Thursday, February 24, 2005

Enter the Matrix!


RICE 08!!

I thought that outfit came with twin 9mm pistols? I guess she left them in her purse!


Hat tip to Power Line

Friday, February 11, 2005

Class is in session!

I like this article about Secretary Rice's "The Education of Europe tour."

Some good quotes:

"There cannot be an absence of moral content in American foreign policy," she says. "Europeans giggle at this, but we are not European, we are American, and we have different principles."

"How, then, has America allowed itself to be seen as interested chiefly in oil? Partly, it must be said, because Miss Rice's predecessor, Colin Powell, only half-believed in what his President was doing. His own approach - and that of the State Department generally - was in fact rather European.

He was ready to appease tyrants in an old-fashioned, Cold War way ("He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch"). Miss Rice, by contrast, understands that dysfunctional states teem with terrorists, however notionally pro-Western their leaders ("He may be our son-of-a-bitch, but he's a son-of-a-bitch")."

I think the article is a bit hard on Powell, but it does make a good point. Powell and most of the European political intelligentsia do follow the Twentieth Century manifestation Realpolitik that is often associated with Morgenthau or Kissinger.( Twentieth Century Realpolitik is not the real, Bismarckian Realpolitik, but that is another post) What we see coming from this Administration is a relatively new manifestation of Foreign policy. Rather than dealing with any country, despite their own political corruption or oppression, this administration believes that democracy and freedom are in the best interest of the nation. I tend to agree with them. Free democracies do not attack other free democracies!

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Hey, I'm red too!

With America at war, Hollywood follows"
"In a reflection of America's conflict in Iraq, a proliferation of TV and film projects is focusing on the U.S. military, the war or both."

My favorite line:

"Not since World War II has Hollywood so embraced an ongoing conflict. It took years for pop culture to tackle the Korean and Vietnam wars, and it took time before the country was ready to be entertained by those politically charged conflicts."

I suppose the author of the article lacks access to google because if he bothered to use it, he would have found these Korean War Movies"

An Annapolis Story
Released: 1956
Director: Don Siegel
Staring: John Derek, Diana Lynn

Battle Circus
Released: 1953
Director: Richard Brooks
Staring: Humphrey Bogart, June Allyson, Keenan Wynn, Robert Keith

Battle Hymn
Released: 1956
Director: Douglas Sirk
Staring: Rock Hudson, Anna Kashfi, Dan Duryea, Don DeFore

The Bridges at Toko-Ri
Released: 1954
Director: Mark Robson
Staring: William Holden, Grace Kelly, Fredric March, Mickey Rooney

Men of the Fighting Lady
Released: 1954
Director: Andrew Marton
Staring: Van Johnson, Frank Lovejoy, Walter Pidgeon, Dewey Martin

Or these movies about Vietnam (some of which were actually made during the period)

The Anderson Platoon (1967)

China Gate (1957)

The Green Berets (1968)

The Lost Command (1966)

I found it funny that the author characterizes 5 TV shows and movies about Iraq as a "proliferation of TV and film projects"

My thought is, more then three years after 911, we have yet to see a film or TV series about Afghanistan and the events surrounding 911(absent Mike Moores "films") and it has taken, 2 years to make a movie about Gulf War II(we are still waiting on a credible movie about Gulf War I). Let us also not forget the plots of move such as collateral damage and the Some of all fears that was changed as to not make Muslims look like the enemy.

I think that the public is less squeamish about film portrayals of the war we are engaged then Hollywood is.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Vodka saves Democracy in the Ukraine!

Eastern Ukraine is heavily ethnic Russian. The main industry is coal. The miners are rough, tough, and hate Yushchenko for wanting to take Ukraine away from Russia and toward the West," writes Wheeler. "It was arranged for more than a thousand of them to be taken from Donetsk, the capital of the coal-mining region, by bus and train to Kiev, where, armed with clubs and blunt tools, they would physically beat up the Orange Revolutionaries. Such mass violence was not only to disperse the demonstrators but serve as an excuse for the government to declare martial law, suspending the Ukrainian Parliament (the Rada) and elections indefinitely."

Now comes the secret weapon: vodka.

"When the miners got on their buses and trains, they found to their joy case after case of vodka – just for them. When they arrived in Kiev, trucks awaited them filled with more cases of vodka – all free provided by 'friends' of the Donetsk coal miners. Completely soused, they never made it to Independence Square. Too hammered blind to cause any violence at all, they had a merry time, passed out and were shipped back to Donetsk."

Wheeler's column goes on to explain who provided the liquor: teams of Porter Goss' CIA working with their counterparts in British MI6 intelligence.


Hat tip to Instapundit