Open Threads

New Casualty Numbers?

The Oxford Research Group has a briefing paper titled ‘A Never-Ending War? Consequences of September 11.’ In this briefing, we learn that one of the problems following 9/11 is the assertion that:

More innocent lives may have been lost in Afghanistan than on September 11 (between 2-8,000 deaths).

So much for Herold’s statistics. Now there may be 8,000 civilian casualties (I am assuming that is what an innocent life is).

The whole thing is just a disgusting rehash of all the same bizarre complaints from the root cause anti-war crowd.

“Little attempt made to understand the motivations for the September 11 attacks, or to see them as part of a longer-term strategy”.

Yawn.

Via Bjorn Staerk.

New Casualty Numbers? The OxfordPost + Comments (1)

This site made me laugh. I had seen it a year or two ago, but had forgotten about it.

This site made me laugh.Post + Comments

Douglas Turnbull of the Beauty of Gray on the French Revolution:

Under Louis XIV, the French were in a dominant strategic position, with an overwhelming force advantage and facing a fractious coalition of England, the Netherlands, and the Empire. Yet they were defeated so frequently and decisively by smaller English armies under Marlborough that the French generals were terrified to take the field against him. Decades of fighting on the part of the huge French army brought little except ruinous debt to the French crown. The economic drain of these futile aggrandizing wars, combined with Louis XIV’s policy of destroying the independent power of the nobility, set the stage for the French Revolution where the French introduced totalitarian tyranny to the world, and followed it up with another destructive attempt to conquer Europe. Thanks for everything, France.

and on the Post WWII French military:

De Gaulle then set the pattern for French policy since then, bringing the allies a fancy uniform, a huge ego, no army, and a big mouth filled with the demand for equal treatment.

and on the French and Palestine:

And don’t get me started on French foreign policy. You’d think the country responsible for 40 years of brutal civil war in Algeria would shut the hell up when it comes to Israel and Palestine, but France brings a unique measure of arrogance to the table to combine with their incompetence, and don’t let their own all too obvious failings get in the way of their strenuous efforts to tell everyone else how to run their own affairs. Of course, Algeria is not alone-there’s a strong pattern of devastation left in the wake of French and Belgian colonialism that contrasts with British and US former colonies. Algeria, the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Lebanon, Cambodia and Vietnam, all enjoyed the mismanagement, tyranny, and civil wars that were the fruits of French and Belgian mismanagement.

Go read the whole thing- although I warn you to try not to drink anything while reading it- you will end up washing your monitor.

Douglas Turnbull of the BeautyPost + Comments

I am not a lawyer.
I am not a psychiatrist or psychologist.
I was not in the courtroom.
I was not there when she murdered the five children.

But if Andrea Yates is sane, then I am a winged pig.

I am not a lawyer.Post + Comments

Ted Barlow is offended by Nick Denton’s question: Where are the well-written liberal weblogs?”

Don’t worry Ted. We love you anyway.

Ted also links to an article in Dissent magazine asking “Can There be a Decent Left?” The article is interesting, and points out why most right wingers (and the decent left wingers the article is looking for – see Christopher Hitchens, Matt Welch, Ken Layne) do ridicule the boobs who make up the ‘liberal elite:’

But among last fall’s antiwar demonstrators, “Stop the bombing” wasn’t a slogan that summarized a coherent view of the bombing–or of the alternatives to it. The truth is that most leftists were not committed to having a coherent view about things like that; they were committed to opposing the war, and they were prepared to oppose it without regard to its causes or character and without any visible concern about preventing future terrorist attacks.

The right has not just ‘wrapped themselves in patriotism.’ It just seems that way when you compare most Americans to the vocal lony left. Sure, there are charlatans on the right who are doing their level best to get political mileage out of this, but most people just chide those liberal elites because they are so transparently stupid and viscerally anti-American. Go watch Eleanor Clift any week. Listen to Alec Baldwin. Listen to Terry McAuliffe. Those are the people who are being chided.

Ted Barlow is offended byPost + Comments

Will Warren has another gem up, this time about the Marin County Mullah and the American Taliban.

Will Warren has another gemPost + Comments

Netscape and AOL are snooping on users, gathering search data and IP addresses.

Via Cal Ulmann, another of Ben Domenech’s Wild Bunch

Netscape and AOL are snoopingPost + Comments