Blithely, Blithely: February 2006

Arabs run it?

This rundown on the Arabs running the ports business is worth reading, as gathered by the indispensable Instapundit: http://instapundit.com/archives/028731.php.

Up the Danish!

Anybody free to join Chris Hitchen at the Danish embassy Friday in a show of solidarity, go for it. I can't make it but want to send my best. Says H:

Quietness and calm are the necessities, plus cheerful conversation. Danish flags are good, or posters reading "Stand By Denmark" and any variation on this theme (such as "Buy Carlsberg/ Havarti/ Lego") The response has been astonishing and I know that the Danes are appreciative. But they are an embassy and thus do not of course endorse or comment on any demonstration. Let us hope, however, to set a precedent for other cities and countries. Please pass on this message to friends and colleagues.

Gladly.

Attached

Reader Bonnie sends attachment about cartoon cowardice, or we-don't-want-our-offices-firebombed-by-Islamo-fascists motive for not running them.

In any case, attachments I hate, I told her; in-text-pasted I like. What I do with attachment is save it to my desktop, where my faithful Icelandic F-Prot Aunty-Vi program vets it; then I open it and open it and open it -- only twice for this much-forwarded item, thank you -- until I see the gem itself, contained in box within box, etc. Better to highlight the text, losing the pretty pictures, copy and paste it.

Responding to another item, not attached and with pretty picture intact because rich mode is in effect, about Cheney getting his gun, I responded thus -- not thusly, please!

The best so far on Cheney getting his gun is former Bush press secy. Ari Fleischer: Wash lemming press was right to be dissed but did not have to make fedl case of it:

White House correspondents "are justified in being upset," but have gone "bonkers" in pummeling McClellan.

But lemmings do that, like WaPo's Dana (Milbank, not Carvey) in the orange suit on TV. Too cute by half, he adds fuel to fire of RAMPANT MISTRUST of those guys and gals, who preen for each other. This is my problem (theirs: I'm not alone): I believe almost nothing they say. Honestly. The cuter they get, the worse it is.

-- Disbelieving in Oak Park

Award time

My Tell It, Sister award goes this week to Sun-Times's Debra Pickett, whose Sorry Institute announced its awards today to an award-hungry metropolitan area. Nominations, I mean, for the 2006 award. Sorry.

Cardinal George did well but faxed his apology to hundreds of parishes -- "what is this, 1992?" asked Pickett.

Michael Chertoff of Homeland Security said he "was astonished to see we didn't have the capability," etc., which Pickett rightly considered being big about it at his staff's expense.

Condoleezza Rice pulled off "a kind of mea culpa jujitsu" by staring down Congressional interrogators. (Go, Condi.)

Dick Cheney apologized but not to the guy he shot, "And if you can't say you're sorry to someone for accidentally shooting them, you've really got issues," noted Pickett.

Now. That's what I got out of it. You read it. You decide. Is she a Tell It, Sister winner or not?

Whatever: Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Writing

I who work at writing thought this helpful: http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/004023.html

Dumb son

Here's a thought: Mayordaley II could shut up about things that have nothing to do with running the city administration. He's not the daddy of us, nor the oldest son of one who was our daddy. He's a politician who made the most of the cards that were dealt him. And he's also presiding over a situation akin to Cardinal George's, where very bad things have happened on his watch and he's not scot free of it, if only for failing in oversight responsibility.

Which means that when reporters ask him what he thinks of a baseball manager not accompanying his team to see the president, he should shut up. It also means that when scandals erupt in his administration, he should stand up and have the common sense to do something like what his father did at the time of Summerdale. The father bit a dum-dum bullet and hired a WASP academic with no sense of politics who worked by the book and then he (the father) stood by while things changed.

He (the father) was no hero for that. He was smart, at least on that occasion. The son is being dumb about it, mainly because he can't or won't find an O.W. Wilson or reasonable facsimile but also because he spouts off with dumb ideas about baseball managers, wealthy athletes who don't adopt one of the city's bad schools, and other stuff he's peculiarly ill-suited to comment on.

P. Noonan again

See here for reaction to Peggy Noonan on the King funeral, where she waxes ecstatic about the former First Couple.

"God I love them" about the Clintons? Perhaps this is some hormonal thing I don't understand, but that girl aint right,

says JB on "Fraters Libertas" (which is the lamest effort at Latin I have encountered in a long time).

Noonan revisited

Comment on Peggy Noonan on King funeral with which I agree totally, as they say in la-la land:

I find Peggy Noonan's style of reporting and presentation quite unsettling. She gushes when she talks in a flowery, New York upper-west-side-way. The only person who upsets me more in the way she sounds when she speaks is Hillary Clinton. She is one woman who definitely needs some speech coaching.

Peggy's analysis of Loretta King's funeral is definitely out in la-la land from the way I heard and observed the goings on in Atlanta. -- NJT

Gushing along

We all should live in the happy world of Peggy Noonan, who argues today that politics at this week's King funeral was just fine because it shows the world how we do it here in the Free World. An interesting observation, I may even say insight, worth a good 200 words in any newspaper in the land. Her piece is 1,488 words, however, the product of six hours viewing of TV plus the writing, for which I hope she was paid a pretty penny. We report, you decide.

Thomas Sowell on wiretapping

In his

Point of No Return http://www.CapMag.com/article.asp?ID=4563

Thomas Sowell has us fiddling while Washington burns:

When some honcho in the international terrorist network is captured in Afghanistan or Iraq, and the phone numbers in his computer are found by his American captors, it is only a matter of time before his capture becomes news broadcast around the world.

In the hour or two before that happens, his contacts within the United States may continue to use the phones they have been using. Listening in on their conversations during that brief window of opportunity can provide valuable information on enemies within our midst who are dedicated to our destruction.

Precious time can be wasted filing legalistic documents to get some judge's permission to tap the domestic terrorists' phones before CBS or CNN broadcasts the news of the captured terrorist leader overseas and the domestic terrorists stop using the phones that they had used before to talk with him.

They want our heads on their shelves. What on earth are we doing?

Go Post!

Power Line has this:

The Washington Post must have been feeling left out; today it joined the New York Times in violating the Espionage Act by revealing secrets about the United States' intelligence-gathering means and methods. Like the Times, the Post relies on anti-administration leakers, who themselves are committing felonies, to publish previously-unreported details of the NSA's efforts to identify terrorists both abroad and inside the United States.

More in the liberalism = suicide pact arena. Or disloyal opposition.

Slim rode bomb

Was it Chill Wills who rode the a-bomb to death and destruction in “Strangelove,” as I said, or Slim Pickens? Slim Pickens, but the mistake is, ah, not uncommon, as is implied here:

[Peter] Sellers comic wit is also in evidence in Stanley Kubrick's masterful "Dr. Strangelove," a cerebral comedy about the cold war that could have been far too sophisticated and intellectual for mainstream audiences if Sellers (with a little help from Slim Pickens - or was it Chill Wills?) hadn't had such delightful fun playing three characters in the film.

Slim it was, and thanks to Reader Chuck for spotting that.

Important reminder

Yes, there are benighted households to whom “Katrina” signifies nothing but death and destruction and political infighting. But in our household, where “Monarch of the Glen” reigns supreme on Saturdays at 9 p.m. on Channel 20–PBS, it means far more.

Therefore, to read that Katrina is back tonight — as Lexie prepares for her big day with Archie and an admirer arrives to win Molly's hand — is to feel more than words can express. Tune in, all ye illuminati, and see what’s what. (Wednesday at 8 if you miss)

Saying you're sorry

Author James Frey writes in a note to appear in future editions of his A Million [lying] Little Pieces, about things he said happened to him but didn’t, that he “deeply” regrets his “mistake” in the matter — at least since Oprah disowned him on her show.

It’s common enough lately to say one erred when one did a bad thing. But what if people said what penitents said in the pre-Vatican 2 RC church?

"I firmly resolve . . . to confess my sins, to do penance and to amend my life. Amen"

Wouldn’t that get the talk shows humming!

Blithely, Blithely

February 22, 2006

Arabs run it?

Up the Danish!

February 20, 2006

Attached

February 17, 2006

Award time

Whatever: Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Writing

February 11, 2006

Dumb son

P. Noonan again

February 10, 2006

Noonan revisited

Gushing along

February 08, 2006

Thomas Sowell on wiretapping

February 05, 2006

Go Post!

Slim rode bomb

February 04, 2006

Important reminder

February 02, 2006

Saying you're sorry

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