Just Say Anything.

Oh a mighty winds a blowin’, it’s kickin’ up the sand,
It’s blowin’ out a message to every woman, child and man
Yes a mighty winds a blowin’, cross the land and cross the sea,

It’s blowin’ peace and freedom, it’s blowin’ equality.
Yes it’s blowin’ peace and freedom, it’s blowin’ you and me.

- A Mighty Wind

Give us some air, we have the vapors! What a show, what fireworks, what a speech! No national ill was not caused by BushMcCain, nor was it without an Obama cure. And those ills shall be healed because, well, because we want it to be so. And he wants to do it all for us, because this isn't about him, it's about us. Yes: the fireworks, the temple, the stadium, the motion picture soundtrack, the adoration of the multitude - that is for us.

Fool's Gold.

The 29th Olympiad in Beijing is drawing to a close. It's been a great success for the PRC, with the distractions of sports, celebrity, money, with a slick campaign to portray China with a Disney World like tidiness. The concerns for air pollution and violence by a deranged individual were the only blemishes on an otherwise perfect propaganda campaign. Cheery memories of the Beijing Olympics will in be in dissonance with the behavior of China's authoritarian regime, complete with brutal political and religous persecution and agressive regional ambitions. We will all no doubt find the happy Olympics image of China preferable to believe.

With Success, Silence.

It is quite astounding how the TV press coverage of Iraq has dropped off; it's almost as if the war does not exist. Kudos to the New York Times and the Washington Post for their continued extensive coverage of Iraq. From a recent report from the Times as General Petraeus prepares to leave Iraq:

The arrival of the 30,000 extra soldiers, deployed to Baghdad’s neighborhoods around the clock, allowed the Americans to exploit a series of momentous events that had begun to unfold at roughly the same time: the splintering of Moktada al-Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army; the growing competence of the Iraqi Army; and most important, the about-face by leaders of the country’s Sunni minority, who suddenly stopped opposing the Americans and joined with them against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other local extremist groups.

The surge, clearly, has worked, at least for now: violence, measured in the number of attacks against Americans and Iraqis each week, has dropped by 80 percent in the country since early 2007, according to figures the general provided. Civilian deaths, which peaked at more than 100 a day in late 2006, have also plunged. Car and suicide bombings, which stoked sectarian violence, have fallen from a total of 130 in March 2007 to fewer than 40 last month. In July, fewer Americans were killed in Iraq — 13 — than in any month since the war began.

The result, now visible in the streets, is a calm unlike any the country has seen since the American invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in April 2003. The signs — Iraqi families flooding into parks at sundown, merchants throwing open long-shuttered shops — are stunning to anyone who witnessed the country’s implosion in 2005 and 2006.

However, TV is the manner by which most Americans get their news, and relative silence on Iraq by the MSM networks when the violence has dropped so dramatically will produce a dated and skewed view of Iraq in advance of the November election.

Robama Hood.

Bill McGurn itemizes Mr. Obama's mission to bring "fairness" to our society by (i) windfall-profits taxes on Big Oil to be redistributed as energy assistance payouts, (ii) having The Rich^® pick up the tab for the escalating benefits of Social Security, and (iii) hitting The Rich^® again with higher taxes to bring "balance" to the Force Tax Code. And if these actions result in lower government revenues? Hit The Rich^® with an increase in capital gains taxes!

The Rich^® is a registered trademark of the Barack Obama for President Campaign. To see who is currently included in this nefarious group, check the "Who's Rich?" thermometer graph at the Obama Campaign website. Updates are provided after every Obama campaign appearance or press interview.

The New Old Politics.

David Brooks writes that one of the most recalcitrant opponents to "a different politics" are the Mainstream Meatpackers, who prefer the easy stories of fad, conflict, controversy, and gotchas.

The Question Is: Why?

Obama and the Dems are now replaying Clinton-speak on abortion: "legal, safe, and rare".

But this raises a question: if there is no moral significance to abortion - that the fetus does not have rights of protection as an independent being as the Left claims - why does reducing the number of abortions have any significance? Isn't it no more important than calling for the reduction in the number of appendectomies? Would advocating for reducing the number of abortions (40 million since Roe) be based only on reducing a number of such medical procedures that carry some residual amount of risk to patients, or to lower public health care costs?

Or is such a call for reducing abortions an tacit admission that there is a moral dimension to every one of them that cannot be removed with legalisms?

Michigan Football Preview.

Given the dignity and decorum of the past month's happenings in Michigan Football - the new Head Coach in court and the U's big buyout of his previous contract - we thought it would be instructive to see what Michigan's tens of millions is getting. Above is some video that was recently taken at a Wolverine scrimmage...

Russia and Georgia: The Big Picture.

Melik Kaylan writes in the Wall Street Journal about the strategic motives for Russia's pressure on Georgia. It is, of course, about controlling natural resources and projecting Russian power and influence in the Caucasus and the ultimately the Middle East. Yes, the game is on again, against a much more capable adversary.

The Monster Strikes.

We went to the 2nd round of the PGA Championship at Oakland Hill CC. The course played brutally, featuring kudzu-like rough and unforgiving greens with tough hole placements. They will have to squeegee the blood from the 17th green (our base of operations for the late afternoon), with its only Friday birdie coming from Anthony Kim's chipshot. Sergio Garcia watched his teeshot to the left side of the green disintegrate with a four-putt five for the hole! The International Red Cross has intervened, and the course masters may acquiesce with more favorable hole locations for Saturday.

The Truth That Flows.

Jonah Goldberg thinks Mr. Obama is the Postmodern Candidate:

The Obama campaign has a postmodern feel to it because more than anything else, it seems to be about itself. Its relationship to reality is almost theoretical. Sure, the campaign has policy proposals, but they are props to advance the narrative of a grand movement existing in order to be a movement galvanized around the singular ideal of movement-ness. Obama's followers are, to borrow from David Hasselhoff — another American hugely popular in Germany — hooked on a feeling. "We are the ones we have been waiting for!" Well, of course you are.

Go watch The Candidate - we've seen this before!

A Fashion in Thinking.

Without censorship in the West, fashionable trends of thought and ideas are fastidiously separated from those that are not fashionable, and the latter, without ever being forbidden, have little chance of finding their way into periodicals or books or being heard in colleges. Your scholars are free in the legal sense, but they are hemmed in by the idols of the prevailing fad. There is no open violence, as in the East; however, a selection dictated by fashion and the need to accomodate mass standards frequently prevents the most independent-minded persons from contributing to public life and gives rise to dangerous herd instincts that block successful development.

- Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, "A World Split Apart", 1978.

In Case You Missed It...

John McCain appeared at the Urban League last week, fielding questions from a skeptical audience. We can't wait until Mr. Obama makes his appearance at the YAF convention!

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, 1918-2008.

The great writer who chronicled the terror of the modern totalitarian state has passed away in Moscow. R.I.P.

Stuck on Traffic.

Groovin' to "Paper Sun"! Enjoy! (Hat tip to Little Steven Van Zandt!)

Change We Can Renege On.

Mr. Obama has decided to play it safe and has weaseled out of a series of unscripted, unrehearsed, and uncontrolled joint appearances in front of regular Americans with Mr. McCain. He has also canceled all press conferences during his first year of his inevitable presidency, and instead will tape a series of inspirational messages to be played on the equinoxes and solstices.

A Time for Choosing.

John Fund pens an excellent column in WSJ Opinion about the disastrous consequences of the Congressional Culture of Corruption on the GOP. Were not Republicans sent to Washington to behave unlike Democrats?

A Tonic for the Madness.

You can park in front of the TV, strobe through the channels, and get an adreniline rush of images and sounds from the Midway: MSNBC's Shockdoc of the Night, Nancy Grace and her Heinous Crime Du Jour, acne removers, real estate "systems", Bill O'Reilly yelling at somebody or something, The Alledged World Greatest Dog, Arena Football, yet another showing of The Wizard of Oz, costume jewelry hawked by a "celebrity", Gene Simmons' domestic bliss, The Weather Channel's Storm Stories, infantile rap "artists" trashing a million-dollar home, cops chasing yet another moron on dope, some schnook looking for a big wad of free money in a suitcase with loved ones yelling them on, and on and on and on...

Stroll the Midway too often and you will go mad.

Or you can go flyfishing for smallmouth bass on the Huron River. You can watch a blue heron patrol the river from overhead, turtles sunning themselves on a log, and Hexagenia mayflies dancing above the moving water.

Go fishing too often and you will find peace and a quiet soul.

Liberal Fascism.

Jonah Goldberg's book, Liberal Fascism, has been ridiciculed and denounced by the literary elites. Perhaps some of the outrage over his book is because he's on to something? John Fund discusses a few recent cases of Liberal Fascism : the strongarm tactics by the Michigan-based group BAMN ("By Any Means Necessary") to sabotage petition drives for ballot referenda on race-neutral hiring practices in Arizona and Missouri, and similar thuggery that faced those who dared to circulate a petition in Michigan to recall State House Speaker Andy Dillion.

A Little Different in the Details...

The WaPo suggests that Mr. Obama's description of his strategic vision for the GWOT is "eccentric", and reveals some very big differences in what Mr. O's entourage claimed to be agreement with his 16-month deadline for troop withdrawl and the wishes of the Iraqi politicians and American military commanders.

Obama in Berlin.

He speaks to the masses in front of the Victory Column. Classic Obama Lofty Blather, and a shameless heaping helping from old JFK speeches. But why does he get this privilege? Don't ask.