weekday voting, citizenship requirements, etc. But never do we hear the far less elaborate proposition: some people are just ignorant, apathetic slobs.

Prognostication: various stuffed shirts will holler and spit at each other on various TV programs, and the hollering and spitting will continue tomorrow, the day after, ad infinitum. The sun will rise tomorrow, and we will all get up to start another day.

Olber The Top.

Keith Olbermann, doing his best impersonation of David Straithairn impersonating Edward R. Murrow, found his "McCarthy Moment" tonight in one of the most arrogant, histrionic, bug-eyed and paranoid rants I have ever watched on TV. Simply nuts. You can read it here.

LGF hits the nail on the head as to the "context" of JFKerry's comments - the seeming incurable snideness of leftists towards Americans and the American soldier in particular.

Is FOX KMOX?

Cards lead Series 2-1. Geez, with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver doing play-by-play for the World Serious with their endless superlatives for the Cardinals, it's like getting the feed from the St. Louis' famous radio station!

Boys, time to start hitting!

Fine Wine for under $10.

There is now a plethora of fine European wines to be found under $10. La Vielle Ferme Cotes du Ventoux 2004 is such a find. Great fruit and spice flavors.

Ugh.

Pop fly, pop fly, pop fly...Tiggers lose 7-2. Rookie nerves?

Move over, Giada DeLaurentis!
Andy's Diner is open. The greatest food, wine and cigar blog in known universe. This guy lives.

An October Thanksgiving.

Thank you, God, for your abundant and steadfast love. Thank you for my family, and the love they show me everyday. Thank you for your protection and guidance. Fill our hearts with the Holy Spirit and help us bring love and compassion to others.

Dig This, Man.

For the disaffected writer who has everything*-the Jack Kerouac Bobblehead Doll!

*or has nothing but his slicked asphalt howling moon half-cup of coffee in Iowa soul, man.

Decrescendo.

The great Maynard Ferguson has passed from the scene. What a trumpet player! I had the privilege of seeing him in the winter of '75; my ears are still singed from that concert. RIP.

Excelsior, You Fathead!

Get your fix of Jean Shepherd via the Brass Figlagee Podcast. And storm into your local Barnes and Noble and demand that they stock I, Libertine!

Brave New World, Deferred.

Michelle Malkin reports on the case of Haleigh Poutre, and the struggle against state-sponsored euthanasia.

Ann Coulter Aint no Dorothy Parker.

Florence King wallops Ann; her chief complaint is that her commentaries betray an unlearnedness. Ye Gads...what does that make Maureen Dowd? The college town loony with her scribbled rants on scrap paper?

But He Meant Well...

Andrew Young throws a rod.

The civil rights leader Andrew Young, who was hired by Wal-Mart to improve its public image, resigned from that post last night after telling an African-American newspaper that Jewish, Arab and Korean shop owners had “ripped off” urban communities for years, “selling us stale bread, and bad meat and wilted vegetables.”

You gotta love this reasoning: "...I was speaking in the context of Atlanta, and that does not work in New York or Los Angeles..."

Huh?

The Wrong Road?

Much buzz has been made of the Daimler "SmartCar", supposedly the solution to our MPG woes. But how smart is it? Its estimated highway mileage is 55 MPG, while in city driving is 45 MPG. But look of the size of this thing: other than transporting two human beings from A to B, this car is useless. And the A and B had better be on roads that are only populated by only cars of SmartCar size, because it's going to lose against a normal-sized car in an accident It seems that the MPG premium to gain from such a specialized vehicle should be huge, at least 100 MPG. And cheaper: the 2-seat version is over $25K. My first car - a 1980 Datsun 310 GX (N10 Pulsar) - got at least 30 MPG in city driving, and 40+ on the highway. It could carry five people, albeit it was a snug fit. I think it cost a lot less than $25K.

Extra! Extra!

How it could have been reported by the Washington Post:

Oct 20, 1962 (Washington, DC) - The Washington Post has learned that United States is on the verge of invading the island of Cuba, on the pretext of "offensive missiles" placed there by the Soviet Union, although the United States Government has not presented evidence to support this claim.

Post journalists report an enormous amount of preparation and staging of United States land, air, and naval forces in the southeastern United States and in the Carribean. Post reporters also have learned of round-the-clock meetings of White House National Security personnel and cabinet members in the Executive Office Building in the past several days.

The Washington Post has been approached by high-ranking members of the Kennedy Administration to suppress the publication of this information "in the most critical interests of national security", however in this morning's newspaper editorial Post Publisher Phillip L. Graham justified his refusal to delay publication of this story, stating:

As most of our readers know, there is a large wall between the news and opinion operations of this paper, and we were not part of the news side's debates about whether to publish the latest story under contention ...There have been times in this paper's history when editors have decided not to print something they knew. In some cases, like the Kennedy administration's plans for the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, it seems in hindsight that the editors were over-cautious...Our news colleagues work under the assumption that they should let the people know anything important that the reporters learn, unless there is some grave and overriding reason for withholding the information. They try hard not to base those decisions on political calculations, like whether a story would help or hurt the administration...[this] story looks like part of an alarming pattern. Ever since assuming office, this administration has taken the necessity of heightened vigilance against the Soviet Union and turned it into a rationale for an extraordinarily powerful executive branch, exempt from the normal checks and balances of our system of government...the country endured a long period of amorphous, global vigilance against an enemy who was suspected of boring from within, and history suggests that under those conditions, it is easy to err on the side of security and secrecy. The free press has a central place in the Constitution because it can provide information the public needs to make things right again. Even if it runs the risk of being labeled unpatriotic in the process...*

The Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, upon learning of Post story, stated that the USSR will defend Cuba from any US attack, and by any means necessary. He also said, "clearly with the disclosure of its aggessive intentions there will now be an intensive effort by the United States Government to produce fabricated evidence to justify this unprovoked aggession." Gromyko also said that the USSR will call for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council for a resolution to require the United States to halt all military manuevers in the Carribean and the SE United States, to put all of its nuclear weapons systems in a stand-down status, and an additonal resolution to require the US to pledge not to invade Cuba. Radio Havana reports that Fidel Castro has sent emissaries to all Latin American countries to assure them that no "offensive" weapons systems are in Cuba, and to ask them to resist a likely call by the United States for OAS support in invading Cuba.

*this quote, with some omission and rewording for grammar, is taken from the New York Times editorial "Patriotism and the Press", in response to the Times publication of the story disclosing the financial tracking of terror money. In actuality the Post delayed their story until after Kennedy disclosed to the nation of the Cuban missiles (and after it was clear that we had caught the Soviets in a lie).

Man Shall Be Free.

"...That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people, claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." - Thomas Jefferson, Rights of British America, 1774

Playing on the Same Team in Space.

Steven Hawking is now advocating colonization of space, but we expect to hear cries of violation from the space science community as they fear their budgets will be raided to further support the Man in Space program. And they're right: robotic space exploration - spaceborne astrophysical observatories, planetary probes, and Earth-Solar observatories are all very important to the scientific understanding of the Universe. Also, activities in space science need to be accelerated to speed the industrial development of remote sensing and robotic technologies.

But human exploration and colonization of space is vital, too. It is our opinion at Deaddrifts that, despite the greatest efforts to keep technological societies viable on Earth, in the long run they will succumb to human overpopulation, pollution, large-scale wars and social instabilities driven by resource scarcity. It is our belief that technological societies can only survive by proliferating through the Solar System and nearby stars with planetary systems. Such spaceborne societies will of course be subject to human foibles, but as the New World provided the experimental laboratory for democracy that was sufficiently isolated from Old World meddling, so space may provide a safe haven for technological democracies from the assault by the Earthly tyrannies .

Realizing space colonization is an enormous task, and will be the most costly and challenging engineering and social project ever undertaken by humanity. So it is clearly insane to continue the fratricide within NASA as the Man in Space program and the Space and Planetary Science programs fight for their shares of the budget to the detriment of the other.

Our country's efforts in space requires both of these programs. We propose that (1) NASA permanently divide these programs, (2) firewall their budgets from the other, and (3) declare that the permanent (i.e., hundred-year) goal of the Man in Space Program is the construction of permanent, self-sustaining colonies in the Solar System and other nearby planetary systems.

"I Shall Make the Dirt Fly!"

David McCullough's account of the creation of the Panama Canal was fascinating. Edward Herrman, the Voice of American history (recall Alexander Scourby), provides the narration of the audio book. TR (who provided the comment quoted above in response to the Panamanian Revolution) is featured prominently, but there are a constellation of heroes (yes, heroes) who made the Canal happen. They designed it, dug it, arranged the logistics, and fought "Yellow Jack".

The Canal was the "moon shot" of its time, and still an awesome work.

Navel-Gazing and Self-Flagellation Poses as Morality.

Courtesy of Mark Steyn and James Toranto:

...If you examine the assumptions underlying speeches by professors, media grandees, etc., it's hard not to agree with the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto, that these days America can only fight Vietnam, over and over: Every war is "supposed to become a quagmire, which provokes opposition and leads to American withdrawal.'' That's how the nation demonstrates its "moral virtue" -- i.e., its parochial self-absorption...