The Shining, Redux

A post-production house organized a competition where assistant editors ‘re-cut’ trailers for famous movies to try and make them seem like different movies. The winner is Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining," recast as a sweet father-and-son bonding comedy. Click the post title above and check it out. As one of the post commentors says, "This Jack Nicholson kid is looking like the next John Cusack."

George Bush Hates Rich White People

From Jonah Goldberg over at The Corner:

These fires in California are heading toward million dollar homes in California and where is George? Huddled in the White House dealing with the Supreme Court and the War in Iraq. Heartless bastard.

Reasonable Opposition

I like to engage in political discussions with reasonable people that have a different point of view. The title of this post links to an article by a reasonable Democrat that has a novel idea about improving his party's electoral prospects--namely, tone down the Anti-Americanism. Here's a sample from his column.

When bad news for America hits the front pages, too often my Democratic peers celebrate it. They only see it as bad news for Bush. They don’t seem to sense that an indictment of a Bush official is one kind of bad news, and a terrorist attack is another. There’s a dissembling art in politics, and they haven’t learned it. Might I suggest that too often they are hamstrung by an essential and relentless pessimism about America’s history and its virtues, its potential and its promise, among the chief spokesmen and women of the movement?

Might I suggest a reacquaintance with the rhetoric of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., as a lesson in how to say, “We are a great nation, but we can do better than this; in fact, we must do better than this, because we are a great nation.”

It is worth reading the whole thing. The point he is making is that political success is often gained when leadership appeals to that which is good in us. An idea to which I subscribe. This is why Ronald Reagan was so great. With him, it was "Morning in America," which was what was needed after the malaise of the Carter Administration. I don't advocate being dismissive toward our society's ills. But, anyone over the age of about 4 knows that we have problems. I just don't believe that most Americans want to follow a party that makes its strongest appeal to our shame (or did I miss that chapter in Leadership 101?).

This War Sucks...

for al Qaeda. Read this special guest commentary by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. It's hilarious (strong language advisory is in effect).

Victory At All Costs

Leon H over at Redstate.org comes to the realization that the anti-war protestors aren't necessarily what they appear to be. Read about it here.

The sign behind Cindy Sheehan says, in part, "End Occupation Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti." I didn't know we were occupying Palestine or Haiti. In any event, it is noteworthy that this is not just about Iraq. Even the "good" war (Afghanistan) is apparently evil to these people.

UPDATE: Christopher Hitchens takes the lamestream media to task for labeling the protesters "anti-war." Some money quotes:

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. And this in a week when Afghans went back to the polls, and when Iraqis were preparing to do so, under a hail of fire from those who blow up mosques and U.N. buildings, behead aid workers and journalists, proclaim fatwahs against the wrong kind of Muslim, and utter hysterical diatribes against Jews and Hindus.

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."

Eh?

My wife is from Canada, which makes my kids half-Canadian, half-good...er, American. I can think of a lot of differences between our two countries (their food sucks, much of ours is good; they have better hockey players, we have better everything else; they're almost all socialists, we're only half, etc.). But it turns out that Canada and the U.S. are not so different.

American Amnesia About Iraq

Victor Davis Hanson provides much-needed perspective regarding the Iraq conflict in this column over at National Review Online. Here's a sample:

Billions in American material aid has flowed to Iraqis, even as the price of oil has skyrocketed, costing us billions more — so much for oil conspiracies and stealing Arab resources. In short, Iraq is not an imperialistic venture, but a messy, unappreciated attempt to make the United States more secure by removing dictators from their petrodollar-funded arsenals and leaving constitutional governments in their wake, while promoting social justice for the formerly marginalized.

And this:

But who is really angry at America since 2001? Al Qaeda, of course. Saddamites, especially. Radical Islamicists no doubt. France and Germany are also apparently unhappy: They lost plenty of oil business and loans in Iraq; they are facing the wages of not assimilating Islamic minorities in their midst; and they are fathoming that socialist and statist policies cannot be salvaged by cheap election-time anti-Americanism in an age when the United States is more eager to keep our distance from them than they us.

Historic changes are underway in Afghanistan and Iraq. While we at home squabble and point fingers, the U.S. military fortunately continues in its difficult but landmark mission — and so far, thankfully, pays us all little heed.

Media Silence on Palestinian Hate is Deafening

This is revolting, but what we've come to expect from the lamestream media.

UPDATE: Here is another example of anti-American bias in the editorializ...er...reporting at the New York Times.

Poverty of Thinking

An interesting post by Jay Tea over at Wizbang quoting a column by George Will explaining behaviors that lead to poverty.

The Spirit(s) of New Orleans

Some soldiers are getting spooked by spiritual activity in New Orleans. Watch the news report here.

Fortune-ate

J.D. Fortune won the competition to become the new front man for INXS. I'm glad for the guy. He definately seems to be the best fit for the band. But, did anyone else notice what a let-down it was when INXS played? What was supposed to be the climactic finish ended up being awash in crappy '80s guitar tones and the sax player screwing up his lame part in What You Need. It just wasn't fair for INXS to follow the House Band after they threw down the gauntlet with Bohemian Rhapsody and Wish You Were Here, once again displaying their amazing sound and arrangements. Bring the House Band back (with Marty)!

Changing Society Begins With Changing Ourselves

The title of this post links to another excellent article by Dennis Prager about how secular leftists differ from those who hold Judeo-Christian values in their approach to acheiving social justice. A money quote:

I first became aware of this vast discrepancy between "social activism" and personal ethical behavior when I saw the personal behavior of the "pro-peace," anti-war, activists at my graduate school (Columbia University) in the early 1970s. They demonstrated for world peace but led personally narcissistic lives. Their theoretical altruism was all macro. Meanwhile, most of the religious students were preoccupied with personal character issues.

Why? Because Judeo-Christian values have always understood that the world is made better by making people better. On occasion, of course, a great moral cause must be joined. For example, it was religious Christians who led the fight to abolish slavery in Europe and America. But in general, the way to a better society is through the laborious and completely non-glamorous project of making each person more honest, more courageous, more decent, more likely to commit to another person in marriage, more likely to devote more time to raising children, and so on.

North Korea Vows to Drop Nuclear Programs

This looks like very good news. However, I'll reserve my excitement to see how serious North Korea is, considering their penchant for lying and cheating the last time we struck a deal with them.

BBC Biased?

Uh...yeah. So much so that even Tony Blair is shocked by the anti-Americanism in its "reporting" of Katrina and the aftermath. This article is from the "It's-no-wonder-they-hate-America" file.

My question is: Why is it that institutions that feed from the government trough--such as the Beeb--are so full of leftists with a largely monolithic viewpoint (i.e. myopic anti-Americanism often tinged with anti-Semitism). Everything is presented in terms that makes America look bad, stupid, hypocritical, etc. It's all so boring and predictable.

It's the same thing with American universities. These institutions are like magnets for "the enlightened" -- the Arrogant Class, who are the same types who populate the BBC. You know, the type that think we should be grateful to them for telling us how and what to think. Do you ever wonder why government-subsidized institutions always seem to be full of such smart, smug people? I think it's because the government's largesse affords them the opportunity to become theoreticians instead of practitioners, like the rest of us. That's why it's so nauseating to hear these people, who have never met a payroll in their lives, telling us about the unfairness of tax cuts, the immorality of capitalism, and on and on.

Thankfully, inherent within our capitalist society is incentive, which promotes competition. In the bad old days all we had was CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, the New York Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the like, which basically gave us a lopsided, leftist viewpoint. Today in America, we have multiple sources of news and information (talk radio, the internet, Fox News, etc.) that present other viewpoints from which we can attain a more balanced view of the issues. Competition prohibits healthy organizations from resting on their laurels by constantly challenging, which benefits society. In England, the BBC stands unchallenged (at least on the tele). So, their society is left (pun intended) with no one to challenge the conventional wisdom--America hatred. Like I said, it's no wonder they hate America.

UPDATE: This link is to Dr. Richard Landes' Pallywood, a .wmv that can be downloaded and viewed. It is a short video that focuses on footage of Palestinians besieging an Israeli checkpoint that is used in 60 Minutes. Landes uses the outtakes and a frame by frame analysis to show, convincingly in my view, that much of it was entirely faked. It's an interesting look at the American media, which seems too ready to believe, and even enhance, Palestinian propaganda.

SCOTUS Nomination

This is a pretty good round-up of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on John Roberts, the President's nominee to fill the Chief Justice vacancy on the Supreme Court caused by the recent death of William Rehnquist.

What the Hell?

I don't really care about the fact that Britney Spears had a baby yesterday. I just wanted an excuse to post this picture of her (via Wizbang).

I'm gonna be a hot mom," Spears recently declared, hinting she'll still wear halter tops and Daisy Dukes when she's pushing the tot's carriage.

Our Strange Foreign Policy

Victor Davis Hanson asks, "Are we isolationists, imperialists, or wide-eyed dreamers — or all and none?"

The Feminization of Society

Another in a series of short essays by Dennis Prager,

To say that the human race needs masculine and feminine characteristics is to state the obvious. But each sex comes with prices. Men can too easily lack compassion, reduce sex to animal behavior and become violent. And women's emotionality, when unchecked, can wreak havoc on those closest to these women and on society as a whole -- when emotions and compassion dominate in making public policy.

The latter is what is happening in America. The Left has been successful in supplanting masculine virtues with feminine ones. That is why "compassion" is probably the most frequently cited value. That is why the further left you go, the greater the antipathy to those who make war. Indeed, universities, the embodiment of feminist emotionality and anti-Judeo-Christian values, ban military recruiters and oppose war-themed names for their sports teams.

A sentiment such as "War is not the answer" embodies leftist feminine emotionality. The statement is, after all, utter nonsense, as many of the greatest evils -- from Nazi totalitarianism and genocide to slavery -- were quite effectively "answered" by war.

Post-Katrina Liberalism

From George Will,

America's always fast-flowing river of race-obsessing has overflowed its banks, and last Sunday on "This Week'' Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois' freshman Democrat, applied to the expression of old banalities a fluency that would be beguiling were it without content. Unfortunately, it included the requisite lament about the president's inadequate "empathy" and an amazing criticism of the government's "historic indifference'' and its "passive indifference'' that "is as bad as active malice.'' The senator, 44, is just 30 months older than the "war on poverty'' that President Johnson declared in January 1964. Since then the indifference that is as bad as active malice has been expressed in more than $6.6 trillion of antipoverty spending, strictly defined.

The senator is called a "new kind of Democrat,'' which often means one with new ways of ignoring evidence discordant with old liberal orthodoxies about using cash -- much of it spent through liberalism's "caring professions'' -- to cope with cultural collapse. He might, however, care to note three not-at-all recondite rules for avoiding poverty: graduate from high school, don't have a baby until you are married, don't marry while you are a teenager. Among people who obey those rules, poverty is minimal.

White People Affected by Hurricane Too?

Via Wizbang,

If you listen the national (cable) news today there is a new meme... "The Hurricane Only Hurt Black People." Let's begin with the obvious; That is stupid on its face.

Are We Fighting Evil People in Iraq?

Dennis Prager asks this question and makes some salient points about those who cannot answer it forthrightly. Here's one of his observations:

Anyone who remains unable to morally judge people who slit the throats of innocent people, who place bombs in the middle of markets, and who murder anyone attempting to help women achieve basic human rights is a moral imbecile.

Short Memories on Iraq

The post title links to an article by Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, who writes a monthly column for The Washington Post. It's a reminder that, despite the herculean efforts at rewriting history on the part of many on the left, a significant amount of bipartisan support existed for the removal of Sadaam Hussein's until 2003.

Angry

Four years after the 9/11 attacks I'm still angry. I've been watching interviews with victims' families, reading news sites and weblogs, and viewing documentaries commemorating the events of 9/11 all day and I am angry. Interestingly, the commemoration of these events is not fueling my anger. Rather it's revealing the residue of shock and anger I felt that day, which has never entirely worn off. It drives me to try to understand the inexplicable. It compels me to use the only weapons at my disposal--ideas and prayer.

It's strange to think that as I pray to God for (among other things) the preservation of our society, those of a different faith are praying for its destruction. Is it a religious war? I don't think it is, per se. But, it is not just a war of bombs and bullets. It is a struggle for which ideology will ultimately have preeminence in the governance of the affairs of men. Islamo-fascists are trying to impose by force an ideology that is the enemy of freedom, self-expression, and independence--all of which are virtues ingrained in the American DNA (and most of Western civilization). Obviously, our society isn't perfect. But, at its core, it values the highest ideals to which mankind can aspire. It promotes freedom; tolerates religion (and the non-religious); respects women as equals; embraces other cultures; and is full of possibilities that inspire progress. It is worth fighting for, despite what those who hate us say.

I'm glad that the last show I watched tonight was the Discovery Channel's documentary about Flight 93 called The Flight That Fought Back, which is often said to be the occasion of the first battle won in the War on Terror. Toward the end of the documentary the passengers and crew were said to be representative of America--people of different genders, races, and ages who decided to take their destiny back into their own hands. How did they do it? They voted. They united for a common purpose and took action to strike back at the enemy. Their sacrifice saved our nation's Capitol and, very likely, hundreds more lives. It is an inspiring story.

But, it is tremendously sad to see that our nation is no longer united these four years later. I still hope that our society has the will to remain steadfast in this war. As an American, I am optimistic that we can see it through to the end, though the realist in me sometimes doubts. I see no alternative. Living under a Caliphate is not an option. So, I will stand and fight through prayer and (hopefully) persuasion to do my small part in this battle of ideas. Because I'm angry...and resolute.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn has some additional thoughts.

9/11 Links

These Websites have some excellent links to 9/11-related info.

http://polipundit.com/
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003516.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/nyregion/nyregionspecial3/

Music Piracy

The first salvo of an interesting discussion related to music piracy has been fired over at The Scrutiny, a weblog run by two friends of mine. One of my friends is in music publishing and the other is an attorney. The attorney takes the first crack here.

Some Help for FEMA

Conan O'Brien last night on the evacuation efforts in the Gulf Coast:

The celebrities are now getting involved. That’s what they need. Forget the food and water, bring in the celebrities! Today Celine Dion criticized President Bush for not getting more people out of the city before the hurricane. She went on to say that she could have driven everyone out in two songs.

The Dead In New Orleans: More Joy For The Anti-War Club

This article by Phil Hendrie, a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host (and a Democrat), who asks the question,

"Why does the American Anti-War movement not seek to persuade...as in get new members...using logic, political science, or history? Why does it instead rely heavily on invective and slander? Well the answer is that they are unable to persuade using logic, political science or history and hence realize the futility of trying to amass anti-Vietnam numbers in their movement. So they default to a bunker mentality. They become a club, a kind of preservation society, the Preservation of Seeing The World The Way It Was In 1968 Society. When the winds of change blew through this country like a screaming banshee on 9/11, the future shock was so disorienting and stunning to these people, they closed the shutters and locked the doors on the clubhouse. From inside they called out their disapproval, lurching from one reactionary position to another. But mostly, they talked to and with themselves. Over a period of time, they became delusional, thinking the country was with them. And then came the Presidential election of 2004. They got their ass kicked so hard they had a hard time even believing it. It should have occurred to them right then and there that, however right they thought they were, they weren't convincing anyone. Maybe they'd come out of the clubhouse and get a little air."

More Air Ameriscam

Al Franken is a disgrace and now, apparently, there's evidence that he's also a liar. But, you probably already knew that.

Foamy the Squirrel...

...calls for help for hurricane/flood victims in the Gulf Coast in this expletive-laden report from New Orleans.

Flight 93 -- The Flight That Fought Back

This looks like it might be worthwhile.

Tribes

The post title links to an essay by a guy named Bill Whittle, which argues that the behavior of a particular group in crisis is not defined by his/her race, but by the "tribe" to which they belong. It's a bit lengthy and has some R-rated language, but is very interesting and, I think, to a large degree, true. I highly recommend it.

A Realm of Madness

There are so many things to absob in the aftermath of the recent natural disaster that it's hard to know where to begin. As a voracious consumer of news, I find the reaction of many in the lamestream media as predictable as it is sad. Everything is the Bush Administration's fault, including the levees built to Hurricane Level 3 specifications, the hurricane itself, the people who stayed behind, the default of municipal and state authorities, the difficulty of helping those who stayed behind, and the criminals who have exploited the vulnerable and impeded the rescue efforts. There's no question that many failures have been made on the local, state, and federal levels. But, it is distasteful to watch the Administration's opponents try to gain political advantage as a tragedy is unfolding. One of President Bush's former speechwriters, David Frum, has a run-down of some of the complaints being lodged against the Administration.

UPDATE: Read this account of the MSM in their own (contradictory) words here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Some on the left are so full of hatred for the President and his supporters that they can't even bring themselves to help a "W" supporter with a baby in her hour of need. At least it appears that this person had a (somewhat unexpected) pang of guilt, which gives me some hope. Nevertheless, people like this--and the thugs in New Orleans who were shooting at rescuers--are a national disgrace and an embarassment.

Scientists Predicted This Disaster

This turned out to be prophetic.

Photo of New Orleans Flooding

Here is a good aerial photograph of the flooding in New Orleans.