Misspeak?

Media 4 Comments

There’s been considerable coverage of a so-called “Bushism” being reported today. Why, I do not know, other than the fact that the media sits in wait for them.

” Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. “

It is a clumsy sentence, to be sure. But does it say what the scoffers pretend to think it does?
Just a month ago, the Bush administration was criticized for having a “lack of imagination” prior to the 9/11 attacks. “Thinking about new ways” that harm could be inflicted is not the same as planning to inflict the harm to yourself.
So, what’s the fuss about?

Olympic Security Passes Stolen

Terrorism No Comments

Washington Times;

In a massive security blunder, passes allowing vehicles into the Olympic Village in Athens reportedly have been stolen from unlocked cars.

It gets better.

Organizers began recruiting 7,000 workers in mid- May to undertake jobs from receptionists to housekeepers at the Olympic village. But with so many people to process in only three months, the planned background checks were scrapped.

I’m wondering why there’s been no discussion yet on the security problems that will be facing the Vancouver-Whistler games, and what the political fallout may be if the US decides to provide security for their own athletes….

9/11 Subway Sandwiches

Roadkill 11 Comments

Anti-Americanism as marketing ploy.

Last week, the Center for Individual Freedom launched a grassroots campaign against anti-American tray-liners at German subway stores.

The tray-liners — a promotion for the film “Super Size Me” — showed an obese Statue of Liberty holding a burger and fries in her hands, under a headline asking, “Why are Americans so fat?”
According to the Center for Individual Freedom, the headline used the word “Amis,” which is considered a derogatory term for Americans. The Center says complaints from Americans prompted German Subway shops to pull the tray-liners. But the cheeseburger-crashing-into-buildings image apparently is still out there — distributed in German subway stores over the past few days. (The food diary also promotes the film “Super Size Me,” and German Subway shops are distributing the diary.)

Unbelievable.
I just bought my last Subway product.
hat tip – Inoperable Terran

Patiently Waiting

Radioactive 8 Comments

The same press that peppered the news with questions and allegations about George Bush’s record in the National Guard are surprisingly unsurprisingly sluggish in picking up on what John Kerry’s swift boat comrades have to say about his self-promoted Vietnam heroism. The story has been circulating on the blogosphere for months (I mentioned it in May) , Drudge has been headlining it for days – but still no search hits on the CNN website.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has been formed to counter the false “war crimes” charges John Kerry repeatedly made against Vietnam veterans who served in our units and elsewhere, and to accurately portray Kerry’s brief tour in Vietnam as a junior grade Lieutenant. We speak from personal experience — our group includes men who served beside Kerry in combat as well as his commanders. Though we come from different backgrounds and hold varying political opinions, we agree on one thing: John Kerry misrepresented his record and ours in Vietnam and therefore exhibits serious flaws in character and lacks the potential to lead.
We regret the need to do this. Most Swift boat veterans would like nothing better than to support one of our own for America’s highest office, regardless of whether he was running as a Democrat or a Republican. However, Kerry’s phony war crimes charges, his exaggerated claims about his own service in Vietnam, and his deliberate misrepresentation of the nature and effectiveness of Swift boat operations compels us to step forward.
For more than thirty years, most Vietnam veterans kept silent as we were maligned as misfits, addicts, and baby killers. Now that a key creator of that poisonous image is seeking the Presidency we have resolved to end our silence.

Stay tuned.
Or, maybe do your own tuning. When the time comes that they can no longer ignore it (ads begin appearing today in the US) the pro-Democrat media is going to work overtime to buffer this story in anti-Bush spin.
update = Let the games begin. Kerry campaign threatens to sue stations who air the ad.

Test Tube Prions

Genetics 5 Comments

SF Chronicle; .

Scientists at UCSF have created synthetic prions — tiny protein particles — and shown they can cause brain disease in laboratory animals and replicate without any genetic material inside them.
[…]
As part of the new study, Prusiner, Legname and their colleagues created a large fragment of a normal prion protein and folded it using lab techniques into an abnormal shape, which they suspected would give it the infectious properties of the faulty proteins.
Then they injected the faulty prion fragments into the brains of mice that had been genetically engineered to produce copious quantities of normal prions.
In little more than a year, the first of the genetically engineered lab mice developed typical prion brain disease, and by the end of two years, all the mice in the colony contracted the same disease.
The researchers then took brain tissue from one of the sick mice and inoculated normal wild-type mice with an extract of the tissue. In less than six months, these mice, too, developed brain disease, Prusiner and his colleagues reported.

A little more work on the delivery system, and a whole new class of bioweapons springs into existance. And highly durable ones – as was discovered to the dismay of the cattle industry, prions aren’t even destroyed by normal rendering processes.
Nice.
Added to the Beltway Traffic Jam

Weapons Of Mass Absorption

What He Said 2 Comments

There’s nothing like running Hell bent for leather at the enemy with your grenade and it’s fuse flying madly in the wind, and upon spotting an enemy combatant, to grab one end of the grenade in your teeth, pull, and let the rest fly. One of the kids would say “Man we don’t keep bombs like that in our bathroom. All we got is these stick-on headbands.”

Under The Media Radar

Military 3 Comments

A “Summer Pulse 04” update?

While it is certainly true that the Pentagon plans for a wide variety of scenarios on a routine basis, the confluence of so many of them based on a conflict with China — during a time when the nation is engaged in a global war against Islamic terrorists and spread very thin by major combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, is quite noteworthy.

Go read James Joyner’s Tech Central Station article “The Dragon Stirs
When and if the Taiwan – Chinese situation boils over into full fledged crisis, the critics in the media are going to accuse Bush-Rumsfeld of being asleep at the wheel. That, my friends, will be something called “projection”.
Update – speaking of under-reporting, Wretchard has been following the situation in the Phillipines.

The scene is now set for a possible resurgence of fighting. A glance at the map dramatically illustrates the bind that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the Philippine Government have worked themselves into. For the first time in a century, Muslim rebels have established themselves in force on the Mindanao mainland, away from their traditional strongholds of Sulu, Basilan and Tawi-tawi, island groups in the southwest corner of the archipelago. They are positioned on the west side of Mindanao’s breadbasket, the Cotabato valley. The MILF camps guard the the approaches to mountain massifs to the west which then give on the sea, their line of supply. They isolate the predominantly Christian Zamboanga peninsula from Northern Mindanao and essentially cut the huge island in two. The Armed Forces of the Philippines, despite a nominal strength of ten divisions, has very little combat power. A lack of logistical support and ammunition stockpiles means that (Belmont Club estimate) it can sustain offensive operations with only two battalions for a period of 12 weeks after which it simply runs out of everything. Thus, Manila has long lacked an offensive option against the MILF and has tried to compensate by “peace talks”, which are another name for appeasement.

Meanwhile, on CTV national news last night; Canadians were alerted to this breaking news in a report by Ellen Pinchuk, in Moscow.

Dots? What Dots?

Terrorism No Comments

Steven Taylor addresses today’s questioning (by the NYT, WaPo and others) of the heightened security in New York and Washington succinctly;

The damned-if-do, damned-if-you-don’t nature of the politics and analysis of this type of situation is growing wearisome. On the one hand, dots are supposed to be connected and imagination is supposed to be deployed, yet: don’t cry wolf!

He also has a question for the Washington Post’s Dan Eggen and Dana Priest;

why is there a quote from “a senior law enforcement official” expressing doubts about the alerts in the first three paragraphs of the piece (along with the description of the data as being old), but the quote that notes that the information may have post-9/11 components, along with quotes from officials who think that this may be part of an ongoing plot are all well down the piece?

I can answer that one.

Tamra Keepness: 4 Weeks

Gopher News 1 Comment

During a search of the Pasqua First Nation for still missing five year old
Tamra Keepness, the police recieved a call about a burning van about 10 km from the search area.
There were human remains inside. Forensics haven’t begun, or the body identified, but they don’t believe it’s related to the case. Weird.

Join The Brouhaha

Blogging 2 Comments

Over at the Shotgun, Alan Rockwell poses this question:

Why is polygamy illegal in Canada if gay marriage is a human right? Surely a man with two wives could not be considered more of a threat to the foundations of society than a man with a husband? Go ahead, mingle, talk it over, have some fun.

Here’s your invitation to join in the fun.
I won’t be posting much of an original nature until my spelling improves greatly. That will require some food and sleep.

Back, With Ribbons

Dogblogging 4 Comments

Just arrived home this morning from our National Specialty in Calgary, Alberta. Started to fall asleep about 2 hours from home, and finally gave in and got a motel. Still too tired to type.
But, the Big Event was a success. We won…. well everything.
Pics in a few days, I hope.
But here’s a photo I took of the National Winner a couple of years ago, “Am.Can.Ch.Reggae Indulgence”.

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