Adventures in Bureaucracy
I've been fascinated by Pompeii ever since I first read about it in National Geographic "World" so many years ago.
Now there's more to it than a Roman city frozen in time. Sounds like a contender for my next vacation.
After reading
this, I suppose I shouldn't complain about service on U.S. airlines. Sure, they may arrest pilots for attempting to fly while intoxicated, but at least they don't beat up people in the back of the plane.
PC further erodes tradition in the United Kingdom. (via Western Standard)
Remember all those dystopian novels you had to read in high school? Everyone always refers to Orwell's "1984", which was a great book, but not a very good prediction for what was then the future. Another book seems to have been somewhat better about looking into the future of the British Isles: C.S. Lewis' "
That Hideous Strength". I think of that every time the "progressives" eradicate yet another symbol of England's past. Where's Merlin when you need him?
Glad I bailed when I did. I've heard the same thing from everyone I used to work with who still does the same job.
DHS Undersecretary's feet held to the fire by someone who's closer to the reporters of old.
When I was younger and had more time, I used to watch a lot of those black-and-white movies from the Thirties and Forties. All those cigar-smoking reporters in fedoras, shadowing the main characters, waiting for something newsworthy to make the papers, racing to the phone booths to be the first one to file the verdict. That's probably what shaped my views of what a reporter should be. Then I read this:
"
It's too bad, though, that the CPA did not do a better job in informing the Western and Arab press about the broadcast. Had we all known about it, I'm sure Bremer's comments would have received wider exposure inside Iraq and beyond."
So basically it's "If you wanted it covered, you should have told me about it in advance." Is that what Winchell and Murrow and the other greats would have said when they'd been scooped?
And here's a more subtle take on the same theme:
"
I plan to vote for [Kerry] because I think ... we need to take a time out from Bush's strident public global terror war in order to prevent it from becoming a damaging, lifelong West vs. Islam clash--in order to "rebrand" America and digest the hard-won gains we've made in Iraq and Afghanistan (if they even remain gains by next January)."
The assumption here is that the war is entirely our choice to wage, so we can quit any time we want. Doesn't the other side have some say here? Just because we don't acknowledge a conflict doesn't mean it's not happening. Sure, it's not a conflict between the West and all of Islam, but as I see it, we're in a clash of ideologies every bit as serious as the war against fascism in WWII and against Communism during the Cold War. The Islamists hate us, and Osama bin Laden declared war against us years ago. We didn't acknowledge it as war, despite an escalating series of attacks spread over years that culminated in September 11. How would a Kerry presidency change that ideology?
The battle is joined. It's not a game from which we can safely take a "time out" because we're tired and bored and don't want to play any more. It's a war that needs to be won.
A particularly good Bleat today. Why do some people think that everything bad that happens in the world is America's fault and/or responsibility?
NEWS FLASH:
United States NOT blamed for atrocities. You'll never guess who is.
Although the Nazi comparisons are always in vogue, it seems several people in the White House have been compared to Rasputin:
Dick Cheney,
Karl Rove,
Richard Perle, even
Richard Clarke. A word of advice:
watch out for sharp edges.
It almost looks like
Ray Charles lives on as well.
