Posts from — January 2007

I’m rather surprised that the serial comma has become an issue, but apparently a lot of people are rebelling against one of the few rules that actually exist in English.

I seem to remember Steve Bates of Yellow Doggerel Democrat commenting on them earlier, and then I saw the Wolcott post, Serial Comma Killer, Qu’est-ce que C’est?, which seemed to indicate that there is a move afoot to change the rules, or ignore them.

I stand with the standard use of the serial comma, including the one before the conjunction. That’s the rule Miss Delores Smith stated, and that makes it good enough for me.

Florida License Plates

Beneficiary

A weekend feature of Why Now.

In the early hours of January 13^th, 1969 I was forced to accept something that I had known for a while, but had pushed to the back of my mind: I was mortal and was going to die.

This was the first of several incidents when my chance of survival was a good deal less than 1 in 2. This wasn’t the scariest, but it was the first, and following on the heels of the terrible events of 1968, it had the biggest impact.

In the end the only “death” was an airplane, Rivet Ball, the Air Force’s only RC-135S. The military version of the Boeing 707, the fuselage broke in half, like an eggshell, on impact. A very talented pilot, John Achor, the aircraft commander, was responsible for that miracle.

Grumpy Forester covers the Washington Post article, U.S. unit says Iraqis ‘not ready to stand up’, that reports on the view of the military in Iraq about the escalation.

An American View From The Arab Street deals with the frustration of doing something dangerous that the people who are supposed to be benefiting don’t seem to want done.

Part of the deal with the oath of enlistment is that those set over you are not going to order you to do something dangerous without a good reason. Risking life and limb should be for serious purposes, not for someone’s promotion. When people no longer believe that their mission is important they make mistakes.

A point that many people miss is that this administration has done such a good job de-humanizing the “enemy,” that American forces view all Arabs as the enemy. You can’t trust people you believe to be the enemy and both the Iraqi and American forces are caught in this web of lies.

The guys at First Draft are apparently having issues with their hosting, maybe the chinchillas are on strike. I suspect they exceeded their band width allocation when they held their fest covering the Wednesday non-event in the White House library.

Publius at Legal Fiction is hanging up his solo keyboard and moving over to Obsidian Wings as a part-timer. Real life intrudes on blogging.

At lot of changes in the new year.

Return of the Prodigal

What are you looking at.

[Editor: Just before Halloween Ringo decided to try life on the outside. On Tuesday she showed up and decided she preferred the inside. No need to get into the perch 30 foot up in the tree or the reintroduction into the pride.]

Friday Ark

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a couple of days, but Ellroon at Rants from the Rookery beat me to it: Another attempted shut down of a blog by legal threats.

Lisa at All Hat and No Cattle is being threatened with a libel suit by Joe Scarborough for her web page on the death of one of Joe’s office staff in Fort Walton Beach under mysterious circumstances.

The page has been up for years, so why bring it up now? The point of the page is the remarkable lack of coverage by the local media of this event, even though it occurred during the same time as the Gary Condit / Chandra Levy media scrum. The case was poorly investigated and poorly reported, and Lisa details the problems and wonders why?

You have wonder if Joe’s attorney has ever heard of the Sullivan “Actual Malice” Rule which is the reason the Swift Boaters can get away with their crap. If you are a politician, you make yourself a target and have to prove actual malice as well as falsehood to win a libel case. If you know you can’t prevail in court, the only reason for talking about a lawsuit is to intimidate someone. Joe was once a practicing attorney, he should know these things.

The BBC, CNN, and MSNBC are all flashing about an explosion in the US embassy in Athens, Greece at around 11PM CST. No word on any injuries.

Update: Here’s the Reuters stub and the BBC stub. Not much information yet.

Will Bunch at Attyhood compares the Shrubbery’s reading with LBJ’s State of Union of 01/10/1967: “E-Day”: It was 40 years ago today.

That may explain this reaction noted in the CNN report, Sparring senators threaten Iraq fund cut, filibuster:

One of those Republicans, Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, showed his strong opposition to Bush’s plan Thursday during Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“Madam Secretary, when you set in motion the kind of policy that the president is talking about here, it’s very, very dangerous,” said Hagel, a decorated Vietnam War combat veteran. “As a matter of fact, I have to say, Madam Secretary, that I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam — if it’s carried out.”

About that filibuster, Harry Reid says that based upon the dozen Republican Senators who have spoken in opposition to the plan, he’s not concerned.

The BBC is reporting US forces storm Iranian consulate in Irbil in Kurdish territory and detained six Iranian diplomats. They also took documents and computers from the offices.

The NPR report on the hourly update this morning said the Kurds are angry and there is tension between US and Kurdish forces.

Great, they decide to really antagonize the one group in Iraq that doesn’t totally hate the US.

I would note that the seizure of the US embassy in Teheran was by student radicals, not the armed forces of Iran, and it occurred in Iran, not a separate country. “Jerry” Boykin may be on his way out [praise be to Robert Gates], but this smells like one of his stupid ideas.

The BBC talked to various people about their reaction to the speech on the world service this morning and their interview with an Iraqi exile, a woman forced to leave Iraq after death threats was illuminating for her clear understanding of the Shrubbery. She said he only listens to himself and people who agree with him, he never consults with the Iraqis before making these decisions.

They also conducted some interviews with people in a sports bar in Seaside, California, outside of Camp Pendleton. After several quotes from Marines in the bar, who were all saying “it’s our job” and “Semper Fi,” the reporter asked a waitress what the Marines said when the media wasn’t there. She said that they wondered why they couldn’t come home after Saddam was hanged and let the Iraqis take care of their own business.

Today the Shrubbery is off for a photo op at an Army post to hide from his critics by surrounding himself with the people who are paying the real price for his arrogance. It may be time for the Democrats to take away the keys to Air Force One, and make the guy spend some time in the office doing some work.

A server went down for under an hour, but things are back to normal.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

The Shrubbery read a speech, and CNN felt compelled to write about it. Their essay is titled: Bush will add more than 20,000 troops to Iraq [not exactly catchy].

Bush recognized that the progress of the war is “unacceptable to the American people — and it is unacceptable to me,” adding, “Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.”

…snip

Emerging from their meeting with Bush about 3:15 p.m. ET, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said they felt they were not able to give input to the Bush plan.

Their meeting “was notification, not consultation,” said Pelosi.

…snip

The Republican congressional leadership is standing behind President Bush’s new plan, and faulted Democrats for not offering their own plan for victory.

…snip

A number of Republican senators — including Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas — have publicly questioned whether Bush’s plan to increase troop strength will help stabilize Iraq.

“A troop surge in Baghdad would put more American troops at risk to address a problem that is not a military problem,” Coleman said Wednesday on the Senate floor.

“It would put more American soldiers in the crosshairs of sectarian violence and create more targets. I just don’t believe this makes sense,” Coleman said.

[Read more →]

I caught most of the Terry Gross [Fresh Air, January 9, 2007] interview, Frank Luntz Explains ‘Words that Work’, and it was an amazing display of delusion and propaganda.

Luntz wires focus groups and reads a thesaurus to them to find the best word to describe the next Republican outrage or to maximize the value of attacks on critics. Words aren’t selected for their accuracy of meaning, but for their emotional impact. Luntz is selecting a vocabulary based on its appeal to the “lizard brain.”

Northstar of People’s Republic of Seabrook has a Horsey cartoon in the post, It’s all about the propaganda, that illustrates this point.

The new “Enemy of the State” feature on Fox News’ Hannity’s America is an example of what happens when Republicans don’t hire Luntz, their repressive authoritarian face is shown. Even Stalin dressed it up by calling them “enemies of the people.” Not to rain on their parade, but the “founding fathers” were “enemies of the state.”

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