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The Moore's last sigh?*

"Boston, New York, DC, and the planes’ destination of California -- these were places that voted AGAINST Bush! Why kill them?" emailed the monomaniacal Michael Moore on September 12, 2001, Larry Ribstein of Ideoblog reminds us [via Ann Althouse at InstaPundit]:

Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! . . . Why kill anyone? Such insanity . . . Let’s mourn, let’s grieve, and when it’s appropriate let’s examine our contribution to the unsafe world we live in.

At the time, we dismissed Moore's hysterical rantings as loony left logorrhea. Now we know better. Looking back at the post-9/11 Moore mouthings, in the wake of the damage his demagoguery has done to the administration's and the nation's credibility among the weakest-minded of our own citizens and leftist fellow travelers around the world -- not to mention Osama's adoption of Moorish rhetoric in his latest Bush-bashing tape -- we realize that Michael Moore is right up there with George Soros trying to undermine our democracy. We, the citizens, are too stupid to figure things out for ourselves, of course. Moore is, in fact, telling all who will listen that Americans are "the stupidest people in the world." Soros and Moore know what is best for us, and each wants to be a kingmaker -- one via ill-begotten billions, the other with Riefenstahl-lite propaganda that assumes the cluelessness of its audience-- and each has made remarkable inroads while the rest of us were preoccupied trying to keep the world safe for democracy.

Could Osama -- ironically, without a shot -- by echoing Moore rhetoric in a tape viewed worldwide, be Moore's final undoing?

Update: InstaLanche. How sweet it is. Just checked our Site Meter stats, which usually hover around 25-75 at this hour of a Sunday, and suddenly, 1,000 pairs of eyes are reading this post! Update II: 2,904 visits in the last hour. Update III: Best month ever, with 33,000 for October, 11,750 of which came in a single day, yesterday from - where else -- the aforementioned InstaPundit nod.

*Reference to Andalusia, known as the Moor's last sigh after King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella drove the Moors across the Straight of Gibralter from Spain into North Africa.

How quickly they forget

So much for "never forget." (The Massgraves: Victims of Saddam's Regime photos)

"I am so furious I can barely type. I cannot put into words the rage I feel," writes Varifrank:

The US Media, the Democrat Party, The Kerry campaign, The EU and the UN will stop at nothing to tell you tales about how the evil Bush administration has screwed up Iraq, leaving you with a context of lies that Iraq was a quiet little thrid world paradise until we got there and messed it up for everyone.

They will never tell you the other part of the story, the story of the Iraqi holocaust. It's like telling the story of World War II and just "forgetting" to tell the story of the Jewish holocaust because you dont want to offend anyone's sensibilities. You can't understand one without the context of the other. To tell one story without the other is not only irresponsible, it is at its core racist.

What we liberated in Iraq was every bit as bad as the horrors of Nazi Germany. Any reasoning we had for invading was made moot by the discovery of the first "Childrens Prison" on the 4th day of the Invasion. We may not have gone in for that reason, but once we discovered them, and the mass graves, nothing else mattered.

[via InstaPundit]

"Woman with dead child 1903" (left) and another drawing (site doesn't give info) by Kathe Kollwitz

We can never forget the horror tale of the husband forced to watch his pregnant wife repeatedly raped by Saddam's thugs until she lost their baby, nor the skeletons recently unearthed of unborn babies and toddlers clutching toys. Listen to the words of Varifrank as he introduces a sampling of The Massgraves: Victims of Saddam's Regime:

The pictures that follow aren't Hollywood, they are real. All too real I am afraid. And shame on us all for forgetting the cost they paid before we finally put a stop to it.

I want you to look. Take a deep,long look. These are not cartoons, or Speilbergian Special Effects. These are people. Fellow human beings every bit as deserving of our care as the haunting souls who walked out of the gates of Dachau.

While looking at each of the pictures that follow, for each of the bodies you see, say quietly to yourself, "father, mother, brother, sister, cousin, uncle, aunt". Repeat this process 300,000 times.

Cronkite has the skinny on the bearded wonder

Walter Cronkite detects new, "clean-shaven" bin Laden beneath the full beard in taped message delivered via Al-Jazeera Friday "directly to the American people."

"He was clean shaven, nearly clean shaven as those folks get," pronounced the aging former CBS news anchor -- "the most trusted man in America" -- Walter Cronkite in a Larry King Live interview originally aired Friday night. It was all over the blogosphere yesterday, and we saw it for ourselves in a rerun last night, including five words later expurgated in CNN's online transcript:*

KING: Now, bin Laden, of course, could help Bush in that it reminds people of a terror issue in which he runs strong. It also could hurt Bush in that reminds people he's still alive. So this could be a double edged sword, right?

CRONKITE: Indeed. Indeed. And the thing that in bringing this threat to us, there is almost, in the fact that he dressed well, that he looked well . . . It seemed almost, to me, that he wanted to enter into negotiations, that he was really up -- he wants to move into a leadership role in international affairs instead of the role of a brigand. And he spoke calmly about this thing. The threat was there, no question about it. He's delivering a warning to us, no question about that. And certainly, I don't think there's any reason to feel that we can take him to our bosom just because this speech at [sic] all. He's perfectly capable of blowing us up.

Then there was the reality-challenged Cronkite's paranoid assertion -- now making the rounds of the blososphere to humorous effect (Aussie blogger Tim Blair has the false-but-accurate Rove-bin-Laden email exchange) -- that the old news reader is "inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing." Most telling, perhaps, is this little-noted (in fact, the critical five words were expunged from the CNN transcript) exchange that suggests it may be long past time for "the most trusted man in America" to get off the stage:

KING: Will Ralph Nader be a factor?

CRONKITE: He certainly could be. He was very serious factor with 3 percent of the vote, not quite 3 percent of the vote in 19 . . .
*[sixty? What was the year? -- CNN's transcript delicately deleted those last five words, perhaps in deference to the advancing age of the blustering blowhard].

KING: 2000.

Walter Cronkite, poster child for the MSM that was.

An army crawls on its stomach

The most beautiful garlic press in the world, a Christmas gift from Ellen a coupla years back, makes a piece of cake of homemade garlic-and-anchovy paste.

"All four food groups are represented. That would be salt, grease, alcohol and chocolate. And a few recipes for left-over turkey," notes The Glittering Eye re the latest Carnival of the Recipes, hosted by SarahK of Mountaneer Musings.  Last night's perfect little dinner party for two at Chelsea-by-the-Sea -- our excuse was Tuck's birthday, and the glorious centerpiece from last weekend's B-day party for Susie (in background of photo above) was still lookin' good -- was a fine exemplar of the food grouper's art.  Can you say lots of butter and cream?:

Beefeater martinis and Jim Beam manhattans
Mayo with steamed salmon filet with Wheat Thins

Walnut Crest Merlot (Rapel Valley, 2003)*

Broccoli soup with cinnamon

Crown roast of pork
Apple, garlic and sausage stuffing and cider gravy
Pillsbury's bake-it-yourself French bread**
Whipped potatoes with onion-slice topping
Candied carrots
Mighty Caesar salad

Individual Boston cream pies (the modrin supermarket is truly super)

Everything but the pies and French bread was from scratch -- the way mother used to make it? -- and the birthday boy helped with KP duty, paring and cutting the potatoes and carrots preparatory to steaming, sauteeing and whatever.  Crown roast, potatoes and carrots come straight from epicurious.com and/or a seasoned cook's memory (no link), but the 1) salmon hors d'oeuvres, 2) broccoli soup and 3) Caesar are our own:

1) Salmon hors d'oeuvres. Steam salmon filet (size depends upon number of guests, and leftovers are always welcome in sandwiches the next day) 12 minutes.  Flip onto plate, remove skin and flip back out onto small platter with Wheat Thins, mayo and butter knife for self serving.  Goomp says this dish sticks to the ribs all by itself (who needs entrees, anyway?).

2) Broccoli soup. Steam trimmed and coarsely chopped broccoli sprigs with coarsely chopped onion 20 minutes or until fork tender.  Puree with half can of chicken broth in food processer, pour into saucepan and add rest of broth and 1 tsp cinnamon.  Slowly heat just to the boil and serve immediately or reserve in fridge till dinnertime.  Delicious hot or cold. (Tuck declared last night it was the best soup he'd ever had -- adding that soupçon of cinnamon was a sudden inspiration.)

3) Caesar salad. Four things:  Romaine -- two heads torn into bite-sized pieces.  Croutons -- cut two pieces of your favorite hearty bread into 12 squares and toast both sides in toaster oven. Parmesan -- grate c. 1/2 cup of your favorite. Dressing -- juice of one lemon, eye of newt (just checking to see if you're paying attention), 2 tbsp. mustard powder, Tabasco to taste, garlic-and-anchovy paste (one garlic clove plus two anchovy filets) -- mix in a bowl and then add 1/4-1/2 cup of your favorite extra virgin olive oil in a stream, whisking until thick and smooth.

*Forget about white wine with white meat.  We never really cared for white wine -- other than fine Champagnes, of course -- anyway, and now we know that red wine is good not only for the soul, but for the body as well.

**Sure.  We had our kneady, yeast-to-loaf days when we were young and foolish, but nowadays we let Pillsbury do all the heavy lifting.

Circling the herd

Big doings in the kitchen today in preparation for Tuck's Birthday Dinner this evening, and the animals are circling the herd, looking for a weak point. Headed for the pan of sausage sauteeing for the crown pork roast stuffing, Tiny narrowly escapes being banished to the floor by reaching the Safety Zone high atop the Krups ProAroma.

Was will der Amerikaner?*

"Curious Specimen" by Cox & Forkum. Click here for larger image.

"Supporting George W. Bush in a nation where the overwhelming majority of the leftist dominated media absolutely seethe with hate for Mr. Bush is no small matter. The newspaper's email inbox is likely jammed with thousands of angry, outraged emails by now," writes Ray D. of Davids Medienkritik in "Another October Surprise," his English translation of the German BILD's rousing endorsement of President George W. Bush. Among 10 reasons to re-elect GW from Germany's -- and Europe's -- largest-circulation daily:

Bush has clear priorities. He sees the inhuman Islamic fundamentalism and the murderous mullahs as the largest danger for the Western world.

Bush has learned the lessons of history. Military strength, not pleasant talk, is the only thing that helps against violent fanatics. And with Bush -- unlike with Kerry -- there is no doubt about this.

Bush has learned that America can defeat every country in war, but needs allies in peace. Thus, his second term will be characterized by cooperation with international partners. But he will not depend on how Syria or Libya vote at the UN.

Under Bush, America will remain a reliable partner for Israel in its fight for survival. That must especially be in our German interest.

With Bush, we know what to expect. With Kerry, nobody knows what he stands for and where he wants to lead America -- and the world.

[via guest InstaPundit blogger Michael Totten]

On the other, same-old, same-old hand, the International Herald Tribune reports, "We want to understand why so many people are still on Bush's side; it's a kind of mystery to us," said Peter Frey, Berlin bureau chief for ZDF television in Germany:

Judging from opinion polls, media reports and conversation on this side of the Atlantic, the overwhelming sentiment on what would be bad for Europe is another four years with President George W. Bush. In Britain, France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, Europeans appear to be united by an overwhelming antipathy toward Bush.

European media are sending correspondents all over the United States in an effort to delve into the American psyche . . . "We are asking the American people, 'Why are you voting for Bush?' We want to understand why he has this support" [said Frey].

A poll last month by the German Marshall Fund, a research organization with headquarters in Washington that studies trans-Atlantic relations, showed that 75 percent of Europeans disapprove of how Bush handles foreign affairs and 73 percent believe the war in Iraq has increased the global risk of terrorism.

*"What does an American want?" Google American-to-German translation. 'Not sure if it's idiomatically correct and would appreciate any German reader's comments. Update: We've changed our German translation from Google translator's "Was wünscht ein Amerikaner?" upon the advice of David of Davids Medienkritik. After we explained to him the sense in which we intended the title of this blog post -- a play on Freud's famous "What does a woman want?" -- David emails to inform us as follows:

The German translation you used would be ok, though a German would probably say: "Was will der Amerikaner?" or "Was wollen die Amerikaner?"

Chelsea was the classroom

Harvard Design School student Dan Adams (second from left in photo) caught the spirit of the place in his revelatory interpretation of the salt piles across the street. Eastern Salt President Shelagh Mahoney (left) suggested the "Go Sox" message pictured above. This week, the message will be "Vote" (that's debatable, of course), and each week thereafter, the messages will be up to Adams and Rudolph.

This is going on right across the street from us -- a magical transformation of those glorious rising and falling salt piles we've blogged here, here, here and here, and we totally love the idea. It came out of a Harvard Design School course, "Listening to the City," taught by Professor Margaret Crawford, as reported in our local rag, the Chelsea Record:

[The course] focuses on urban design -- how architects and planners can work with, instead of replacing, a city's existing infrastructure, industry and green space. Chelsea was the classroom for this course.

Students were asked to come up with ideas in which they could engage Chelsea's social and economic dynamics [no one asked us, but had they, we would have given them a thumbs up] . . . Adams became fascinated with developing a way to utilize the salt pile and make it appreciated as . . . a testament to the unique qualities of the city. While many [do-gooders who never asked us abuttters] protest the existence of the salt pile and point to the [bogus] health concerns it raises, Adams saw the salt pile as a living monument that could be appreciated for what it was.

Over the next year, he and Chelsea resident Dave Rudolph, a freelance lighting technician, will periodically project simple messages on the salt pile by using high-powered stage lighting and patterned metal filters. The project is being sponsored initially by Eastern Salt, and the pair have a pending grant request before the Chelsea Cultural Council for additional funding.

One of our own homages to the salt piles, this glorious image in the early morning light, part of a set of Chelsea greeting cards we produced a coupla years ago. We LOVE the piles and love it that Harvard Design School Student Dan Adams does too.

"The salt pile is talking to them," [Adams] said. "Our hope is that the community will start communicating back." Salt of the earth, Dan and Dave. So glad to have you in the neighborhood.

It's human nature, stupid

Boston police horses and their mounts manage the post-victory mob in Boston's Kenmore Square near Fenway Park last night (left), while other lawmen on foot keep the sometimes unruly crowds at bay. There were a few idiots, as there are in any crowd, but no major injuries or property damage. Our hats off to Boston's Finest.

We woke up about one second after it was all over last night, realizing what had just happened by the sheer joy in the body language of local WBZ-TV Boston sportscaster Bob Lobel. We have next to zero interest in Lobel or big-time sports, but Lobel's earnestness touched our heart, and we allowed ourselves to be swept up in the high spirits of sportscasters, players, managers and fans. FOXNews had a brief News Alert, but the local Boston stations were all-after-game-all-the-time, with heavy coverage of Boston's Finest's management of the post-game mob.

We had a thought about that. Most of the mobs we've heard about lately were angry ones with an axe to grind, like those outside the Republican National Convention in New York City last summer and earlier anti-globalization gatherings comprising a mishmash of malcontents. The crowds last night were made up of wicked happy folk out to have a good time, but the dynamics are the same, no matter the presenting symptoms. Mob psychology. As someone said on one of the stations last night, it's about empowerment and anonymity. The cause can be anything. It's human nature for some of them to lose it and let their worst instincts go on public display. Fortunately, the Boston Police were ready, and the rule of law prevailed. Probably a case study for future crowd-management scholars.

"Without catblogging, blogging just isn't worth the effort"

"To some, the point is that posting pictures of their animals provides a chance to introduce a softer personality into blogs that are often hard-edged," writes a clueless Daniel Terdiman in a New York Times puff (fluff?) piece "On Fridays, Bloggers Sometimes Retract Their Claws" [via TBIFOC]:

"It's just nice for bloggers to do things that show themselves as ordinary people," Mr. Drum said, "not just partisan political writers."

"It brings people together," said Kevin Drum, who began the cat spotlight last year on his own blog, Calpundit. "Both Atrios and Instapundit have done Friday catblogging. It goes to show you can agree on at least a few things."

These days, all kinds of bloggers are Friday catblogging, often playing around with the concept, even as Mr. Drum has stopped.

It's "just nice" and "brings people together" [can you say United Nations pipedreams?], and Drum hasn't cat blogged since last March, but that doesn't stop the Times from using the well-meaning but totally out-of-touch [like the MSM itself?] former catblogger -- including a picture of him and one of his precious pussycats, Inkblot -- as the centerpiece of their Behind-the-Times report. We beg to differ, of course. For fickle catbloggers like Drum, catblogging, like everything else, is all about them. True catblogging, on the contrary, is about the eternal feline. And it isn't about making nice but about looking to the animals for revelations about our common nature. As we blogged in July:

Mr. Drum abruptly stopped cat blogging last winter. At that time, he explained that "taking new pictures on schedule has become a bit of a chore. So this is the final edition of catblogging Friday."

As Dick Cheney might say, we disagree with the premise of your explanation. Just as you can't herd cats, you can't herd cat blogs down to any one day of the week. Take them where you may, and then send them along to the "Carnival of the Cats."

In the Times's favor, they interviewed the Father of All Catbloggers -- founder of the "Carnival of the Cats" -- Laurence Simon, albeit tucking This Blog Is Full of Crap blogger Simon's comments out of sight in the bowels of the article:

Some participants take Friday catblogging very seriously. Laurence Simon, a 35-year-old Houston technical support engineer, decided a while back that with so many people catblogging, it would be good to have a weekly compendium of the best of each week's entries.

So he began to post what he called the "Carnival of the Cats," a roundup of that week's Friday catblogging, available the following Sunday.

Inaccurate, of course, as we've come to expect of the Times. It isn't just Fridays anymore. In fact, it never was. As Simon says:

Without cats, there is no catblogging. Without catblogging, blogging just isn't worth the effort.

Prrrrr.

The Russians are conning, the Russians are conning

The night of the shooting stars comes to mind. The Sox break the curse (heartthrob Johnny Damon led off the game with a homer off loser Jason Marquis, left), the heavens stage a total eclipse of the Hunter's Moon (our own photo, right, shows last night's full moon framed by Ailanthus leaves, flag halyard and red stripe of Old Glory from our front porch later on, as the light was too dim for our little camera to catch anything much during the actual eclipse itself -- totally awesome orange to the naked eye) and Bill Gertz gets the scoop of the year (see below)

Bill Gertz of The Washington Times appears to have the scoop of the year -- "Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation" -- but so far this morning all the news shows -- even Fox & Friends -- seem stuck in the time warp of the last news cycle, where the alleged looting of 380 tons of RDX and HMX from Al-Qaqaa is Bush's Fault.™ The current guest on F&F, someone from NPR, is salivating at the possibility that this "October Surprise" may prove to be GW's downfall. Don't any of these people read Drudge? Bill Gertz writes:

John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.

"The Russians brought in, just before the war got started, a whole series of military units," Mr. Shaw said. "Their main job was to shred all evidence of any of the contractual arrangements they had with the Iraqis. The others were transportation units."

Mr. Shaw, who was in charge of cataloging the tons of conventional arms provided to Iraq by foreign suppliers, said he recently obtained reliable information on the arms-dispersal program from two European intelligence services that have detailed knowledge of the Russian-Iraqi weapons collaboration.

The Russian arms-removal program was initiated after Yevgeny Primakov, the former Russian intelligence chief, could not persuade Saddam to give in to U.S. and Western demands, this official said.

Okay, it's coming up on 7 a.m. EDT, and finally the Fox News gal, Lauren Green, is asking provocatively, "Is Russia involved?"

Update: E.D. Hill on Fox & Friends is touting Bill Gertz's story and calling the NYT/CBS/Kerry anti-Bush spin on the "looted" explosives allegations "ridiculous." You go, girl!