rich ruminations

Gasoline and summer. I’m glad I have a motorcycle that gets 60 mpg.

Performed by cartoon bunnies.

Hotair.com has gone live. This will be a daily read for me.

The site has a great design, and the initial content looks good.

Sure to cause moonbat’s heads to explode.

Heh.

Lee, you’re my favorite MoonBat.

Seriously, it’s nice to have a reasonable discussion with opposing viewpoints, and not resort to name-calling and other silliness.

Check out this stunning collection of music videos. What an incredibly talented individual.

This looks useful… I’m always forgetting keyboard shortcuts that would save me time.

xCuts:

As amazing as it may seem, until now the Dashboard has been missing a key utility that will be especially welcome by recent Windows or Linux switchers as well as other newcomers to Mac OS X. xCuts finally puts a full reference of Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts at your fingertips in the Dashboard.

This widget is powered by an external MySQL database that will be updated periodically with new information, allowing you to easily browse or search its contents. The xCuts are organized by Category, Scope, and Object, and you can even drill down to a second cross-referenced level if you need to. Or just use the fast live search form!

xCuts includes tips on the use of certain shortcuts, and it’s designed to let you copy and paste shortcuts to external documents. This resizable widget uses Ajax and the terrific Script.aculo.us (http://script.aculo.us) effects library to work its visual magic. When you’re done, click the title to compact xCuts down to a tiny lozenge for later use.

This makes sense.

I’m not sure he realizes it backfired.

He’s got to be one of the best things the Republicans have going for them right now…

Karl Rove really is an evil genius, the way he engineered Howard’s move into that role.

Mark Steyn has another excellent column about the situation in Iran. I this this excerpt is particularly effective:

You know what’s great fun to do if you’re on, say, a flight from Chicago to New York and you’re getting a little bored? Why not play being President Ahmadinejad? Stand up and yell in a loud voice, “I’ve got a bomb!” Next thing you know the air marshal will be telling people, “It’s OK, folks. Nothing to worry about. He hasn’t got a bomb.” And then the second marshal would say, “And even if he did have a bomb it’s highly unlikely he’d ever use it.” And then you threaten to kill the two Jews in row 12 and the stewardess says, “Relax, everyone. That’s just a harmless rhetorical flourish.” And then a group of passengers in rows 4 to 7 point out, “Yes, but it’s entirely reasonable of him to have a bomb given the threatening behavior of the marshals and the cabin crew.”

Will our leaders have the courage to take effective and decisive action with the Iranians? I believe that Bush does, but I’m not sure the Democrats will put the interests of the country ahead of their political desires to disagree with and defeat anything and everything that Bush does.

In any case, please read the whole thing.

Update: My good friend Lee takes issue with my suggestion that potential opposition by Democrats to action on Iran would be politically motivated.

Yea, Rich. It’s just those Democrats. Oh, and those generals. Oh, and the majority of the American public.

I’d like to respond to the three points Lee is making.

First, I don’t claim that “it’s just those Democrats,” but I do believe that many have been putting political calculus ahead of rational thought and behavior regarding the strategy and conduct of our country’s foreign policy. And those that haven’t, such as Senator Joe Lieberman, have been ruthlessly attacked.

Next, “those generals.” Lee provides a link to Google News for articles about retired US military leaders who have recently called for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to resign. Putting aside the issue of the claims being made by this small group (and counter-claims by other current and retired officers), this is irrelevant to the discussion of what our strategy should be about Iran’s aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons. Regardless of who is our Secretary of Defense — what are we going to do about Iran?

Finally, Lee links to a poll showing declining support for President Bush. Once again, this is irrelevant to the question of what should be done about Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons.

So Lee, I challenge you — what do you think should be done with Iran? Feel free to comment here, we can have a nice friendly dialog.

Strategypage has a brief write-up about status of military recruitment efforts:

In the last six months, the U.S. Army is seeing 15 percent more soldiers re-enlist than expected. This continues a trend that began in 2001. Every year since then, the rate at which existing soldiers have re-enlisted has increased. This despite the fact that 69 percent of the troops killed in Iraq have been from the army. New recruits continue to exceed join up at higher rates as well.

Further, morale levels are quite high:

The army makes a big thing, internally, about the number of troops re-enlisting, especially within combat units that are in Iraq or Afghanistan. Pictures of mass re-enlistments are published in military media, but the civilian media has generally ignored this phenomena. Also ignored, except by some local media interviewing locals who are in the army, is the positive attitude of the troops, especially those in combat units. The large number of re-enlistments occur because the troops believe they are making a difference, and winning. This is especially true for soldiers who have come back to Iraq on a second tour, and noted the improvements since the first tour.

One of our neighbors has been serving in Iraq the past several months, and is currently home for a short leave (he returns in a few days). I spoke with him last week about morale levels, and he provides confirmation that indeed, the troops have consistently high morale. “We’re very well taken care of,” is what he says. “We know we’re there for the right reasons, and we’re doing noble work.”

Yet the Democrats seem intent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

My neighbor says the biggest frustration the troops have is the discouraging and defeatist message being presented by the media. “We watch CNN reports about Iraq, and what they are reporting is just not an accurate story about what is going on. Often, there will be a reporter in Baghdad talking about an operation underway up in our area, hundreds of miles away. The reporter hasn’t been here, and clearly is clueless about the facts of the operation.”

Iran is now claiming success at enriching uranium. They continue to threaten annihilation of Israel, and death to America. They continue to fund Hamas, and Hezbollah, and evidence points to their involvement with the “insurgency” in Iraq.

What to do?

Mark Steyn takes a detailed look at the situation. One paragraph that sums things up nicely I think:

If Belgium becomes a nuclear power, the Dutch have no reason to believe it would be a factor in, say, negotiations over a joint highway project. But Iran’s nukes will be a factor in everything. If you think, for example, the European Union and others have been fairly craven over those Danish cartoons, imagine what they’d be like if a nuclear Tehran had demanded a formal apology, a suitable punishment for the newspaper, and blasphemy laws specifically outlawing representations of the Prophet. Iran with nukes will be a suicide bomber with a radioactive waist.

He makes the point that we’re faced with a choice of deciding between bad and worse choices. But clearly action is required, and very soon.

Please read this article.

Michael Yon’s Frontline Forum is now available. I’ve followed Michael Yon’s dispatches from Iraq, he’s provided detailed information and insight into the daily heroism of our troops.

The new Frontline Forum should be quite interesting.

The Frontline Forum is an alternative channel for compelling stories from those now wearing boots and carrying rifles and not comments or those endlessly forwarded unattributed “true” stories that always seem airbrushed. This is a place for those deployed in harm’s way to tell real stories about the ground situation.

Our goal is for frontline information to break through and be heard. We hope that over time, a more comprehensive and accurate picture of what is happening on the ground can emerge.

This virtual organization primarily is run by a volunteer group of retired military personnel. They will read every story, with the bar set high for accuracy and our radar on full alert for embellishment and operational security. Over 100 volunteers have stepped forward, from all branches of the military, from grunts to generals, veterans from the Korean War forward. They are joined by more than a dozen professional editors, reporters, and published authors, and a team of subject matter experts on topics as diverse as explosives, oil industry technology, law enforcement, computer programming, satellite communications and meteorology.

Not every submission will be published and authors of those submissions will be notified when we decline. Stories selected for publication we will perhaps polish a bit, edit for length and content, and then post ASAP or as the situation in the field allows.

The first story has been posted, and it is a good one.

The New York Times has a fascinating article today about Condoleezza Rice’s love of music.

The article was timely for me, as Alex is wanting to start violin lessons, and I’ve been thinking of getting back in practice, perhaps playing chamber music with friends, or the local community orchestra. The balance of work, family, hobbies (including music) is something I’ll be thinking more about in the coming months.

I entered college on a music scholarship, and intended to make a career as a professional musician, as did Ms. Rice:

At 17, she attended the prestigious summer school at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado and came to believe that though she was a very good pianist, she was “not great,” she said. “That was the really the revelation,” she added. “And it wasn’t just that experience. You start noticing prodigies, and you realize that I’m never going to play that way.” There is “just some intangible” in music, she said. Whatever it was, she said she felt she didn’t have it. She decided to major in international relations instead, focusing on the Soviet Union.

Of course, she’s now one of the most powerful people in the world, incredibly brilliant and talented, so she made a good choice. While my life has nowhere near that notoriety, I’ve been lucky to have a great family, personal and business experiences, and a full life that continues to be interesting. Certainly no regrets on my choice of career.

She’s arguably one of the most capable Secretary of State ever to have served, and her love of music, and making music, shows her to be incredibly well-balanced. And she’s got a great fitness ethic also.

The Guardian has a story today with first-hand reports from Afghan detainees recently released from Gauntanamo.

Asadullah strives to make his point, switching to English lest there be any mistaking him. “I am lucky I went there, and now I miss it. Cuba was great,” said the 14-year-old, knotting his brow in the effort to make sure he is understood.

Sounds scary. But what kind of impression does he have of his captors?

“Americans are great people, better than anyone else,” he said, when found at his elder brother’s tiny fruit and nut shop in a muddy backstreet of Kabul. “Americans are polite and friendly when you speak to them. They are not rude like Afghans. If I could be anywhere, I would be in America. I would like to be a doctor, an engineer _ or an American soldier.”

I blame Bush.

UPDATE: More on the story at Instapundit.

This is pretty cool.

LASIK @ Home