Rocking the base’s foundations
Recent discoveries would seem to shake the foundations of the beliefs of one very large segment of society. To begin with, it has been reported in both the far left New York Times and farther left, anti-American German publication, der Spiegel, that the “surge” and other military applications in Iraq have been succeeding rather dramatically, and that there is a very good chance we are not losing at all. Not only that, but they admit there is real hope of success over there. The people of Iraq -- and other states in the region, such as (wait for it) Syria and Pakistan have seen support for radical Islamic groups like al Qaeda fizzle. They’ve seen military efforts by the so-called insurgents fail, they’ve seen that American troops want them to be free, and they tend to prefer the hopeful Westerners to the nihilistic followers of bin Laden.
Now, nobody is saying we’ve won anything -- at least, nobody in his right mind. But what they are saying is, what the reporters who stay in their hotel rooms in the “Green Zone” in Baghdad have been missing is, there is success.
The second earth-shattering discovery was at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It seems that all the data used to prove the theory of global warming hinged on one very flawed bit of programming. While everybody had fretted furiously over the “Y2K” bug, the computer confusion predicted over the centennial “00” rollover, as a harbinger of doom, cause of airline crashes, collapse of the money markets, and so on, they did not realize it had skewed the research of the scientist who was making arguments in favor of this last decade having been the warmest in history. Thanks to a correction of the Y2K bug, we have seen that 1934 was hotter by more than a smidgen, and that it was hot as heck during the Dust Bowl. We are cooler, now.
Real cool, daddy-oh.
The economy of the United States has improved, as well. For the past six years, our stock market, our jobs market, and our national productivity levels have all increased at a steady pace. When the markets do well, all those 401k’s do better, too. Sure, we’ve had little setbacks from time to time, but, not to rub anybody’s nose in things or anything, it looks as though the “Bush tax break for the rich “ has actually helped -- and continues to help -- the little guy as well. Most improved, in fact, has been the growth of the minority middle classes.
All this, and The Dark Lord, Karl Rove, has announced his resignation from the current administration, effective at the end of this month. He’s no longer the Man In Charge, ostensibly pulling the strings of the Commander in Chief. In fact, his policy advice seems to have been pretty much ignored for the past year or so, in favor of that from Condoleezza Rice and the rest of the State Department hacks and wags.
And, while four years ago there were cries of, “if Bush gets reelected, there will be a Christian theocracy and they’ll start persecuting and imprisoning heretics once again,” the only one threatened with prison for speaking against a religion in this country has been a Ukrainian-born jewish boy who insulted a Muslim, and may spend four years in prison for tossing a Qur’an in the toilet.
It must be very hard to be a far leftist, this summer. For decades, they’ve thrived on keeping people up late at night worrying about things outside human control. And now, almost everything they have believed, or sold as a belief, has been disproved -- or, at least, undermined to the extent that it can no longer be viewed as an Absolute Truth. All their terrors based on seeing free people stand against terrorists, all the horror of seeing their country reject leftist dictators, and all the dread that the very large, very adaptable world is changing and we’re doing nothing to stop it, all those trepidations were for naught, it seems. Now all they have to fear is... fear itself. And even socialist hero Franklin Delano Roosevelt can’t help them on that.
Recommended reading:
USA Today: Major attacks decline in Iraq.
Davids Medienkritik: SPIEGEL ONLINE: "The US Military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe."
Also worth reading:
Victor Davis Hanson at the Corner on NRO (HT: Dr. Sanity)
Rob at Flopping Aces, on Global Warming and Basic Science.
Now, nobody is saying we’ve won anything -- at least, nobody in his right mind. But what they are saying is, what the reporters who stay in their hotel rooms in the “Green Zone” in Baghdad have been missing is, there is success.
The second earth-shattering discovery was at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It seems that all the data used to prove the theory of global warming hinged on one very flawed bit of programming. While everybody had fretted furiously over the “Y2K” bug, the computer confusion predicted over the centennial “00” rollover, as a harbinger of doom, cause of airline crashes, collapse of the money markets, and so on, they did not realize it had skewed the research of the scientist who was making arguments in favor of this last decade having been the warmest in history. Thanks to a correction of the Y2K bug, we have seen that 1934 was hotter by more than a smidgen, and that it was hot as heck during the Dust Bowl. We are cooler, now.
Real cool, daddy-oh.
The economy of the United States has improved, as well. For the past six years, our stock market, our jobs market, and our national productivity levels have all increased at a steady pace. When the markets do well, all those 401k’s do better, too. Sure, we’ve had little setbacks from time to time, but, not to rub anybody’s nose in things or anything, it looks as though the “Bush tax break for the rich “ has actually helped -- and continues to help -- the little guy as well. Most improved, in fact, has been the growth of the minority middle classes.
All this, and The Dark Lord, Karl Rove, has announced his resignation from the current administration, effective at the end of this month. He’s no longer the Man In Charge, ostensibly pulling the strings of the Commander in Chief. In fact, his policy advice seems to have been pretty much ignored for the past year or so, in favor of that from Condoleezza Rice and the rest of the State Department hacks and wags.
And, while four years ago there were cries of, “if Bush gets reelected, there will be a Christian theocracy and they’ll start persecuting and imprisoning heretics once again,” the only one threatened with prison for speaking against a religion in this country has been a Ukrainian-born jewish boy who insulted a Muslim, and may spend four years in prison for tossing a Qur’an in the toilet.
It must be very hard to be a far leftist, this summer. For decades, they’ve thrived on keeping people up late at night worrying about things outside human control. And now, almost everything they have believed, or sold as a belief, has been disproved -- or, at least, undermined to the extent that it can no longer be viewed as an Absolute Truth. All their terrors based on seeing free people stand against terrorists, all the horror of seeing their country reject leftist dictators, and all the dread that the very large, very adaptable world is changing and we’re doing nothing to stop it, all those trepidations were for naught, it seems. Now all they have to fear is... fear itself. And even socialist hero Franklin Delano Roosevelt can’t help them on that.
Recommended reading:
USA Today: Major attacks decline in Iraq.
Davids Medienkritik: SPIEGEL ONLINE: "The US Military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe."
Also worth reading:
Victor Davis Hanson at the Corner on NRO (HT: Dr. Sanity)
Rob at Flopping Aces, on Global Warming and Basic Science.
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