Here is some interesting ‘blogging’ for you while I’m gone. It’s a link to the interview President Bush gave to Michael Barone (the recording was made by him),
Tony Blankley of the Washington Times, Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal, Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post, Lawrence Kudlow of CNBC, Kathleen Parker of the Orlando Sentinel, Mark Steyn of the Chicago Sun-Times, and Byron York of National Review were the reporters included. It’s about an hour long and very interesting.
Have a good one!
Archive for October, 2006
Get’s cheered in spite of his horrible, horrible thoughts on women. Why? Because he hates Bush. The syndrome spreads. What are these poor people going to do in 2008 when their focus is gone? There will probably be a worldwide depression. Not an economic one, but a mental one.
OPFOR notes the Pentagon straightening out the NYTimes and Newsweek on their “facts”.
I saw this headline yesterday but didn’t read the story because it sounded too un-freakingbelievable. Varifrank read it though and had a different take.
Incredible. In-freaking-credible.
Read his post.
The blogosphere never caught on to this story from the Washington Post the other day, so I will post it here. Maybe it was just TOOO outrageous for words. Essentially Shankar Vedantam writes an article about the psychological experience of “anchoring” where a person, once given a figure, holds onto that number in spite of other experiences.
Cute little experiment in psychology, right? Wrong! It’s an agenda piece, hiding as psychobabble.
A Johns Hopkins study published in a respected peer-reviewed journal finds the number of Iraqis killed as a consequence of the 2003 invasion to be about 650,000. Critics immediately get up in arms; President Bush — not known to be a keen evaluator of scientific studies — declares the result “not credible.”
Then, guess who put the anchored number up?
That’s right.
“It could be malicious and deliberate or innocent and just wrong, but the fact that the administration had set an anchor is what makes the new number seem implausible,” said Max Bazerman, who studies human decision-making at Harvard Business School.
And that’s it. No mention of other sources saying how ridiculous that number is. This article is out there to tell people that the reason no one believes the 600,000 is because we’ve been “anchored” in a smaller number and NOT because it’s bull.
Score one for the rational. After an Australian Muslim cleric basically said that women can blame themselves for getting raped, he has now
apologised for any offence caused by his comments, The Australian newspaper reports.
Yes, I know, it’s a nonapology apology. “Sorry, you’re so uninformed that you were offended by me”, but still, it’s a start.
Here’s the original:
“If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside… and the cats come and eat it… whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat?” he asked.
The uncovered meat is the problem, he went on to say.
“If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred,” he added.
Sheikh Hilali also condemned women who swayed suggestively and wore make-up, implying they attracted sexual assault.
“Then you get a judge without mercy… and gives you 65 years,” he added.
Outrageous!!
And isn’t it odd that he doesn’t suggest that if these raping men would just stay in their rooms, in their homes, wrapped tightly in a blanket, no problem would have occurred. Oh yeah, that would be what the judge does “without (cough) mercy” in the west. Doh.
Haven’t you wondered why the “we won’t transport anyone with alcohol” idea hasn’t spread?
Surprisingly, there’s an agenda. Karen Kersten figured it out.
This was hilarious.
During a press conference this week about removing some Massachusetts Turnpike tolls, a Boston Globe reporter rambled through an elaborate, jargon-laced soliloquy that was interupted by Romney when it became clear there was no question in sight.
“Do you have a point of view on this?” Romney joked.
“I represent the people, governor,” the stunned reporter replied.
Romney’s punchline: “No, I represent the people. You represent the media.”
Score!
(via Uncorrelated)
Frederick W. Kagan has an opinion column in the Washington Post today that tries to be right, but is way off base.
Essentially he’s saying that we created the Iraq we have today and we have to fix it and anyone who says differently is immoral etc. He has a point, but it’s the way he says it. Up until just very recently Iraq has been assured by the Bush administration that we are behind them 100%. The President however is living in reality. In 2008 he’s going to be gone and there are a ton of people who do not want us to support Iraq, including Iraqis.
Yes we are an “occupying force” and so we are in charge of security, but at the same time we know that in 10 years we should not be in charge of internal security. The best way to accomplish that task is to train, train, train and test the Iraqi forces while we’re still there.
Rumsfield et al are hinting at leaving because the Iraqis need to realize that 2008 is coming up quick.
It’s been coming for a long time: the idea that fixing Iraq is the Iraqis’ problem, not ours — that we’ve done all we can and now it’s up to them.
Such arguments have been latent in the Bush administration’s Iraq strategy and explicit in Democratic critiques of that strategy for some time. Now Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has declared: “It’s their country. . . . They’re going to have to govern it, they’re going to have to provide security for it, and they’re going to have to do it sooner rather than later.”
The implication of these arguments is clear: The United States should prepare to leave Iraq, after which the Iraqis will work out their own troubles — or they won’t. In any event, we can no longer help them. This notion is wrong and morally contemptible, and it endangers American security around the world.
The notion he has is over the top and is putting words in the administrations mouth. The Iraqis WANT to govern/take care of themselves. It would be great to get a base in Iraq out of this and it may well happen, but that’s not the goal.
Democratic governments exists by the people. Many of the ‘we the people’ in the US are done with Iraq. Iraq needs to realize what that can mean, morally contemptible or not. Many of the ‘we the people’ in Iraq are done with having us there. Civil war or not life in Iraq is not going to continue exactly as it is now for 10 years or even 5 years. The administration is putting that thought out there because it’s based in reality.
And look who’s working to assert their authority. Yes, it’s the Iraqi government. As with any fledgling project as one point the teacher has to back off and let the teachee take charge. These are steps in the right direction and we should applaud them.
Ish, I’ve never really like it. Now Glenn found this story where Jet Blue tests pilot capacity. With passengers on board.
Without seeking approval from Federal Aviation Administration headquarters, consultants for JetBlue outfitted a small number of pilots with devices to measure alertness. Operating on a green light from lower-level FAA officials, management assigned the crews to work longer shifts in the cockpit — as many as 10 to 11 hours a day — than the eight hours the government allows. Their hope: Showing that pilots could safely fly far longer without exhibiting ill effects from fatigue.
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