The Iraq War will be turned into a television series sometime in the next two years. It has all the necessary ingredients; the fear of danger lurking around every corner, the interplay between civilians and soldiers, the cross-cultural misunderstandings, the struggle for freedom. Even the routine daily patrols into Baghdad provide the perfect setting for a myriad of story possibilities.
The characters are predictable. We'll have the pacificist turned soldier who faces ambivalence each time he is faced with doing his duty. There will be the forbidden romance between the battle worn soldier and a Muslim woman. Of course, there will be the dashing and brave young reporters who risk their lives to bring in the big story. Finally, there will be the rotation of forgettable characters who last a few episodes and get injured or killed in the battles.
The producers of the television series will throw enough legitimate looking action in there to keep most audiences entertained, but there will also be the subtle anti-war message we've all become accustomed to seeing. At every turn, the Generals (US and UK) and the Fedayeen will be the enemy with the common soldier, Iraqi, and reporter just struggling to make sense of it all.
The premiere episode of the series will give us a taste of the sweeping battle into Baghdad and establish our main characters for the regular episodes. The premiere may even be filmed in and around Baghdad, but shortly thereafter will be moved to a set in Southern California. The first year of the series will probably captivate a large number of audiences but as the second year comes around we'll be subjected to bizarre storylines and a more blatant liberal bias. The audience will start to taper off and by the fourth year it will be cancelled.
Is Hollywood that predictable? We all know it is. Stay tuned.
I try to clean up after myself, (Really) but I have problems. It seems that whenver I receive a new magazine in the mail that I leave a huge mess behind. Those reply cards drop out in a blizzard of paper. I recently started counting how many of those little post card sized things are in the magazines I receive. Most magazines contain six of them, which begs the question, how much advertising is too much?
I don't understand why they put so many of those cards in magazines. I'm already a subscriber and even if I weren't, I wouldn't subscribe six times! If I'm not a subscriber I certainly don't need six cards either. I'm not sure if this problem has gotten worse or if I'm just noticing it more. Maybe I've noticed it because it has actually made the physical act of reading the magazine more difficult.
I've even had this problem at the magazine racks in the stores. What is the proper etiquette for replacing these things? You see a magazine that looks vaguely interesting and pick it up to glance through it. Pretty soon, you're surrounded by reply cards. Do you place them back in the magazine? Or do you just ignore them and walk away?
I guess this leads me to another problem. I'm constantly being pestered by people to buy things and give money to worthy causes. I recently received a large magazine sized brochure in the mail for heifer.org. Their concept is simple. You buy a share of an animal like, say a goat, and the organization finds some needy family in Central America or wherever to receive the goat. The needy family then proceeds to milk the goat, make shirts of goat's hair and whatever else you do with a goat in a third world country. It's a great idea, but why send this thing to me? In the case of heifer.org, I declined to send them any cash. (Their brochure made me a little suspicious because it has all these pictures of lefty celebrity endorsements from the likes of Susan Sarandon, Ted Danson, and Walter Cronkite.)
It isn't just the left-leaning, religious, or social service organizations, I get tons of snail mail and e-mail from the Republican party, Vice-President Cheney, etc... all looking for money. At work this happens also, but it is usually people selling computer related items. These guys are tough to get rid of and if you're ever stupid enough to respond to one of their phone calls, you'll be hearing from them every 30 days for the rest of your life.
I generally elude these guys and I refuse to feel bad about it. I think of it like this. The grocery store isn't calling me on the phone and pestering me to buy a loaf of bread, so why how are these sales people any different? If I want to buy something, I'll contact them -- until then they can just sit tight.
Unless they've got free stuff. For all sorts of worthless tchotkes, I'm willing to sell just about anything. (I know this makes no logical sense.) However, if you're a sales type person at least make sure it is of at least nominal value. I recently received an envelope which contained a ziplock baggy. Inside the baggy were puzzle pieces. I suppose they thought I would actually sit there and assemble the puzzle which was no doubt an ad for their stuff...and this was from a major vendor.
As a result of all this mass of marketing, I've developed some little rules that I use in dealing with it.
The next time you get a magazine, check to see how many reply cards you have, you'll be amazed.
George Soros, featured in a previous post and the man who has made unseating President Bush the central focus of his life, received some bad news today.
A raid on the Moscow offices of his Open Society Institute described here resulted in the loss of some important donor documents, among other items.
It is rumored that the raid was a result of Soros' criticism of the recent jailing of a Russion Oil Tycoon. The organisation reported that it had lost all information on its 1,000 grant recipients. (George, make a note of this; the next time you have information on 1,000 grant recipients, make a backup of the file and store it somewhere safe - have that be the central focus of your life.)
Mr. Soros hasn't blamed the Bush Administration for this raid...yet.
Why do they call them peace protesters (here and here) when they're really protesting a war. Shouldn't they be war protesters? By the way, if you haven't read the text of the President's speech yesterday at Whitehall Palace...
President Bush's Speech at Whitehall Palace was an eloquent response to all of the critics out there. If any of the war protesters would bother to listen, it masterfully laid out his case for the actions that have been taken in Iraq.
The weblog, Back In Iraq, links to a story today on the BBC with the headline, Iraq’s Mass Graves Could Hold 300,000 Victims. A number like 300,000 is difficult to imagine. These people, for the most part, did nothing to deserve an untimely death other than simply living in the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite this massacre of innocents, many polticians and otherwise fairly intelligent people continue to oppose our efforts in Iraq.
The bloodshed of innocents has stopped, yet guys like Howard Dean still hold the following position,
Incredibly, Dean has a great deal of popular support. Even if you agree with Dean on other positions, how could you possibly support a person that callously disregards innocent victims? If Dean and other people like this had their way, the suffering and killing would still be happening. (Many politicians hide behind the position that they didn't oppose intervention in Iraq, only that they wanted to work with the UN. This is essentially the same result as opposing intervention since it was apparent to all but the most feeble-minded that the UN would never actually take any meaningful action.)
Anti-war protesters are busy
accusing President Bush of being a hateful war monger while he is visiting the UK. They often cite the ongoing tragic deaths and injury of American and other soldiers as a reason to oppose the war. However, when you compare our current casualties with any other armed conflict, Iraq pales by comparison. 61 million people died in WWII and this war is no less noble.
Howard Dean is free to express his opposition to this war. If he is successful in winning the election, I wonder about a nation that so easily sanctions the killing of innocent life just because those people don't live in the right place and have the power of a vote. Not only will history judge us for our lack of moral character, but our terrorist enemies will see a window of opportunity and descend on our country like never before. Only through the power of our votes can we keep headlines like, " 300,000 Victims in Mass Grave" from happening again. In November 2004, I would urge you to remember the short-sightedness of the anti-war position.
Regardless of what you think of GWB, he certainly has a talent for stirring things up. This guy, has pledged gazillions of dollars to help defeat Bush in the upcoming presidential campaign.
His name is George Soros. He was born in Hungary and is described as a Philanthropist. You can find out more about him here. Apparently, he doesn't like GWB or his policies. In this article, in the Washington Post, he claims that defeating Bush is the central focus to his life.
Good old George also goes on to complain about neoconservatives and laments about a "supremacist ideology".
He's published a book titled The Bubble of American Supremacy and a publication that I normally love, The Atlantic Monthly has published an excerpt from the book. (I've read the article and it's a virtual compendium of half truths and distortions...more on that later.)
George, crawl back in you're little gilded hole and stay there! stay! good boy!
In this next election, I would expect to see a little tag underneath the name of the Democrat Candidate something like this,
The Democratic Party
Sponsored by George Soros
This guy is scary.
Much has been made about the lack of balanced Iraq War coverage by the press. The main complaint is that the press focuses too much on the bad news and not enough on all the good things happening. The media and liberals in general have been very vocal about our ongoing losses in Iraq. Their concern seems to be motivated by a desire to see President Bush fail more than anything, but we shouldn't entirely ignore what they have to say. There are definitely some ominous developments in Iraq.
Ted Carpenter from The Cato Institute has a great article found here pointing out some overlooked facts about the war in Iraq. He points out that attacks against US Soldiers have gone from an average of 12 attacks per day in May and June to around 30 attacks per day. He also reminds us that in addition to the soldiers killed many more are seriously wounded; receiving wounds that will impair many of them for the rest of their lives.
This article also cites concerns about the number of attacks and gives a good balanced viewpoint of the situation on the ground. Contrary to what many seem to say, Iraq is no quagmire, but not everything is great over there either.
It's interesting to note that a google search on Iraq Quagmire turns up articles from June and July shrieking about a "Quagmire". It all sounds like a little bit of wishful thinking to me.
Lt Smash points out that we must have The Will to Endure. Unfortunately, I don't have any answers. I know that:
The status of the 55 Most Wanted
Don't forget about our good friends, The French
Sunday, November 2nd. Woke up. It was raining outside.
Monday, woke up again. Raining again.
Tuesday, November 3rd. Woke up. Turned over and went back to sleep for a while. Still Raining.
As of 5:30 pm on Tuesday, it continues to rain as it has done for most of the last three days and nights.
If you live somewhere that it isn't raining. I envy you.
In the meantime, the recent uproar in the Episcopal Church has left many in other mainline denominations a little nervous.
Recently, the lay committee of the Presbyterian Church USA denomination urged Presbyterians to withhold their giving. The Lay Committee is an independent group of Presbyterian lay leaders who recently met in Philadelphia. They issued a Declaration of Conscience urging members of the denomination to no longer give to the General Assembly or Mission Budget of the PCUSA. They conclude, "We no longer believe that either the General Assembly per-capita budget or the unrestricted mission budget of the PCUSA is worthy of support. We encourage all individuals and sessions to exercise their stewardship responsibility and right to determine how money entrusted to them is spent. "
Terry Mattingly gives an excellent account of the current state of the PC USA Denomination in his column, Presbyterian Divorce? He reports on efforts to arrive at a graceful separation between the liberal and conservative wings of the church. The efforts are well intentioned but I seriously doubt the Presbyterians will be able to avoid a public confrontation like the one that has rocked the Episcopal Denomination.
As long as liberals in the denomination refuse to recognize the authority of scripture and choose to accomodate popular culture, there will be no peace. Liberals, for their part, believe that conservatives are just being rigid and overly dogmatic. The liberals don't seem to understand that their disagreements with conservatives are not just a matter of holding another opinion but are bedrock beliefs rooted in centuries of established doctrine. For the more traditional and conservative members, these beliefs define Christianity. Without them, Presbyterians are just another social club or touchy-feely therapy group.
It is a fact that established mainline denominations, including the PCUSA have been shrinking at an alarming rate. The exception to this lies in the conservative churches of the denomination. They are growing. The PCUSA desperately needs their funds to continue operations at the present rate.
As a Presbyterian who is fortunate to be a member of a Confessing Church, I withhold my per-capita giving to the General Assembly. For me, this isn't a choice, but a moral imperative. I can't support a denomination that teaches beliefs contrary to basic tenets of scripture. I can only hope that if the money dries up, those at PCUSA HQ will realize the error of their ways. If they don't, then it is just as well that the denomination cease to exist.