Shut Up And Sing

Natalie Maines continues to inflict her ignorant political opinions on an indifferent world:

“The entire country may disagree with me, but I don’t understand the necessity for patriotism,” Maines resumes, through gritted teeth. “Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but as for loving the whole country

The Deadliness Of Political Correctness

“Fjordman” over at The Gates Of Vienna says that we didn’t win the Cold War decisively enough, and it makes it harder to fight the new form of anti-Enlightenment totalitarianism represented by Jihad. We still haven’t put the wooden stake through the heart of Marxism.

[Via Mars Blog]

[Update in the afternoon]

Here are some related thoughts on multi-culturalism and how it will kill us as well, if we let it, from the preface of Ayann Hirsi Ali’s new book.

What’s The Problem?

Keith Cowing seems to think that Stephen Hawking is being inconsistent:

When asked about his thoughts on President Bush’s proposal to put a man on Mars within 10 years, Hawking simply replied: “Stupid.”

This, in the context of the recent story that Dr. Hawking thinks that we must colonize space for our long-term survival.

I don’t see what the problem is. It’s possible to both believe that we should colonize space, and that the current policy is a poor way to do so, for the expenditures being proposed. I can attest to this, because I do in fact believe that.

What’s The Problem?

Keith Cowing seems to think that Stephen Hawking is being inconsistent:

When asked about his thoughts on President Bush’s proposal to put a man on Mars within 10 years, Hawking simply replied: “Stupid.”

This, in the context of the recent story that Dr. Hawking thinks that we must colonize space for our long-term survival.

I don’t see what the problem is. It’s possible to both believe that we should colonize space, and that the current policy is a poor way to do so, for the expenditures being proposed. I can attest to this, because I do in fact believe that.

What’s The Problem?

Keith Cowing seems to think that Stephen Hawking is being inconsistent:

When asked about his thoughts on President Bush’s proposal to put a man on Mars within 10 years, Hawking simply replied: “Stupid.”

This, in the context of the recent story that Dr. Hawking thinks that we must colonize space for our long-term survival.

I don’t see what the problem is. It’s possible to both believe that we should colonize space, and that the current policy is a poor way to do so, for the expenditures being proposed. I can attest to this, because I do in fact believe that.

Time Is On The Side Of The Infidels

An interesting find in the Zarkman’s (un)safe house:

As an overall picture, time has been an element in affecting negatively the forces of the occupying countries, due to the losses they sustain economically in human lives, which are increasing with time. However, here in Iraq, time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance for the following reasons:

I particularly like this problem they seem to be having:

By undertaking a media campaign against the resistance resulting in weakening its influence inside the country and presenting its work as harmful to the population rather than being beneficial to the population.

Those evil propagandists! Only they could fool people into thinking that brutally murdering and blowing up innocent men, women and children, and kidnapping and people and making head-chopping snuff films with them, was harmful to the population.

Anyway, they must be talking about Iraqi media. I haven’t seen much of that in the western press. Most of what I read here, based on interviews with Murtha and Kerry, is that we can’t win, and must give up. Wonder what they’ll have to say about this document? Someone should ask them. But they won’t.

And note that the enemy knows who its best friends are, as evidenced by the fact that this is their numero uno strategem:

To improve the image of the resistance in society, increase the number of supporters who are refusing occupation and show the clash of interest between society and the occupation and its collaborators. To use the media for spreading an effective and creative image of the resistance.

Yup. They keep playing the western media like a finely-tuned Strad. And the western media love the tune, because they share a common enemy–George Bush.

[Update in the afternoon]

I just noticed in reading more carefully that a key part of Al Qaeda/Iraq’s strategy seems to be to foment a war between the US and Iran. We’ll have to look out for this. I wonder if the Iranian government is aware of this (and if they’ve been harboring Al Qaeda types to whom they’ll no longer be as friendly).

[Update a couple minutes later]

Here’s a story that says the Iraqi government believes that it’s broken the back of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The mine of information from Al-Qaeda documents seized during raids spelt “the beginning of the end” for the terror group, said Iraqi national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie

“We believe Al-Qaeda in Iraq was taken by surprise; they did not anticipate how powerful the Iraqi security forces are and how the government is on the attack now,” Rubaie told reporters.

The documents had given Iraq an “edge over Al-Qaeda and will also give us the whereabouts of their network and their leaders and their weapons, and the way they lead the organisation and the whereabouts of their meetings”.

I hope they’re right, but I’ll keep the champagne chilled for now.

[Update at 3:30 PM]

One more interesting point about that letter from the (un)safe house, re: benefits to AQ in Iraq of a US/Iran war:

Numerology

They couldn’t even wait for the next thousand on the odometer. Remember the big deal the press made about the 2000th death in Iraq? Now the magic (and utterly meaningless) number is 2500:

While there were no details on who it was or where the 2,500th death occurred, it underscored the continuing violence in Iraq just after an upbeat Bush returned from a surprise visit to Baghdad determined that the tide was beginning to turn.

In other words, we’ve now lost, over a period of over three years, almost as many as died in a couple hours on the beaches of Normandy (perhaps even the same number as were lost just in training for that event). Would the media have been so hung up on these kinds of numbers during that war? It seems unlikely, but if they had (or to be more precise, had today’s media been reporting then), the story would have been something like this.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!