Time Running Out for U.S. Power?

From Nikolas Gvosdev, at World Politics Review, "Time Running Out to Rethink American Power?":

One of the strengths of the Naval War College is that it constantly reviews and assesses its curriculum. In support of that effort, I have been reacquainting myself with E. H. Carr's seminal work "The Twenty Years' Crisis," which got me to thinking: Will we look back on the period of time between 1991 and 2011 as another two-decade interregnum marked by crisis and opportunity?

This isn't an entirely original thought. James Goldgeier and Derek Chollet opened this discussion two years ago when they published, "America Between the Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11." But I wanted to focus on the opportunities the United States had to fundamentally shape the global order that emerged after the end of the Cold War and why each attempt hasn't "taken."

The first opportunity came circa 1992, when the United States cast a long shadow over the entire international system, not dissimilar to its position in 1945. The Soviet Union had collapsed; Deng Xiaoping had yet to undertake his famed "southern tour," which started the boom that took China out of its post-Tiananmen Square malaise; the European Union was still in the process of being mid-wifed; and India, Brazil and Indonesia had not yet begun their ascent.

The famed draft of the 1994-99 Defense Policy Guidance drawn up in late 1991, which called for the maintenance of U.S. primacy, was not unrealistic in some of its assessments about the global balance of power at that time. The problem lay in the fact that constructing and maintaining a "new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests" would require an enormous sacrifice from the American people. In a year where the election was dominated by the mantra, "It's the economy, stupid," and at a time when the American people were eagerly awaiting the "peace dividend" that came with the end of the Cold War, there was little enthusiasm among politicians to undertake such a task. And if this was true in the United States, it was even truer in Western Europe, where the existential threat to the European way of life had evaporated along with the threat of Soviet tanks rolling across the Fulda Gap.

More at the link.

Mixed Reviews for 'Green Zone'

Here's an update on "Green Zone," out today from Universal Studios. From the film's website:

It is 2003, and U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller and his team of inspectors have been dispatched by their commanders to find weapons believed to be stockpiled in the Iraqi desert. Rocketing from one booby-trapped and treacherous site to the next, the men search for deadly chemical agents but instead stumble upon an elaborate cover-up that subverts the purpose of their mission.

Spun by operatives with intersecting agendas, Miller must hunt through covert and faulty intelligence hidden on foreign soil for answers that will either clear a rogue regime or escalate a war in an unstable region. At this blistering time and in this combustible place, he will find the most elusive weapon of all is the truth.

As usual, leftist Kenneth Turan, at L.A. Times, gushes over another America-bashing production: "Movie Review: 'Green Zone'." And then there's Turan's fellow traveler at the Times, Patrick Goldstein, with: "Is 'Green Zone' Really Appallingly Anti-American?." Goldstein in turn attacks media critic Kyle Smith as "frothing at the mouth." And then Smith responds with " Get Me a Straitjacket. Disliking “Green Zone” Is Crazy."

Beyond that, I doubt you'll find a more realistic review than Ray Greene's at Box Office. See, "Green Zone: Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon re-team for a Mutated Jumble of Action Movie Violence and Liberal Self-Congratulation":

Green Zone is an exercise in commercial cowardice masquerading as a thriller about political bravery. A film at odds not just with recent history but also with itself, it’s been filmed like an action movie but scripted at times like a sequel to Syriana. It’s hard to imagine the testosterone set wanting to swallow so much half-baked commentary on American incompetence with their gunfire, chase scenes and explosions. Unless the studio’s overt campaign to make people think this is an unofficial entrée in the Bourne franchise proves effective, Green Zone will open well based on star power and then do a fast fade.

If the credits can be believed, Green Zone was at some point supposed to be an adaptation of Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s multi award-winning Baghdad memoir Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a non-fiction account of American military and political hubris in the immediate aftermath of the Iraqi army’s quick surrender back in 2003. Those were heady days for the Bush Administration, just before Iraqi political factionalism, a sustained and unanticipated guerilla war and the proliferation of roadside bombing made a mockery of George W. Bush’s premature announcement of “Mission accomplished!” on the deck of the USS Lincoln. Afterward came the long and bloody slog that continues to this day.

The book stuck to the facts and named names. Chief among them was L. Paul Bremer, the American administrator who, for one disastrous year, governed the seemingly conquered Iraqi nation with emperor-like powers akin to Douglas MacArthur’s in Japan after WWII. Bremer’s most notorious decision was to announce the dissolution by fiat of Iraq’s defeated army, a brutal arm of the deposed Ba’athist regime, but also, according to books such as Bob Woodward’s bestselling State of Denial, the only force with any hope of imposing order on a sprawling, ethnic powder keg of a country. Woodward’s research indicated the vanquished military men were willing to make a deal. Bremer’s sweeping decision therefore drove what was arguably the most heavily armed and highly trained Arab military force in the Middle East into a posture of violent resistance to American aims. The results were chaos, violence and quagmire, and they remain so today.

Somewhere during the process euphemistically known as “story development,” Imperial Life morphed into a queasy, self-righteous repackaging of hardware-worshipping thriller shtick and lone gun vigilante histrionics, served up with a dollop of liberal handwringing just large enough to convince the film’s makers they’re doing something “important,” and maybe even courageous ...

More at the link.

Jimi Hendrix - 'Valleys of Neptune'

At the Los Angeles Times, "Putting Jimi Hendrix's House in Order":

The keepers of Jimi Hendrix's flame are calling the new album of long-buried recordings by the proto-rock guitar hero “Valleys of Neptune.” The obvious explanation is that it's the title of one of the cornerstone songs that emerged during a fertile, albeit transitional, period in Hendrix's career: the early months of 1969, when the original Jimi Hendrix Experience was dissolving and its namesake was figuring out what to do next and with whom he would do it.

But spend a little time talking with those keepers -- Hendrix's stepsister, Janie, who controls his estate, recording engineer Eddie Kramer, who was there in the studio much of the time when Hendrix was at work, and music historian and Hendrix devotee John McDermott -- and you quickly sense that "Valleys of Neptune" also describes just how far they've been willing to go in recent years to put his recorded legacy and -- in a grander sense -- his memory in order.

"I keep saying that this is the most fun, archaeological dig you could possibly go on," said Kramer, one of the handful of people still alive who spent significant time with Hendrix in a recording studio. "You unearth these little gems, and you go, 'Wow, I don't remember him doing that.' But then all these little pieces start to fit together. . . . That's the intrigue: You get on the scent of something, then you get that lovely moment of discovery -- like that classic moment when we found an enormous pile of tapes that had been left at some studio on the East Coast because a phone bill hadn't been paid."

Hendrix, Kramer and McDermott gathered recently at the North Hollywood recording studio where Kramer and associate Chandler Harrod have been putting finishing touches on master recordings they're using for "Valleys of Neptune." They're working with 41-year-old 14-inch reels turning on vintage Ampex tape machines hooked up to banks of the latest digital equipment to ready them for release March 9 on CD and audiophile vinyl pressings.

The releases roughly coincide with the launch of the latest Experience Hendrix Tour, this one kicking off in the Southland with shows March 4 in Santa Barbara and March 5 at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Los Angeles. On the bill are Hendrix disciples, including Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Jonny Lang along with bassist Billy Cox, Hendrix's Army buddy who joined him when Noel Redding exited the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

For a couple of decades after Hendrix's drug-related death at age 27, fans were deluged with what seemed like every scrap of tape that had ever captured some of his musical landscape-altering guitar work or his fierce, blues-fired vocals. He released just three official studio albums during his lifetime: the watershed 1967 debut of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, "Are You Experienced," followed in relatively short order by "Axis: Bold as Love" and his only No. 1 collection, "Electric Ladyland."

RTWT at the link.

The 'al Qaeda Seven' - The Anti-Anti-Terror Left and Legal Standards

From the Wall Street Journal, "The 'al Qaeda Seven': The anti-antiterror left and legal standards":

When partisans of the left and right trade charges of "McCarthyism" and "assisting the enemy," it's a good bet that both sides are wrong—which means that each side also has a point. That's the way it looks to us in the dispute over the Justice Department's employment of lawyers who represented terrorist detainees while in private practice.

At a November oversight hearing, Senator Charles Grassley asked Attorney General Eric Holder to provide a list of such lawyers and information about possible conflicts of interest. Last month Mr. Holder replied to the Iowa Republican, assuring him that the lawyers were complying with the Department's ethics rules. Mr. Holder wrote that nine of his employees represented detainees while in private practice, but he named only two: Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, who successfully argued the 2006 Supreme Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and Jennifer Daskal, who formerly worked for Human Rights Watch.

Mr. Grassley wasn't satisfied. Neither was Liz Cheney, daughter of the former Vice President, who now heads an organization called Keep America Safe. Ms. Cheney's group produced an online advertisement demanding to know "Who Are the al Qaeda Seven?" and "Whose values do they share?" The names of the seven were soon provided by Fox News.

It isn't merely the usual liberal suspects who have since objected to the Keep America Safe ad. Ted Olson, who was George W. Bush's Solicitor General when his wife, Barbara, was killed in the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, said that lawyers who represented Guantanamo detainees acted "consistent with the finest traditions of the legal profession." Charles "Cully" Stimpson, who was in charge of detainee affairs at the Pentagon and once urged a boycott of law firms representing detainees, said the ad left him "disgusted."

Mr. Stimpson is one of more than 20 lawyers, including many veterans of Republican administrations, who signed a letter that declared: "To suggest that the Justice Department should not employ talented lawyers who have advocated on behalf of detainees maligns the patriotism of people who have taken honorable positions on contested questions and demands a uniformity of background and view in government service from which no administration would benefit."

One might add that some detainee lawyers, including Mr. Katyal, were successful in arguing their cases before the Supreme Court. We think the holding in Hamdan damaged both executive power and U.S. security, but it's strange to suggest that a successful pleading before the High Court raises questions about a lawyer's loyalty to America.

Yet while the tone of Ms. Cheney's ad is unfortunate, the call for transparency is entirely reasonable. The public has a right to know the identities and records of the lawyers Mr. Holder has hired to serve it. Ms. Daskal, for example, argued that detainees who have not been charged with a crime should be set free, even though "some of these men may cross the border and join the battlefield to fight U.S. soldiers and our allies."

She made this case in a 2008 Human Rights Watch report—which is to say that she was representing not a client but her own opinion. The Administration is entitled to employ people who hold such views, but it has no right to do so in secret.

The rest is here.

Andrew Breitbart Interview at Wired

From Noah Shachtman's interview at Wired, "How Andrew Breitbart Hacks the Media":

Andrew Breitbart has been waiting 45 minutes for a filet mignon. He drums his fingers on the table in this plush Italian restaurant off Times Square, a place where the media types he regularly trashes used to flaunt their expense accounts — back when they still had them. Breitbart looks around for a waiter and launches into a stem-winder about collusion between Hollywood and the press — the “subtle and not-so-subtle use of propaganda to make a center-right nation move to the left.

“It’s not just the nightly news,” he says. “You’re also getting television shows that reflect the same worldview, where Republicans are always the bad guys. Al Qaeda’s never the bad guy. The Republican is always the bad guy.”

From anyone else, this would be just talk — or talking points. (No terrorist bad guys on TV? Really?) But Breitbart is one of the people who rams those points into the popular consciousness. Until last September, the beefy 41-year-old with graying blond hair was a largely covert power in the right-wing media, the hidden hand behind the popular Drudge Report who also, weirdly, cofounded the liberal Huffington Post. But then he struck out on his own. Today his collection of Web sites draws more than 10 million readers a month. He has a book deal worth more than half a million dollars, and he’s a regular presence on Fox News — where he’s headed later tonight, in fact. The covert thing is out the window.

The filet finally shows and Breitbart digs in, ignoring the risk to his mustard-colored sports coat. “The idea is that I have to screw with media, and I have to screw with the Left, in order to give legitimate stories the ability to reach their natural watermark,” he says.

After just a few bites of steak, Breitbart splits. He has a meeting on the East Side with his lawyer to prep for a hearing tomorrow. The Brooklyn DA is investigating the housing advocacy group Acorn and wants to talk to Breitbart about the infamous videos he spread all over television and the Internet last year that show Acorn staffers offering to help a man and a “teenage hooker” set up a brothel full of underage Salvadoran prostitutes. (The DA would eventually find “no criminality” in the actions of the Acorn staffers.)

Later that evening, Breitbart arrives at the offices of Fox News on Sixth Avenue. Host Sean Hannity greets him with a fist-bump and calls him “bruthah.” Doug Schoen, Bill Clinton’s former pollster, waves hello. Then the three of them walk into a cavernous television studio covered in stars and stripes. “Breitbart, you didn’t bring video tonight. What’s up with that?” Hannity asks as the cameras start rolling.

Breitbart smiles a little. “Oh, in the next year there will be more. More than we all can handle,” he answers.

Hannity extracts a promise for an exclusive. “This is changing the face of journalism,” he says.

Schoen pipes in: “It’s changing the face of politics, too.”

The taping ends with small talk and handshakes. Afterward, Breitbart heads downstairs to visit Greg Gutfeld, who hosts the Fox overnight show Red Eye. Then they meet up with Felix Dennis, the high-flying founder of Maxim magazine, and spend the rest of the evening at a midtown club drinking Cristal.

For someone who claims to hate the “Democrat-media complex,” Breitbart sure knows how to work it. Few people are better at packaging information for maximum distribution and impact. He is, depending on whom you ask, either the “leading figure in this right-wing creation of a parallel universe of lies and idiotic conspiracy theories” (that was liberal critic Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America) or “the most dangerous man on the right today” (from Michael Goldfarb, Republican consultant and former campaign aide to John McCain). Breitbart is, in short, expert in making the journalism industry his bitch. “The market has forced me to come up with techniques to be noticed,” Breitbart says. “And now that I have them, I’m like, wow, this is actually great. This is fun.”

Awesome stuff -- and more at the link.

Added: Some interesting spins on Shachtman at Memeorandum.

Meg Whitman's Conflicts of Interest

It's clear that this woman would be even worse the Governor Schwarzenegger. Her wealth belies a concern for the public interest. See Los Angeles Times, " Whitman's Funds Could Pose Conflicts":

Billionaire GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has invested her vast wealth in firms that sought to profit from the country's credit crisis, in venture capital and hedge funds open only to the wealthy, and in oil, gas, healthcare and other concerns seeking to influence state policy.

The first public glimpse into the financial portfolio of the former EBay chief came Thursday, when she filed an economic-interest disclosure required of candidates.

The holdings present potential conflicts of interest for a governor. Whitman spokeswoman Sarah Pompei said the candidate would "likely" move her holdings into a blind trust if she is victorious "and will scrupulously avoid any conflicts of interest."

Moving investments into such a trust has been standard practice for wealthy officeholders. Whitman's opponent in the June primary election, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, has placed his investments in a blind trust. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did the same.

Blind trust or not, her imperial media style is actually sickening: At the first video, Ed Morrissey, "Whitman’s Bizarre Press Conference." And below, "At Whitman Event, a ‘Rabble-Rouser,’ Police and Undercover Video":

The 3/11 Madrid Bombings: 6 Years Later

This post will remain at top all day, in honor of the 191 people killed on March 11, 2004, exactly 6 years ago today. M-11 is controversial in Spain. Initial investigations ruled out a direct link to al Qaeda (see the references to the Wikipedia page), but the Wilson Center had an update last year, "The 3/11 Madrid Bombings: An Assessment After 5 Years":

The conventional wisdom that soon emerged about the 3/11 attacks was that it was a prototypical example of a local terrorist cell at work: self-recruited, leaderless jihad—a "bunch of guys," as one analyst has put it.

"The media has astonishingly contributed to this [perception of] al-Qaeda as an amorphous phenomenon," Reinares said [Fernando Reinares, of the Program on Global Terrorism in Madrid's Elcano Royal Institute].

Reinares's analysis challenges this conventional wisdom. For evidence, he draws on the judicial review conducted by the Spanish authorities, as well as the trials of terrorist defendants prosecuted in Madrid and Italy. Most of those involved in the 3/11 attacks were from Morocco; they were first-generation immigrants, not homegrown terrorists (as they were in Britain).

Two terrorists who played a key role in the bombings had been members of the al-Qaeda cell established in Spain in the 1990s. This cell had extensive international contacts, including with the Hamburg cell headed by Mohammed Atta (who visited Spain during the preparations for the 9/11 attacks in America). These members of al-Qaeda in Spain were not self-radicalized and self-recruited, Reinares said.

The leader of the Spanish al-Qaeda cell attended a key meeting of North African jihadist groups in Istanbul in February 2002. That meeting, which occurred in the aftermath of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime and deny al-Qaeda a safe haven, led to a strategic decision by these groups operating in the Maghreb and Spain to launch renewed attacks. Members of those cells had received terrorist training, including instruction in using cell phones to trigger simultaneous explosions, in Afghanistan during the Taliban era.

The Moroccan members of the al-Qaeda cell in Spain had been "radicalized from above," using popular opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq (which the Spanish government at the time had supported) as one recruitment tool.

At the video is Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West. (The homepage is here.) One hour long, the film is must see. If you're short for time, scroll ahead to 17:25 minutes, where radical clerics, in multiple speeches, shout "Allahu Akbar" -- "God is Great" -- while chanting "Death to America." Also, check at about 31:30 minutes, where we find out that the terrorist are not far from home, plotting murders of American citizens thousands of miles away. "They are here." Right here among us. It's absolutely chilling.

I wish all of my readers a safe and happy day, but please never forget our friends in Spain and around the world. We never forget.

And for a memorial of all those lost in Madrid 6 years ago, see José M. Guardia, " IN MEMORIAM, 6 YEARS AFTER."

Readers are invited to comment. I'd love to hear from you, especially those newer readers I've not spoken with.

United Nations to Investigate Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

At Watts Up With That, "IPCC Announces 'Independent' Review."

And with a link to the Times of London, "UN to Review Errors Made by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change":

The United Nations is to announce an independent review of errors made by its climate change advisory body in an attempt to restore its credibility.

A team of the world’s leading scientists will investigate the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and ask why its supposedly rigorous procedures failed to detect at least three serious overstatements of the risk from global warming.

The review will be overseen by the InterAcademy Council, whose members are drawn from the world’s leading national science academies, including Britain’s Royal Society, the United States National Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The review will be led by Robbert Dijkgraaf, co-chairman of the Interacademy Council and president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He has been asked to investigate the internal processes of the IPCC and will not consider the overarching question of whether it was right to claim that human activities were very likely to be causing global warming.

The review, which will be announced in New York by Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary General, and Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, is expected to recommend stricter checking of sources and much more careful wording to reflect the uncertainties in many areas of climate science.

The IPCC’s most glaring error was a claim that all Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. Most glaciologists believe it would take another 300 years for the glaciers to melt at the present rate.

It also claimed that global warming could cut rain-fed North African crop production by up to 50 per cent by 2020. A senior IPCC contributor has since admitted that there is no evidence to support this claim.

The Dutch Government has asked the IPCC to correct its claim that more than half the Netherlands is below sea level. The environment ministry said that only 26 per cent of the country was below sea level.

The allegations about climate scientists are believed to have contributed to a sharp rise in public scepticism about climate change. Last month an opinion poll found that the proportion of the population that believes climate change is an established fact and largely man-made has fallen from 41 per cent in November to 26 per cent.

You don't say?

And at the Image: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

And currently at the link:

* "Fifth Assessment Report (AR5)."

* "Letter to Governments (PDF)."

* "Letter to Organizations (PDF)."

* "AR5 Nominations Portal."

* "Simplified Guidance Document for Focal Points (PDF)."

Of course, no doubt all this CYA activity is just the latest in "the climate change hoax."

Yeah. You know. The science is already settled.

Desperate Dems Push Filibuster Reform!

I warned about this earlier, at my post, "Pay Attention to the Senate." As noted there, the Democrats, unable to ram through their agenda amid public opposition to socialism, will likely push for major structural reforms.

Well, the desperation is building. See, "Harry Reid Pledges Filibuster Reform."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pledged on Wednesday to take a serious look at revising the filibuster rules at the beginning of the next Congress, calling the current level of obstruction in the Senate unacceptable.

In a reflection of the party's commitment to changing the parliamentary rules, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) followed the majority leader by saying that his committee would address the topic soon.

"The rules committee is going to start holding hearings on how to undo the filibuster rule," said Schumer, who chairs the Senate Rules Committee. The New York Democrat told the Huffington Post after the speech that the hearings would take place two or three weeks from now.

In a speech before a gathering of progressive media, Reid compared the procedural games played by his Republican counterparts to the use of the spitball in a baseball game and the four-corner offense in basketball -- tactics in each sport that were ultimately outlawed.

"The filibuster has been abused. I believe that the Senate should be different than the House and will continue to be different than the House," Reid said. "But we're going to take a look at the filibuster. Next Congress, we're going to take a look at it. We are likely to have to make some changes in it, because the Republicans have abused that just like the spitball was abused in baseball and the four-corner offense was abused in basketball."

Also, see Ezra Klein, who's been beating the filibuster to death, "Reid Promises Filibuster Reform" (via Memorandum).

It's hard to express how appalled I am at the notion of Democratic Party filibuster reform. See my link at top for more (where I note how radical lefists have gone even further with calls to abolish the Senate). But see as well, Michael Gerhardt Larry Kramer, at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "Protect Our Rights, Keep the Filibuster."

Dan Rather Apologizes for 'Watermelons' Comment, Kinda...

From Dan Rather at Huffington Post, "Watermelons, Washington, and What We Call News Today":

I must confess that until recently I had no idea what Twitter was. Even now, I'm not completely sure how it's best used. When I want to post something, the younger, more tech-savvy people in my office help me out. But I do know this: if you searched Twitter for "Dan Rather" over the past few days, you probably could guess why I feel the need to write this column.

It started this past Sunday when I appeared on Chris Matthews' syndicated talk show. I've known and respected Chris for many years and I enjoy doing his show. I take the train down from my home in New York to Washington D.C. and as I approach Union Station my thoughts often turn to the years I spent covering the Johnson and Nixon White Houses. It was a turbulent time for the country and a formative period for me as a reporter and a young father.

The Washington of that time was a far different place. In some ways it was better: less politically rancorous, more collegial. In many ways it, and the country it represented, was much worse. African Americans were still very much second-class citizens. Women held few positions of power. We smoked more, polluted our environment more, and accepted social mores that anyone who has seen Mad Men knows are embarrassingly outdated.

The news media was also different, so different in fact that I won't even try to enumerate all the changes. Many who are far smarter and more perceptive than I have written volumes about it. As with the country itself, there were some elements of the press that were better then and some that are better now. There were many more newspapers and they were healthy, full of enterprising reporting. The networks were flush with cash that they spent on their news divisions, supporting large staffs of journalists and bureaus across the country and around the world. Most of the bureaus have closed and the staff has been laid off.

Meanwhile, new forms of journalism have emerged that were unimaginable when I lived in Washington. The online and cable world has allowed a freer exchange of ideas and more access to news. People can scour the New York Times (or the Times of India for that matter) in real time around the globe. If someone reads a fascinating article he or she can share it easily with friends. When news breaks, eyewitnesses have a forum for relaying their observations and insights.

All this is the backdrop for what I said on the Matthews show. I was talking about Obama and health care and I used the analogy of selling watermelons by the side of the road. It's an expression that stretches to my boyhood roots in Southeast Texas, when country highways were lined with stands manned by sellers of all races. Now of course watermelons have become a stereotype for African Americans and so my analogy entered a charged environment. I'm sorry people took offense.

See that?

"Sorry people took offense"? That's not an apology, that's blaming others for taking offense. Shoot, check out Rather blather on about how, dag-nabbit, an old news anchor just can't buy a break these days. You know, it's the system's fault:

What saddens me is what this experience has made all too clear. Much of what we call news, isn't. Much of what we Tweet, or post, or chat away at under the guise of news, are distractions.

Dan Rather's a jerk. And his racial hypcocrisy is astounding (and he has no business lingering around the news business with that dinosaur mentality). No one of common decency would dismiss the president with a "watermelon" slur. It's. Just. Not. What. Good. Folks. Do.

Kudos to Left Coast Rebel for his reporting on this, and video hat tip to Sarge Charlie.

HBO's 'The Pacific'

Pat in Shreveport has the video, "Tom Hanks on The Pacific":

It turns out there's some controversy over Tom Hanks' recent comments on the series. See Newsreal, "Tom Hanks: US Wanted to Annihilate the Japanese Because They Were ”Different”." There's a link there to Big Hollywood as well, which has more details. And more at Pundit & Pundette, "Tom Hanks on why we fought the Japanese."

Tom Hanks is a patriot. He's put enough chips in the hero bank to last for a long while. So I'll wait to watch the film before I hammer any of those involved in the production.

That said, there's a review at the Orlando Sentinel, "‘The Pacific’: HBO Miniseries is a Season High Point":

Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg want to send you to war.

Go. It is worth enlisting in “The Pacific,” their stupendous miniseries that re-creates World War II with gut-wrenching power. The 10-part drama, a pinnacle of the TV season, starts at 9 p.m. Sunday on HBO.

“The Pacific” is not for the squeamish. The production plunges viewers into the mud, chaos and terror as Marines fight through hellish conditions at Peleliu, Okinawa and Iwo Jima. ”The Pacific” smashes war-movie cliches to explore the Marines’ sacrifices and challenges. The men bicker, cry and suffer.

“We’re all afraid, all of us,” an officer confides. “The man who isn’t scared out here is either a liar or dead.”

Anyone who has seen “Saving Private Ryan” knows the drill. Yet “The Pacific” deepens the experience by depicting the Marines’ lives after the war. ”The Pacific,” which cost $200 million to produce, surpasses ”Band of Brothers,” the Hanks-Spielberg miniseries about World War II in Europe

GOP Targets Democratic Vulnerability on Health Care 'Reconciliation'

Health-care "reform" failed months ago. If Obama-cratic authoritarians ram the bill through with "budget reconciliation," there'll be hell to pay come November.

And at the Washington Post, "On Health-Care Reform, Republicans Target Democrats' Division Over Reconciliation":

As Republicans work to prevent a health-care bill from reaching President Obama, they are scrambling to exploit divisions between Democrats in the House and the Senate.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned House Democrats that they would be taking a colossal risk if they approved the Senate's version of health-care legislation before the Senate had acted to remove some of the bill's most contentious provisions. Now that Democrats have lost their supermajority in the Senate, some variation of this delicate two-step process is the only way a health-care reform bill can become law.

"House Democrats will have to decide whether they want to trust the Senate to fix their political problems," McConnell said. He listed perks that Senate Democrats won for Nebraska, Louisiana, Florida and labor unions; House members insist that all must be removed through a separate "fixes" bill under special budget reconciliation rules.

"They will be voting, when they pass the Senate bill, to endorse the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, the Gator-aid, the closed-door deal, the special deal for the unions, which may or may not bother any Democrats, I don't know," McConnell said.

Moving the bill under reconciliation is appealing to Democrats because such legislation cannot be filibustered, although it would be vulnerable to parliamentary challenges. The sequence in which the Senate bill and the package of fixes would move is one of the key unresolved issues, much to the consternation of undecided House Democrats. They would prefer to pass the reconciliation bill first and force the Senate to accept their fixes before the House takes up the Senate bill.

But reconciliation rules seem to indicate that the House will have to pass the Senate bill first. Depending on how the Senate parliamentarian rules, Obama may even have to sign the legislation into law before the Senate can consider the House fixes.

That's not how legislation is passed in a democracy.

See also CNN, "House Health Care Vote Waits for CBO, Senate Parliamentarian," via Memeorandum.

Image Credit: The People's Cube.

The New American Terrorist: Colleen LaRose

Listen to Catherine Herridge toward the end of the video, indicating the broader significance of the Colleen LaRose conspiracy, a.k.a, Jihad Jane:

Also good background at this Sky News viddy:

And check Bare Naked Islam, "JIHAD JANE," as well as Jawa Report, "Youtuber "Jihad Jane" Indicted on Federal Terrorism Charges (Updated with more MC Hammer! UPDATE/Bumped: Loved Obama; UPDATE: Plot to Kill Swedish Mohammad Cartoonist!)."

Also, at the Washington Post, "JihadJane, an American Woman, Faces Terrorism Charges," via Memeorandum.

Crystal Bowersox

From MTV, "Crystal Bowersox's 'Give Me One Reason' Dominates 'American Idol'":

If her straight-outta-the-hospital performance on last week's "American Idol" established Crystal Bowersox as the unlikely front-runner, well, her Tuesday night (March 9) performance definitely put some distance between her and the rest of the field. Miles of it.

Bowersox roared though a version of Tracy Chapman's "Give Me One Reason," armed with an electric guitar and a newfound sense of confidence — perhaps influenced by "Idol" judge Simon Cowell's praise of her during an appearance on Monday night's "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno." She positively blew away the competition, earned a much-deserved standing ovation and absolutely wowed the judges.

"I need a new adjective for you; I'm sick and tired of saying you're amazing," Ellen DeGeneres enthused. "It was the best performance of the night."

"Now I'm starting to see what the record is you're making," Kara DioGuardi said, praising Bowersox's selection of the song. "And that's when I get really excited."

Not surprisingly, however, the biggest praise came from Cowell, who complimented her brand-new swagger and all but gave her the season-nine crown.

"You are 1 million, billion percent going to be in the top 12 next week," he said. "What you've got now is confidence, and I can see that, and you're starting to believe in yourself. Right now, you are the one everyone has to beat, I'm telling you. It's yours to lose."

UC Tuition Hikes and Public Employee Pensions

At Wall Street Journal, "California's College Dreamers: When Will Students Figure Out the Politicians Have Sold Them Out?":

In 1999, the Democratic legislature ran a reckless gamble that makes Wall Street's bankers look cautious. At the top of a bull market, they assumed their investment returns would grow at a 8.25% rate in perpetuity—equivalent to assuming that the Dow would reach 25,000 by 2009—and enacted a huge pension boon for public-safety and industrial unions.

The bill refigured the compensation formula for pension benefits of all public-safety employees who retired on or after January 1, 2000. It let firefighters retire at age 50 and receive 3% of their final year's compensation times the number of years they worked. If a firefighter started working at the age of 20, he could retire at 50 and earn 90% of his final salary, in perpetuity. One San Ramon Valley fire chief's yearly pension amounted to $284,000—more than his $221,000 annual salary.

In 2002, the state legislature further extended benefits to many nonsafety classifications, such as milk and billboard inspectors. More than 15,000 public employees have retired with annual pensions greater than $100,000. Who needs college when you can get a state job and make out like that?

In the last decade, government worker pension costs (not including health care) have risen to $3 billion from $150 million, a 2,000% jump, while state revenues have increased by 24%. Because the stock market didn't grow the way the legislature predicted in 1999, the only way to cover the skyrocketing costs of these defined-benefit pension plans has been to cut other programs (and increase taxes).

This year alone $3 billion was diverted from other programs to fund pensions, including more than $800 million from the UC system. It is becoming clear that in the most strapped liberal states there's a pecking order: Unions get the lifeboats, and everyone else gets thrown over the side. Sorry, kids.

Get ready for more. The governor's office projects that over the next decade the annual taxpayer contributions to retiree pensions and health care will grow to $15 billion from $5.5 billion, and that's assuming the stock market doubles every 10 years. With unfunded pension and health-care liabilities totaling more than $122 billion, California will continue chopping at higher-ed.

Mr. Schwarzenegger has routinely called for pension reform, but the Democratic legislature has tossed aside the Terminator like a paper doll. Last year, he proposed rescinding the lucrative pension pay-off for new employees, which he estimated would reduce pension pay-outs by $74 billion and health-care benefits by $19 billion through 2040. More recently, he called for doubling state worker contributions to their pensions to 10% from the current 5% of their pay. But these propositions have little traction in the legislature.

Image Credit: Indy Bay, "Low Wage UC Service Workers Continue Pressure on Richard Blum."

Doug Hoffman Declares Race for Congress

Great news that's no surprise, given the turn of events last fall: Doug Hoffman will run for Congress in New York 23rd district. Robert Stacy McCain, who covered the November election on the ground last year, has a report at the Washington Times, "'Tea Party' Favorite Set for Rematch in N.Y.: Hoffman Seeking GOP Nod":

Last year's underdog became this year's front-runner Tuesday when Doug Hoffman - whose 2009 congressional race became a rallying cry for the "tea party" movement - announced he would seek the Republican nomination in New York's 23rd District.

Mr. Hoffman's Conservative Party campaign last fall in the upstate district ignited grass-roots supporters, but fell 4,000 votes short of an upset victory in the three-way special election won by Bill Owens, who became the first Democrat to represent the district in decades.

"I'm just an average citizen, standing up to say, 'We're fed up. We're not going to take this any more,' " Mr. Hoffman told The Washington Times in a telephone interview Tuesday. "I don't think anybody should expect to inherit political office ... . I'm going to work very hard to earn the respect and support of all the voters in the district."

An accountant from Saranac Lake, Mr. Hoffman became the first Republican to officially declare his candidacy in the largely rural 23rd Congressional District, which sprawls across upstate New York from Lake Ontario on the west to the Vermont border on the east.

Several other potential candidates, including Assemblyman William Barclay, have expressed interest in entering the Sept. 14 Republican primary, but a January survey by pollster John McLaughlin found support for Mr. Hoffman among more than 70 percent of the district's Republican voters.

In a statement to the Plattsburgh (N.Y.) Press Republican, a spokesman for Mr. Owens said, "There is a time and place for politics, and Congressman Owens's main focus is to create more jobs in upstate New York and help our local economies grow."

Also, at Washington Wire, "NY-23: Hoffman Runs Again":

Hoffman’s renewed entry into the race, this time hoping to win the Republican as well as Conservative and Independence party nominations, reaffirms that hard-hitting fiscal conservatives and candidates supported by the tea party movement intend to play a big role in the upcoming election. What their impact will be is less clear.

Hat Tip: Sir Smitty at TOM.

Carry Each Other...

I've never played U2 at the blog. I mentioned the band previously, noting for example that I caught U2 at the US Festival in 1982. But Bono and Co. are so associated with leftist causes it's ridiculous. Bono did praise President Bush for his Africa initiative, although he was then repudiated by abortion-rights extremists as part of a sweeping slur on the Bush administration for selling out the African continent. It's pretty convoluted. Mostly, I can just dig U2's sound without all the politics.

Plus, I wanted to get a couple of more links up for friends overnight, to make up for my own errors previously. So check out Camp of the Saints and Ruby Slippers as well. I'll be back tomorrow for my regular rounds across the blogosphere. And enjoy U2's "One":

Bono described the song's theme as such: "It is a song about coming together, but it's not the old hippie idea of 'Let's all live together.' It is, in fact, the opposite. It's saying, We are one, but we're not the same. It's not saying we even want to get along, but that we have to get along together in this world if it is to survive. It's a reminder that we have no choice ...

Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus?
To the lepers in your head

Did I ask too much?
More than a lot.
You gave me nothing,
Now it's all I got
We're one
But we're not the same
See we
Hurt each other
Then we do it again
You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love is a higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can't keep holding on
To what you got
When all you've got is hurt ...

Blazing Cat Fur in Israel!

Along with Kathy Shaidle, "Touch Down in Tel Aviv":

We arrived in Tel Aviv at 6pm after a 12 hour direct flight & met up with our guide Uri and our Mossad controller, from there we drove straight to Jerusalem, checked in to the hotel and on to dinner where we met with Yossi Klein Halevi of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies. Yossi gave a brief talk followed by a wide ranging dinner discussion that had absolutely nothing to do with the subject of his presentation. Everyone enjoyed the evening immensely.

Pictures at the link.

These folks are great blog buddies, so look for updates ...

National Biometric Identification Cards

It's the discussion at the video that's particular interesting. National identification cards are probably long overdue, but Democrats think this will grease the wheels for amnesty, it looks like. And that's obviously a no go. See, Wall Street Journal, "ID Card for Workers Is at Center of Immigration Plan":

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past.

The uphill effort to pass a bill is being led by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who plan to meet with President Barack Obama as soon as this week to update him on their work. An administration official said the White House had no position on the biometric card.

"It's the nub of solving the immigration dilemma politically speaking," Mr. Schumer said in an interview. The card, he said, would directly answer concerns that after legislation is signed, another wave of illegal immigrants would arrive. "If you say they can't get a job when they come here, you'll stop it."

The biggest objections to the biometric cards may come from privacy advocates, who fear they would become de facto national ID cards that enable the government to track citizens.

"It is fundamentally a massive invasion of people's privacy," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We're not only talking about fingerprinting every American, treating ordinary Americans like criminals in order to work. We're also talking about a card that would quickly spread from work to voting to travel to pretty much every aspect of American life that requires identification."

Mr. Graham says he respects those concerns but disagrees. "We've all got Social Security cards," he said. "They're just easily tampered with. Make them tamper-proof. That's all I'm saying."

U.S. employers now have the option of using an online system called E-Verify to check whether potential employees are in the U.S. legally. Many Republicans have pressed to make the system mandatory. But others, including Mr. Schumer, complain that the existing system is ineffective.

Last year, White House aides said they expected to push immigration legislation in 2010. But with health care and unemployment dominating his attention, the president has given little indication the issue is a priority.

Rather, Mr. Obama has said he wanted to see bipartisan support in Congress first. So far, Mr. Graham is the only Republican to voice interest publicly, and he wants at least one other GOP co-sponsor to launch the effort.

An immigration overhaul has long proven a complicated political task. The Latino community is pressing for action and will be angry if it is put off again. But many Americans oppose any measure that resembles amnesty for people who came here illegally.

Cool graphics at the link. (Via Memeorandum.)

The True Cost of Public Education

From A Conservative Perspective, "The True Cost of Public Education":

WaPo's 'Two Men Kissing'

The Washington Post has published an ombudsman's response to the reader reactions to this photo. Frankly, I'd expect homosexuals to be kissing, so front-page photos like that are mostly uncontroversial. In contrast, LAT's aggressive gay-male gender-bender shot last March was way problematic. Such imagery is something that's way out there on the cultural left, and it was mostly nihilist trolls here at the blog defending the Times' editorial decisions. That said, what's really offensive about Andrew Alexander's piece is his linkage of homosexual rights to interracial marriage. The comparison is a scam. See, "Same-Sex Marriage: Hijacking the Civil Rights Legacy."

Meanwhile, a reader responds to the Washington Post's editorial policies. What bothers people is not so much homosexuality per se, but the left's program of radical social engineering, from the elite-media editorial boardrooms to the Stalinist show trials to the racist gay-rights street protests of the International ANSWER cadres:

Big, color photos of homosexuals hugging and smooching shows pure contempt for the values of the vast majority of Americans.

The publishers of the liberal media wonder why they are losing readers and circulation. One reason is that old line papers such as WaPo dish out a bland, liberal diet of Democrat propaganda. Another reason is its obvious devotion to all things homosexual.

Most of us are totally disinterested in homosexuality and its manifestations. Many are downright hostile to it. Homosexual activists have their own publications. That's where their affairs belong.

I'm sure WaPo honchos think they are supporting a good cause. That's their opinion only. It just does not reflect America, as a whole.

By doing this thing they are merely driving more and more people to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck.

Unintended consequences, I'm sure.

Nigeria's Killing Fields

Via Theo Spark, and at the Times of London, "500 Butchered in Nigeria Killing Fields":

Dozens of bodies lined the dusty streets of three Christian villages in northern Nigeria yesterday. Other victims of Sunday morning’s Muslim rampage were jammed into a local morgue, the limbs of slaughtered children tangled in a grotesque mess.

One toddler appeared fixed in the protective but hopeless embrace of an older child, possibly his brother. Another had been scalped. Most had severed hands and feet.

Officials estimate that 500 people were massacred in night-time raids by Muslim gangs near Jos, the city that bestrides Nigeria’s Christian-Muslim fault line.

Local journalists and civil rights organisations who toured the area yesterday told The Times they had counted at least 200 victims shot and hacked to death in apparent revenge for sectarian violence in January that claimed about 300 lives from the two communities. Mark Lipdo, a co-ordinator for the Stefanos Foundation, a Christian aid group, confirmed at least 93 dead in one village. “But there are corpses charred beyond recognition,” he said.

RTWT at the link.

And, oh, it's the "religion of peace."

HAT TIP: Theo Spark.

'Planet War' @ Foreign Policy

Take a few minutes with this absolutely phenomenal photo-essay at Foreign Policy, "Planet War." This screencap shows a portion from the eighth slide, "Pakistan":

Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are two of the world's most volatile war zones. Located along Pakistan's porous, 1,500-mile border with Afghanistan, the two regions have, since 2001, seen fierce battles between Islamist militants and the Pakistani Army. Al Qaeda's top leaders are thought to reside here, and U.S. drones patrol the skies in search of terrorist and Taliban leaders. Above, a Pakistani soldier stands guard while an Afghan-bound NATO oil tanker burns in Peshawar after being destroyed by militants on Feb. 1, 2010.

Unbelievably awesome pictorial. Check out the whole thing, here.

The Exploited - 'Hitler's in the Charts Again'

One of the great "second wave" British punk bands. Often lumped in with skinhead Oi! bands, The Exploited are actually one of the earliest anti-authoritarian, anti-racist, anti-fascist punk outfits. See, "We Are Against Facism!"

And from the "B-Side" of "Dead Cities," here's "Hitler's in the Charts Again":

Listen to the sound of the soldiers dancing
Armageddon time on the firing line
Don't know what they're doing
Looks like trouble's brewing
Wunderbar, auf wiedersehen
Hitler's in the charts again
You look like a tramp - put you in a camp
Join the shower queue in your dancing shoes
Be the dancing champ of your concentration camp
Keep on movin' fast, remember Belsen was a gas
Hitler's in the charts again
Moving in a trance, watch the soldiers dance
Bloodstains on their feet, scared of everyone you meet
Army's on the street, can you feel the heat
Watch the soldiers fall - it couldn't happen here ...

The Swedish Model

From the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, "Learning From Sweden's Free Market Renaissance":

Cited at the video is the Washington Times, "The Swedish Model: More Than Just a Saab Sister."

Hat Tip: The Real Revo.

Tom Campbell and the Al-Arian Letter

Here's a partial screencap of Tom Campbell's letter on behalf of Islamist jihadi Professor Sami Al-Arian. The full copy is here, and it's provided by the Investigative Project on Journalism. See, "The Letter Dogging Tom Campbell":

Plus, the Los Angeles Times has a report, "Letter on Muslim Radical Roils GOP Senate Race":

Terrorism and the Middle East are continuing to roil the Republican Senate contest after a letter written by former congressman Tom Campbell emerged that appeared to contradict statements Campbell and his aides had made about his dealings with a radical Muslim professor.

The professor, Sami Al-Arian, contributed to Campbell's unsuccessful campaign in 2000 for the U.S. Senate. On Sept. 26, 2001, when he was teaching at the University of South Florida, Al-Arian gave an interview to Fox TV host Bill O'Reilly in which he conceded that he had said, "Jihad is our path. Victory to Islam. Death to Israel. Revolution. Revolution until victory. Rolling to Jerusalem."

Those statements quickly generated a furor and the university moved to discipline Al-Arian. Campbell, by then a law professor at Stanford University, wrote a letter to Judy Genshaft, the president of the University of South Florida, protesting any punishment.

Campbell had previously conceded that he wrote a letter on Al-Arian's behalf, but had said during a candidates' debate Friday that he did so before Al-Arian's interview with O'Reilly. His campaign's website also said the letter was written before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

The text of the letter showed otherwise. Dated Jan. 21, 2002, it said, " . . . I respectfully wish to convey my sincere alarm that Professor Al-Arian may be treated harshly because of the substance of his views."

Campbell went on to write that "I have formed this fear because of the paucity of evidence supporting the purported reasons for this discipline against him. I read a transcript of the 'O'Reilly Factor' interview last autumn, and I did not see anything whereby Professor Al-Arian attempted to claim he was representing the views of the University of South Florida."

Carly Fiorina, one of Campbell's opponents in the primary race, called on him to release the letter last week. The text of the letter was first disclosed by the website of the Investigative Project on Terrorism. Campbell's aides, who had said the candidate no longer had a copy of the original letter, then posted a link to it on the campaign website.

On Monday, Campbell said in an interview that despite the language of his letter, he had never read the full transcript of the O'Reilly interview, specifically the "Death to Israel" language. If he had seen it, he said, he never would have written the letter.

"That's too zealous," he said. "Unacceptable. Calling for death to a country or individual is unacceptable."

Campbell has previously said that Al-Arian never contributed to his 2000 Senate campaign; Campbell later admitted that he had.

In 2006, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to providing aid to a terrorist group.

This controversy has compromised Campbell's credibility, and permanently discredited his candidacy for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate.

Powerline has a post on this as well, "Tom Campbell and the al-Arian test":

Given his manifest gifts, Tom Campbell makes a contribution to our public life by his service in the House of Representatives. As a candidate for the Republican nomination to run against Barbara Boxer for the United States Senate, however, Tom Campbell flunks the al-Arian test.

But see Jennifer Rubin, "The Los Angeles Times on the Case":

As Chuck DeVore’s campaign spokesman said, “Whether it’s absent-mindedness or deception — the only person who knows that for sure is Tom Campbell — there’s a pattern of inaccuracy whenever Tom Campbell ventures into these subjects. … We have to double-check everything he says about his past associations with these radicals because we can’t trust him to give us the whole truth.”

And when the issue migrates from Israel to terrorism to credibility, there’s a problem. California voters have much to consider, it seems.

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.

Ruby Slippers at Philadelphia Obama Speech!

I should have known, when I posted on the event earlier, that a blogging buddy would provide a first-hand report on President Obama's Philadelphia healthcare speech yesterday. Of course, this is slightly more intense than photo-blogging a tea party! Mary Sue at Ruby Slippers attended the Obama speech in Philly and has a personal report, "Field Trip to Obama''s Health Care Speech in Philadelphia":

When we were through security, we were told to move to the floor beneath the podium. I had an unbelievable view of the stage. I must say that in person, Obama looks more like Fred Armisen than you would think. Here is Kelly's picture of the SEIU people directly in front of the President. The group was in a roped off area and they weren't all dressed in purple but they broke out in a chant together while we were waiting for the arrival of Obama. This was the only group that was able to shake hands with Obama at the conclusion as well.

More pics at the post. And Mary Sue's daughter's friend Kelly has a guest post at the blog, "A Young Conservative's Reaction to Obama's Health Care Speech":

I must say that is was pretty cool to see the President of the United States, especially given how close he was. But that wore off pretty quickly. I don’t think I clapped at all during that speech (which was giving the Secret Service Agent near me the willies). The level of frenetic excitement in that gym was amazing. The way that President spun the speech was masterful though. The bit about the Congressional Budget Office will make a particularly lovely sound bite, particularly if no one looks behind the smoke and mirrors presented for the CBO to score. President Obama isn't likely to present the harsh truth that this plan will result in a $2.7 trillion increase not the decrease in the deficit he claimed.

Great stuff -- and a golden reminder that there's hope for the youth of tomorrow!

From 'Hurt Locker' to 'Green Zone'

From Kyle Smith, "Hollywood's Weapon of Matt Destruction":

I can’t believe what I just saw, so I’ll think about it some more before I go into detail. But if I were the kind of excitable guy who believes in boycotts, I’d say “Boycott NBC-Universal” for its appalling new anti-American flick “Green Zone,” an absurdly awful would-be actioner that stars Matt Damon as a US warrant officer in 2003 Baghdad.

I would never have accused director Paul Greengrass, who made the astonishingly powerful “United 93,” of being simplistic. But he has made a $100 million war film in which American troops are the bad guys ...

More at the link.

The movie's based on Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a book on the initial occupation by the Washington Post's Rajiv Chandrasekaran. I did not read it, because I did not trust the media elite's left-wing reporting -- and that's notwithstanding the genuine U.S. failures in Iraq after the toppling of the regime. And when reading this review by Kyle Smith, it reminds me that I have no regrets as far as Chandrasekaran's concerned.

Testing, Choice, and Education

I'm only posting the conclusion, but the full essay, from Diane Ravitch, is essential reading, "Why I Changed My Mind About School Reform":

The current emphasis on accountability has created a punitive atmosphere in the schools. The Obama administration seems to think that schools will improve if we fire teachers and close schools. They do not recognize that schools are often the anchor of their communities, representing values, traditions and ideals that have persevered across decades. They also fail to recognize that the best predictor of low academic performance is poverty—not bad teachers.

What we need is not a marketplace, but a coherent curriculum that prepares all students. And our government should commit to providing a good school in every neighborhood in the nation, just as we strive to provide a good fire company in every community.

On our present course, we are disrupting communities, dumbing down our schools, giving students false reports of their progress, and creating a private sector that will undermine public education without improving it. Most significantly, we are not producing a generation of students who are more knowledgable, and better prepared for the responsibilities of citizenship. That is why I changed my mind about the current direction of school reform.