Michael Yon: Desolate Roads

If you haven’t read any of Michael Yon’s dispatches from Iraq, you owe it to yourself to do so. The majority of news from iraq is not from Iraq, it’s from a protected shell of relative comfort inside the green zone or from further afar. Yon reports directly from where the action happens on a daily basis. Few other sources offer such an intimate portrayal of what is really happening on the ground in the war zone that is modern Iraq.

Caught In The Protest

Spiritbuilders has a diary account of inadvertant mingling with anti-war protestors this weekend.

Our first stop was a tour of the Capitol, lunch at Tortilla Coast, and then a walk over to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. As the rest of the family explored the museum, I slipped out the back door onto the national mall and walked into the protest. Susan Sarandon was speaking. A man with a sign was standing next to me, and I asked him if he knew any soldiers. He didn’t. I told him my son is a soldier. There was no reply. We kept talking and the man’s wife joined us, I asked them what they thought would happen if we pulled out of Iraq, and they shrugged. I asked if they supposed many Iraqi’s would die, and they said they suppose they would. Then came the surprising part of the conversation…I asked if they thought it would be like Vietnam and the woman said she thought it would. So, I asked what happened in Vietnam after we left. She said: “They became all one country, and they were happy.” I said: “Interesting.” After a bit more talk, they simply walked away.
 
I also spoke with a man who was holding an “Out of Iraq” signed that was produced by moveon.org. (These were the most prevelant signs at the protest.) I asked the man what he was doing here and he said he was a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He brought a group of students out to DC for a tax policy contest and they had won the competition. I congratulated him, and then asked: “but why are you here today?” The response was that he wanted to see the protest (as he held a protest sign.)

Hat tip to the good folks at Wizbang

Chris Matthews Frothing At The Mouth Over Libby Trial

Wizbang has the story and the video!

Was 9/11 Really That Bad?

David Bell asks this question in the LA Times.

Scientist Develops Caffeinated Doughnuts

Oh, sweet jesus!

SF Gate: House Dems Heavy-Handed

When House Democrats came to power last fall, they did so singing a song of fairness and bipartisanship.

Pelosi made restoration of civility in the often-stridently partisan House a keystone of her campaign. She sent then-Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., a letter last fall laying out how she would treat the minority if her party took power. And she made congressional manners a separate section in the “New Direction for America,” her campaign manifesto. She promised that bills “should be developed following full hearings” in committees and “open, full and fair debate” with a full amendment process.

But now that they have control, they’ve changed their tune to, “you did it to us, so we’re going to do it to you.”

The San Fransisco Gate has an article today reporting that GOP House members are compaining that Democrats tactics are heavy-handed. Here’s John Boehner feigning surprise:

“I’ve done everything I can to reach out to the speaker and the majority leader,” Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said on the House floor Wednesday just before the final vote on the latest bill that the GOP cried was being pushed through without committee hearings. “But it seems that over the last three weeks, every time we offer the hand of bipartisanship it is slapped way.”

Jim McGovern replies to Boehner and GOPals with, “Mom, they started it!”:

“I could stand here all day, all year, listing occasion after occasion on which the then-majority broke the rules of this House,” said Rules Committee member Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass.

But it doesn’t get any more mature, bipartisan than this response:

“Whine me a river,” one senior Democratic House aide said, referring to Republican gripes.

Rep. John Shadegg complained about this the other day after a session in which it was rumored that a bill was re-written on the floor and submitted to the clerk on a napkin.

Joe Scarborough was right when he wrote: “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Democrats and Republicans.”

Anderson Cooper’s Sex Slaves

Anderson Cooper covered the modern day slave trade on last nights show. His trail takes his team across the globe to Uganda where children are forced to be soldiers. He also covers the sex slave trade in Cambodia and (disturbingly) in Atlanta, Georgia.

Many of the pimps are drug dealers looking to make some extra money, according to LaKendra Baker, a counselor for current and former child prostitutes. “You can only sell a dime bag once; you can sell a 10-year-old girl over and over again,” Baker said.

Sick and sad. And we are all completely ignorant of it.

Global Warming Causes Jihad

Jihad Watch has a post today about a Reuters report on the theory put forward at a conference in London entitled: Climate Change: The Global Security Impact”.

Some people will resort to anything to avoid looking squarely at the implications of the Islamic jihad ideology. Watch this space for next week’s feature, “Chicken Salad Causes Jihad.”

“Climate change seen fanning conflict and terrorism,” by Mark Trevelyan for Reuters, with thanks to Paul:

LONDON (Reuters) – Global warming could exacerbate the world’s rich-poor divide and help to radicalize populations and fan terrorism in the countries worst affected, security and climate experts said on Wednesday.

If poverty causes jihad, why isn’t Haiti teeming with suicide bombers?

“We have to reckon with the human propensity for violence,” Sir Crispin Tickell, Britain’s former ambassador to the United Nations, told a London conference on “Climate Change: the Global Security Impact.”

Cheney Ain’t Buying Blitzer’s Selling

Video at Hot Air.

Police Officer Shot By Handcuffed Suspect

Los Angeles Police officer Andrew Taylor was shot four times Monday in an apartment near beautiful MacArthur Park. Taylor is in stable condition and good spirits thanks to his bullet proof vest. The suspect, not as lucky, was shot dead by police. At the time of the shooting, the suspect was handcuffed. He had been searched, but not thoroughly enough at that point because he had a gun in his back pocket.

Here is a suspect who is in cuffs and in custody who still manages to shoot a police officer. It brings to mind “police brutality” cases, such as the one in the famous video below.

People criticized LAPD for beating William Cardenas when he was “already in custody”. Clearly, Cardenas was not in custody when the cops were beating him as they were wrestling with him to try to get him into handcuffs. Today’s shooting perfectly examplifies the danger police officers expose themselves to even when they think they have the situation under control let alone when they are dealing with a suspect who is resisting arrest.

As a public service, I direct your attention to this educational video on how not to get beaten by the cops: