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"They have come to believe that they are at the center of everyone's world"

Why does our knee jerk and our toe curl at the sound of Bono's voice?  Probably because he and his kind make out that they can save the world DESPITE this great country of ours that they chide.  Not. It's because this country provides tax incentives for giving that the Bonos of this world can spread their tail feathers and preen.  As GW said in that London Times interview yesterday:

It is important for people to understand that the contribution of the citizens of the United States is made not only through taxpayers’ money but through private contributions. Our tax system encourages people to do this. My point to our friends in the G8 and to the African nations is that each country differs as to how we structure our taxes and how we contribute to help. And our contribution has been significant and there will be some more.

The Bonos and Bob Geldofs of this world grate on our nerves for reasons explicated by Dr. Sanity today, responding to Peggy Noonan's question yesterday, "Why are politicians [read celebrities] so full of themselves?":

Like any other two-bit narcissistic personality disorder, they have come to believe that they are at the center of everyone's world. That is why they find it hard to focus on the really important issues. It is also why they are so obsessed with polls, polls, and more polls

.They will do anything to maintain their popularity and their god-like status -- even if it means they have to abandon their principles.

But of course, they had very few to begin with.

Could we be wrong? On the surface Bono and Geldof appear to be principled.  But what is driving them other than me, me, me?

Cats see things we don't

Something's caught the puddies' eye this afternoon out the kitchen window.

Babe (left) is always the first one to get self-conscious when the camera's eye is lookin' at him.

Once the sun is over the yardarm, there's no reason for Tiny not to stop by the catnip plant for a quick snort.

Update:  The Friday Ark is afloat at Modulator, who honors the great Edloe with a growing list of touching tributes by catbloggers in mourning for Laurence Simon's late companion. Nothing can ever take away the sadness, but Frisky, Nardo and Piper are doing their best to comfort their grieving friend: "How about some tissues to stop your tears?"

"Good God, y'all"

"Fly from space to your neighborhood," promises Google Earth, now available in beta for your cyberspace-traveling pleasure. Photos above show our little corner of the world (Chelsea-by-the-Sea is located just across the street from that patch of green in the center of the left image). Note bulk carrier unloading salt at Eastern Minerals across the street.  At first blush, we jumped to conclusions -- we always do -- and decided the ship was the "Harrier" that just put into port yesterday.  Reading our own post of last April, we realized the satellite images are six to 12 months old. Left is birds-eye view. Right demonstrates Google Earth's awesome tilt and rotate features, showing the view from our location in the foreground across Logan Airport in East Boston in the middle distance and on to the Atlantic Ocean and the horizon.

"Good God, y'all," writes blogfriend Barry Campbell of enrvanche re GoogleEarth. The beta version is available for download now -- or at least in a few minutes.  You may have to wait awhile 'cause they're wicked busy. That's how it is when you're the hottest topic on Technorati.

Successive images in Google Earth's "fly from space to your neighborhood" feature between our house in Eastern Massachusetts and Goomp's in Southern Coastal Maine.

We blogged about Google's purchase of the Keyhole technology that added satellite imagery to Google Maps last April. Now, not only can you tilt and rotate, but best of all, you can launch yourself up into the sky and travel over thousands of miles to reach the heartland -- Hi, Matt and Regan -- or just 60 miles or so to check on things Down East -- Hi, Goomp and Lucie. Fun stuff.

"A vision that I happen to agree with"

"In these days we are less threatened by large armies than by small bands of men that operate in the shadows. We need to encourage prosperous and democratic societies to defeat the enemies of freedom," says the President during a live broadcast this morning all too quickly cut off by FOXNews and other cables in order to bring us the latest non-news alert re the missing-girl case in Aruba.

"In person Mr Bush is so far removed from the caricature of the dim, war-mongering Texas cowboy of global popular repute that it shakes one’s faith in the reliability of the modern media," writes the London Times' Gerard Baker re his personal epiphany in the Oval Office, where he interviewed the President yesterday on aid to Africa, climate change and other matters on the agenda of the G8 summit at Gleneagles next week.

What's this "faith in the reliability of the modern media" of which he speaks? Whatever, it's encouraging to see the U.S. editor of the Brit paper of record chooses to believe his eyes over his colleagues' rhetoric.  Full interview available here and summary headlined "Bush pledges Africa aid - with strings" here. As if "without strings" had ever done anything but fatten the pockets of tyrants. Best lines from the interview are pure poetry [It must be love. --ed]:

I admire Tony Blair because he’s a man of his word.
I admire Tony Blair because he’s a leader with a vision, a vision that I happen to agree with.
A vision that freedom is universal, and freedom will lead to peace.
I admire him because in the midst of political heat, he showed backbone.
And you know, and so he’s been a good ally for America.

A match made in heaven.

"A Berlin airlift of cheap generic Viagra might also be useful."

"If you treat grown-ups like children they’ll behave like children," says Mark Steyn in that superb email interview with John Hawkins of Right Wing News blogged here earlier:

I'd say the Cold War in the end caused many of the irreconcilable differences [between us and the Europeans]. By guaranteeing the Continent's security, the US liberated most of Western Europe from the core responsibilities of nationhood . . . It's essentially the American taxpayer, for example, who pays for European government health care, by assuming the defence costs for Germany, Belgium and so forth.

The utopian welfarism of Europe has so corroded the basic impulses necessary for societal survival -- ie, breeding -- that I doubt anything can be done.

How come Europe's mainly secular while we, as a nation, are a melting pot of religious believers of every stripe?

The short answer is separation of church and state . . . The dynamism of American faith exemplifies the virtues of the broader society: the US has a free market in religion, Europe had cosseted overregulated monopolies and cartels. The other salient point is that obviously Europe does have a religion: radical secularism. The era of the state church has been replaced by an age in which the state itself is the church. European progressives still don't get this: they think the idea of a religion telling you how to live your life is primitive, but the government regulating every aspect of it is somehow advanced and enlightened.

"A Berlin airlift of cheap generic Viagra might also be useful," Steyn notes re declining birthrates among native Europeans:

On the basic problem of their deathbed demographics, a reader of mine, Jim Ellinthorpe, thinks President Bush should give speeches mocking the virility of European men. I'm all in favor of this, though mainly on entertainment grounds.

"Are we seeing a reverse domino effect in the Middle-East caused by the invasion in Iraq?" asks Hawkins:

Yes. The key moment in the Iraqi situation was a couple of hours into the Arab networks' election day coverage: they ran out of snide cracks to make about the American occupation, the stooge politicians, etc., and suddenly fell silent as images of four generations of Iraqi families walking to the polls to vote filled the screens. Those images had a profound impact throughout the region . . . although there will be many terrible individual atrocities in the days ahead, there’s no strategic purpose to them other than to drive a weak-willed US Congress into cutting and running. My bet is that enough of the American people are made of sterner stuff, and that Democrats who continue to argue for retreat -- and thus defeat -- will find the anti-Iraq drum has less and less resonance.

How're we doing in Iraq?

There’ll be other changes with the Iraqis in the driving seat, rather than a Bush Administration that has to keep one eye out on whether Dick Durbin’s going to blubber all over the Senate floor again. Baghdad is likely to be far less squeamish about its enemies than Washington is. I don't just mean in the sense of that TV show they have over there, the one where they broadcast the interrogations of captured insurgents, which is the only reality TV show I enjoy watching. I'm also thinking of the Syrian border, where Iraqi troops are much more likely to exercise their right of hot pursuit than the Americans are. This time next year, it could be Iraq destabilizing Syria rather than the other way around.

"Wonder where he catches that Iraqi reality show? We've been wanting to watch it ourselves, and we NEVER watch reality shows at home.

"Sharp headlines, one-line squibs and nifty asides"

Blogging is where the action is. Just ask Cotillion babe Kate McMillan of Small Dead Animals, where we found the link to this elegant cartoon by gapingvoid that captures the essence of the blogger's twisted worldview.

"I don't know Miss McMillan, never met her, doubt I ever will, but she's a thousand times pithier and more insightful than the fellows holding down the columnar real estate at the Star-Phoenix," writes Mark Steyn re one of our own, Cotillion babe Kate McMillan of Small Dead Animals. It's part -- the most delicious part! -- of an email interview of the great columnist by John Hawkins of Right Wing News [via Scott at Power Line]:

Someone should snap her up just for the sharpness of her headlines, one-line squibs, and nifty asides. It's the same with the Power Line guys vs. the Star-Tribune in Minnesota.

One of the great lessons of the last few years is that journalism schools build their guild mentality at the expense of everything else -- the ability to write, the ability to make an argument, an eye for a story, or even basic curiosity about the world we live in. It’s the pomposity of the mainstream press that will do for them: They're simply not as nimble as a fellow like Captain Ed. I should add in fairness that there are those with a foot in both camps -- like the great Michelle Malkin -- who understand the new world very well.

Speaking of sharp headlines, one-line squibs and nifty asides, head on over to the Cotillion to see what the ladies are wearing and to toast this week' hostesses:  Rightwingsparkle, Not A Desperate Housewife, Knowledge Is Power and Maxed Out Mama. And special thanks to Janette at Common Sense Runs Wild and Jody at Steal the Bandwagon for their stunning "The Starlight Edition."

This Blog Is Full Of Sadness

The catblogging universe is in mourning for Laurence Simon's beloved feline companion -- the late, great Edloe -- pictured here last August in "I am puddy, hear me roar," one of dozens of our own posts featuring the celebrity kitty.

"A friend is gone," writes a grieving Laurence Simon -- the father of all catblogging and proprietor of This Blog Is Full Of Crap -- at the loss yesterday of his beloved fluffy pussycat, the heroic Edloe. We've blogged about her exploits here often. Too sad. Mind of Mog, that other shining star of the catblogging constellation, writes a touching eulogy:

The grumpus is gone.

I never expected to feel sad about the loss of a cat I didn’t know personally, a cat that didn’t crap on my carpet, hiss at the other cats, take over the sofa but I am more than deeply saddened, in tears actually, about the loss of Edloe. I think I have saved most every picture Lair posted of her, the large ones are my desktop wallpaper, currently the one where she is sitting up on the sofa licking herself, tongue out, preening like a not so little princess [photo above]. She was a princess, a star of the blogosphere.

Four Edloe's paws for her stellar career.

Update:  The spirit lives on at the Carnival of the Cats -- founded by Edloe & Company -- #66 this week at Lab Kat.

"Fake but accurate" applause

"Six ordinary, patriotic citizens with no political axe to grind" --as the London Times' frothing investigative reporter put it the other day -- turn out to be regular readers of Daily Kos, perhaps the most rabidly anti-Bush, anti-war blog in the 'sphere, -- reports the Wall Street Journal (subscribers only) in a report on the "lingering effect" of the so-called Downing Street Memos, blogged early and often here:

In mid-May, three regular readers of Daily Kos, a liberal blog, published their own Web site to publicize the documents. According to its operators, Downingstreetmemo.com was created by a Silicon Valley Web-page designer, a Chicago college student and a Canadian citizen certain they had stumbled onto the smoking gun that could drag the Bush administration down.

So much for "ordinary, patriotic citizens with no political axe to grind." We checked in on the merry pranksters at Kos this morning and found them up to their usual fact-challenged chicanery, setting up a straw man and beating it to a bloody pulp [Do straw men bleed? --ed].  You remember the fake turkey that turned out to be a real turkey but still makes its appearance in faux form from time to time to support the Bush Lied, People Died mantra?  Now its "fake applause":

ABC's Terry Moran just reported that the only time Bush got applause was in the middle of his speech when a White House advance team member started clapping all on their own in order to cajole the soldiers into clapping, which they dutifully did.

The only thing is, the soldiers had been specifically instructed by advance men NOT to applaud and not to hooahh! --as Steve and the Judge were just discussing on FOX& Friends this morning -- so as not to have the speech perceived as a pep rally that the Democrats would then jump on. But Kos & Kompany have never let facts stand in the way of a good Bush bashing, even getting last night's post-speech FOX commentary a** backward:

Apparently, Fox reported the 'fake applause' bit as well. Double ouch.

Not.  As the Judge was saying this morning re the alleged "advance team member" who started clapping "to cajole the soldiers into clapping," once the clapping started, the crowd exploded with enthusiasm after having dutifully held back so long.  The evening ended with a rousing standing ovation. Fake applause, huh?  How about "fake but accurate"?

Update: "Yowza," says Kos fellow traveler Shakespeare's Sister, gloating over a colleague's call for GW to cut and run from Iraq and resign from office:

As George Bush prepares to speak to the nation about Iraq, Democrats.com urged him to apologize to the nation for lying about Iraq, to start pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq by Thanksgiving [just in time to serve up another "fake" turkey. --ed] -- and to resign from office by New Year's Day or face the largest grassroots impeachment campaign in the nation's history.

That's the spirit.  Aid and abet the enemy in pulling down our strong horse in the midst of battle and -- as that suicide-bomber-in-waiting interviewed by Time the other day said -- "work out the details later."

"We will stay in the fight until the fight is won"

"Is the sacrifice worth it? It is worth it," says the President in tonight's speech on Iraq.  We clicked around and noticed that everyone's carrying it, despite earlier questions as to whether some of the "major" networks would, indeed, interrupt their regular programming for the Leader of the Free World.

"Some wondered whether Iraq was a front in the war on terror," says GW to the nation in his let's-roll speech to the nation at Fort Bragg, N.C. during prime time this evening.  Rough transcript of highlights:

The terrorists know that the outcome will leave them emboldened or defeated. They failed to break our coalition. They failed to provoke an Iraqi civil war. They failed to stop free elections. They failed to stop Iraqis from signing up in large numbers for the security forces.

The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of 9/11 . . . if we abandon the Iraqi people. This will  not happen on my watch.

One year ago today, we restored sovereignty to the Iraqi people. Our progress has been uneven, but progress is being made. Together with our allies, we will help the Iraqi government deliver a better life for its citizens.

Iraqi forces have fought bravely. Like free people everywhere, Iraqis want to be defended by their own countrymen. The best way to complete the mission is to help Iraqis to build a free nation that can defend itself.

As the iraqis stand up, we will stand down, but we have a lot more work to do.

The effects are being felt beyond Iraq's borders . . . Across the broader Middle East, people are claiming their freedom. Our strategy to defend ourselves and to spread freedom is working.

It demands the steadfastness of our allies and the perseverence of our citizens.  We will stay in the fight until the fight is won.

The proper response is not retreat.  It is courage.

"This Fourth of July I ask you to find a way to thank the men and women who are defending our freedom," says GW, citing AmericaSupportsYou.gov:

The best way to honor the lives that have been given in this struggle is to complete the mission. There is no higher calling than service in our armed forces.

We hear you, Mr. President.

Why can't a Washington woman . . .?

It looks like the good doctor -- blogged early and often here -- finally had a heart-to-heart with a real hair stylist: Gorgeous! Those funny flips she had till now -- a leftover, perhaps, from her high school image of herself? -- are gone, and now she is totally awesome from head to toe. And that's just her physical appearance.

"I have loved to shop since I was five years old," Dr. Rice told FOX&Friends' Brian Kilmeade this morning in answer to his flirtatious query re her sexy stylishness, the buzz of the Inside-the-Beltway gossip mongers as highlighted yesterday in The Washington Times:

Now comes Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

With her Oscar de la Renta scarlet silk gown, her knee-high boots and long jacket, her pastel Akris suits and jaunty flip, she's making women in Washington watch with a mixture of envy, awe and inspiration.

"I think she's amazing," said [the Swedish ambassador's wife] Mrs. Al-Sabah. "She is dressing feminine, yet she's serious-minded. I think she's got a lot of style."

Suddenly, people are asking: Why can't Washington women dress, well, more like women?

Well, Hillary?