Vox Popoli

Peter King writes on Sports Illustrated:

Evidently Mike Shanahan Is A Learned Man

Books spotted on the bookshelf in coach Mike Shanahan’s office:

1. Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom.

2. Purpose-Driven Life, by Rick Walker.

3. Seabiscuit, by Laura Hillenbrand.

4. Plan of Attack, by Bob Woodward.

5. A Good Walk Spoiled, by John Feinstein.

6. Finding the Winning Edge, by Bill Walsh.

7. The Winner Within, by Pat Riley.

“What did you think of ‘Seabiscuit’?” I ask.

“Haven’t read it,” Shanahan says. “Saw the movie. Really liked it.”

“You’ve got to read the book,” I say. “It’s better. One of the best sports books ever.”

I am proud to say that I have none of these books and have read none of them, as with the exception of Seabiscuit they all strike me as books for the semiliterate. Someone did give me a Mitch Albom book once, but I managed to pass it off on someone else who was actually interested in it.

To think that a man once had to read and write Latin and Greek to be considered learned. This is progress?

Yet another government theft is justified:

In a twist on this summer’s Supreme Court decision allowing a Connecticut city to seize private land and turn it over to developers, a New Jersey appeals panel has OK’d the taking of property from developers to assure the area remains as open space.

The decision by the three-judge state court, handed down Tuesday, allows the township of Mount Laurel, N.J., to take a 16-acre tract from developer Michael Procacci and his company, Mipro Homes, which planned to build 23 homes on the land.

So, if you remember the reasoning behind the Kelo case, government needs to be able to steal land from private land owners in order to collect more taxes. But the appeals panel is ensuring that a government can steal land because it wants to collect fewer taxes.

The central point has nothing to do with the various reasonings, of course. Those are just rationalizations meant to obscure the fact that the courts – government agencies – are trying to make sure that a government can do whatever it wants whenever it wants, for whatever reason.

This is not your grandfather’s America.

Frank Gaffney writes on NRO:

In fact, we have no choice but to fight the Islamofascists with every means at our disposal. This will require, among other things, engaging the American people far more fully in the war effort than they have been to date. In fact, it is time to put the country on a war footing. Elements of such an approach should include the following:

In fact, we have a plethora of choices, moron. This sort of sloppy rhetoric annoys the smack out of me. Notice how “every means at our disposal” not only doesn’t include turning Saudi Arabia into a glass desert, but barely has anything to do with the prosecution of the war itself.

Here’s this Clausewitz reincarnate’s suggestions, seriously:

Support the troops.

Oh, that will make ALL the difference in the world. People all around the country are supporting them, as anyone who follows the milblogs knows.

Help secure the homeland.

No, this isn’t what you think. In neocon parlance, “helping secure the homeland” means interpreting the sacrfice your civil liberties as your civic duty and spying on your neighbor.

Enhance energy security.

I thought the war WASN’T about oil. And if dependence on Saudi oil is one of the keys to winning the struggle, isn’t the close, manly friendship between George Delano and King Abdullah indicative of a rather more serious problem?

Stop underwriting terror.

Strangely, Frank doesn’t bring up the billions of dollars sent directly to terrorist organizations and terror-sponsoring states.

And that’s it. Do those four things and we’ll win… it’s a good thing this is only a struggle because with yahoos like this running things, we are so going to lose….

A gentleman by the name of Tom Flocco is reporting that the president and vice-president have been indicted by a Chicago grand jury. Needless to say, the “Bush-hating” mainstream media is all over this one, because those liberal reporters just hate hate hate our glorious conservative president:

BUSH AND CHENEY INDICTED

A Chicago grand jury has indicted the President and Vice-President of the United States along with multiple high officials in the Bush administration

U.S. federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s Chicago grand jury has issued perjury and obstruction of justice indictments to the following members of the Bush Administration: President George W. Bush, Vice-President Richard Cheney, Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, imprisoned New York Times reporter Judith Miller and former Senior Cheney advisor Mary Matalin.

There were no indications given as to whether the President and his top staff members would appear publicly before cameras at the grand jury proceedings, given the gravity of the charges.

Besides the Valerie Plame CIA leak case, the Fitzgerald probe is reportedly far-reaching and expanding much deeper into past White House criminal acts involving Bush-Clinton drug money laundering in Mena, Arkansas to White House involvement in 9.11; but also for sending America’s young people to their deaths or to be maimed in Iraq and Afghanistan under false pretenses.

Interestingly enough, the U.S. Attorney’s office first stated that it had no comment, then commented that its OFFICE hadn’t issued any indictments. Which, of course, says absolutely nothing about whether the GRAND JURY issued them. Despite the heavy coverage on CNN and Fox, Citizen Spook decided to check it out:

CS: “Who am I speaking with?

Female assistant: “I’m not giving you any names for anybody here.”

CS: “Has the grand jury returned any indictments?”

She hung up.

I called the main number again, and asked for Richard Sanborn’s, was transferred and got the same female assistant on the phone:

Female assistant: “I told you we have no comment to your question.”

CS: “But I have more than one question.”

Female Assistant: “And we cannot comment, I have to go.”

CS: “Please don’t hang up, the duty paralegal said your office was the only place to go for a comment. And I understand you can’t comment, and I’ll respect that, but I have to get you on the record as saying ‘no comment’ to the questions I have, and not just a blanket answer. I understand you can’t comment, but will you please allow me to ask the questions, and if you’re answer is ‘no comment” that’s fine, I won’t press you, but please let me ask the questions so we can understand what you’re saying ‘no comment’ to.

Female assistant: “What’s your question, sir?”

CS: “Regarding Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation, has the US Attorney presented any Indictments to the grand jury for deliberations?”

Female assistant: “No comment.”

CS: “Is the grand jury currently deliberating over any indictments?”

Female assistant: “No comment.”

CS: “Has the grand jury returned any true bills?”

Female assistant: “No comment.”

CS: “Has the grand jury returned any not true bills?”

Female assistant: “No comment.”

CS: “Has the grand jury returned any bills of ignoramus?”

Female assistant: “No comment.”

CS: “Has your office issued any Indictments?”

Female assistant: “This office has not issued any indictments.”

This is not a Ben Shapiro column, this is just a tribute.

I’m a Midwestern boy, born and bred. I’ve lived in host of very small cities of which you’ve probably never heard, sometimes near live animals. Even though my parents are from the East Coast, the closest I’ve ever come to big city living is watching Friends. The friends often visit a coffee shop called Central Perk, which is a very clever play on words because it is located next to Central Park in New York City. So when I was invited by my uncle’s cousin’s friend’s family to visit San Francisco, I was very excited.

Many people in flyover country like to look down on people in blue state country, because they are all going to Hell. It’s no surprise that our preacher paints inhabitants of the East Coast and the West Coast as pagan, often evil, straight out of Sodom and Gomorrah. Anyone who says “cah” instead of car or has a name ending in a vowel is labeled unamerican by those in the Midwest. Looking down on coastal dwellers gives lots of Midwesterners a sense of superiority, secure in their knowledge that they are more righteous, less likely to impregnate a 14 year-old Vietnamese immigrant and more decent than the disease-ridden people in the urban hellholes. After all, out in Rochester and Fargo there are boys who don’t call each other “dog”, milk delivery services and churches where the pastor still believes in God. What could be nicer?

Well, after spending a few days in the city by the Bay, it’s even clearer to me that the Midwestern elitists have everything upside down. Here are just a few of the lessons I learned from folks who live on the coasts:

Looking people in the eye isn’t a crime. Just the other day, a very muscular man with a mustache wearing a police hat and a sleeveless leather vest was staring at me. When he saw me notice him, he gave me a big smile and invited me to a dance party. Wasn’t that nice!

You don’t have to keep your distance, friend! In the Midwest, people don’t like to touch each other, especially men. Here in the friendly big city, people will greet each other with hugs, even kisses sometimes. Those mustaches sure tickle! But I think one very ugly woman who was wearing fishnet stockings might have overdone it a little when she grabbed my behind and asked if I’d ever played Wheelbarrow before.

There’s plenty of time. There’s always a pot of coffee on at my parent’s house, and that Norwegian black tar sure can keep you up at night. But my new friends at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge have turned me on to something that works even better. Two hits of their homemade crystal meth and suddenly you feel like there’s 48 hours in the day!

Tune in next week, when young Mr. Shapiro reports his exciting new discovery that south of the border, a strange and incomprehensible language called “Espanol” is being spoken by the short, brown-skinned natives.

From the Washington Post:

Former State Department counterterrorism official Larry C. Johnson reported on his blog yesterday that the Global War on Terrorism, or GWOT, or The WOT, “may still be alive.”

A couple months ago, our colleague, Susan B. Glasser, reported that the Bush administration was undertaking a major review of its strategy on counterterrorism, and that officials wanted to change the name GWOT to something like GSAVE — Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. That would take into account the changed nature of the battle against international terrorism.

“GWOT is catchy,” a senior administration official said then, “but there may be a better way to describe it.”

In fact, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld 10 days ago spoke about a “global struggle against violent extremism [GSAVE].”

Apparently nobody told President Bush. At a White House meeting of senior officials Monday, Johnson wrote, “Bush reportedly said he was not in favor of the new term… In fact, he said, ‘no one checked with me.’ That comment brought an uncomfortable silence to the assembled group of pooh-bahs. The president insisted it was still a war as far as he is concerned.”

By yesterday, Rumsfeld was back to GWOT in his prepared remarks to a Dallas business group.

So we’re back to warring against method. Yeah, George Delano is going to be ranked up there with Alexander, Napoleon and J. Freaking Caesar, isn’t he.

Forget the Vietnam comparisons. I’m beginning to get the idea that Vietnam is going to look like a success story compared with this historical debacle. No amount of low-level jihadist-killing in Iraq is going to accomplish anything whilst the president is saluting the accession of his good friend, King Abdullah, to the head of the Wahhabist House of Saud.

Meanwhile, we lost 21 of our best in three days this week. I’d be surprised if we lost that many troops to combat in the German and Japanese occupations combined. Unsurprisingly, you don’t hear a lot about those historical comparisons anymore from the administration’s cheerleaders, do you.

Does anyone else find it interesting that the writers and editors at what is supposedly the staunch bulwark of right-wing thought, The National Review, are apparently much fonder of reading and quoting The Huffington Post than WorldNetDaily?

WND isn’t for everyone, to be sure, but it’s much more widely read and breaks far more news than the irritating Greek lady’s latest toy. Now, I understand that it’s important to know what is going on with the other side, but I do find NRO’s incessant links to the Huffer Puffer to be remarkable. All the more so after trying to slog my way through one or two of them.

Naked Man With Sword Chases Complaining Neighbors

JB agrees, even though it’s pointless:

Finally! A columnist with the intestinal fortitude to call a spade a spade. I’ve been angry watching our performance in Iraq ever since “major combat operations” were declared “over” by the president. You are correct. There is no war on terror, and there never has been. One way you can tell is that there is absolutely NO offensive strategy to obtain victory. We’ve been fighting this “war on terror” almost as long as we fought in WWII. Too bad Americans are just so comfortable that they accept any spin from the administration these days…. Several months ago, the president goofed in an interview with Brian Williams (I think) and said that the war on terror is not winnable. Of course, the next day he explained in the media that he misspoke and that we certainly will win the war on terror….

Oh, well…. Thanks for calling it like it really is, I really enjoy your columns because you have courage. No one is really listening, but I appreciate your efforts.

It’s been said that a gaffe is when one accidentally speaks the truth. As for no one listening, that’s the price you pay for not sticking to the script.

Dread treads a trail of tears:

I’m wasting my time with you and apparently many on this blog. If people will not wake by now, F___ it! The republic is apparently dead. Nobody really cares anymore about the truth. Asking asinine rhetorical questions is enough evidence for me that this nation does’nt WANT to get a clue.

To expect people who have been operating under a given set of assumptions for their entire lives to suddenly throw it away simply because several pieces of public information do not add up is unreasonable. If you subscribe to an opinion, however factually based, that is out of the mainstream, you have to expect that very, very few people are going to agree with you, by definition.

People today are very accustomed to believing whatever the government tells them and they are unaccustomed to thinking for themselves. This is why your neighbor can insist that his stocks are going to go up because inflation is low, then chortle about how the value of his house has increased 50 percent in two years before complaining about the $2.39 price of gas and the $1.19 chili cheese burrito at Taco Bell. Despite the preponderance of evidence before his own eyes, he still believes in the official CPI number even though he has no idea what it is or how it is related to real inflation.

People mock the unfamiliar for three reasons. One, they are absolutely sure of their position and know they have no need to defend it. This seldom applies to conspiracy-related issues, since the vast majority of people on the planet are in no position to know anything. Two, they have so little grounds to defend their position that there is little else they can say and still participate in the discussion. Three, they are secretly afraid that the other party is correct and they are attempting to avoid giving the matter serious consideration.

I don’t expect most people to see things how I do. They simply aren’t capable of it, having neither the historical knowledge nor the emotional distance even if they have the intellect. This surely sounds arrogant, but then, my track record speaks for itself, those errant stock market expectations notwithstanding. Also, for the most part people do not wish to see things how they truly are, and I can’t say that I really blame them. Mankind has a long history of accepting the status quo, and the reason we lionize martyrs and heroes is that so few of us are capable of emulating their courage.

The key to avoiding frustration is to appreciate the value of winning over a single mind. I may not be capable of instigating significant change for the better, but perhaps someone else whose mind has been opened to the truth of things will be. The mockers will always be there, but they are merely expected background noise and should be of no more concern to anyone than the birds chirping outside your window.