Lileks has the must-read low-down on 2005. Warning: some snark, irony and sarcasm involved.
All posts by Rand Simberg
ITAR And The Anglosphere
Joe Katzman has some thoughts on the nature of true allies.
What He Said
I use Wikipedia, but I don’t take it as gospel, and neither should you. Robert McHenry, former editor of Encyclopedia Britannica, explains why.
Ah, An Explanation…
I haven’t seen the movie (and have no intention to, based on anything I’ve read about it) but apparently it isn’t about gay cowboys, but rather, it’s about gay sheepboys. That actually makes more sense (and I’ll grant a lot of credibility to the take, given that it’s a lesbian source). They’ll put it in anything…
[Wednesday morning update]
Mickey Kaus explains to the apparently clueless why many of us are uninterested in seeing the movie:
My wild hypothesis is that more people will go see a movie if it features an actor or actress they find attractive! If heterosexual men in heartland America don’t flock to see Brokeback Mountain it’s not because they’re bigoted. It’s because they’re heterosexual. “Heterosexuals Attracted to Members of the Opposite Sex“–for those cultural critics wondering what a commercial disappointment for this much-heralded movie will Tell Us About America Today, there’s your headline…
Is It Just Me?
Does anyone else see the irony inherent in a woman who married a closeted gay man calling someone–anyone–a “deluded cockeyed optimist“?
In The Minority
I’m not part of the 94% of the public who believes in God.
I Like It
Let’s call it the “McCain Treaty With Al Qaeda.”
Instant Urban Legend
Mudville Gazette is calling for corrections:
THE PRESIDENT: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We’ve lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq.
Today’s headlines? “Bush says 30,000 Iraqi civilians dead in war.”
Emphasis mine. Also, I wonder if the president misspoke. Is he including all the foreign fighters in that count? If so, they’re not even Iraqi citizens, let alone civilians.
This is how urban legends get started, and you can be sure that it will now become part of every lefty playbook. And don’t expect a correction.
Rave Review
I’ve already stated my predisposition (or lack thereof) toward seeing King Kong (even if Jackson didn’t do the gay version), but Randy Barnett says that it’s one of the best movies he’s ever seen.
Emphasizing The Negative
Tom Sowell writes about one of my own favorite themes: The Media’s War:
The Marines lost more than 5,000 men taking one island in the Pacific during a three-month period in World War II. In the Civil War, the Confederates lost 5,000 men in one battle in one day.
Yet there was Jim Lehrer on the “News Hour” last week earnestly asking Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about the ten Americans killed that day. It is hard to imagine anybody in any previous war asking any such question of anyone responsible for fighting a war.
We have lost more men than that in our most overwhelming and one-sided victories in previous wars. During an aerial battle over the Mariannas islands in World War II, Americans shot down hundreds of Japanese planes while losing about 30 of their own.
If the media of that era had been reporting the way the media report today, all we would have heard about would have been that more than two dozen Americans were killed that day.