A quick post to thank those who have recently linked or blogrolled Target Centermass.
Thanks, y’all.
I have been fascinated with sharks since, as a young child, I watched and read Jaws. I spent many years wanting to become an icthyologist. Granted, that dream eventually yielded to other dreams, which in turned yielded to reality. Nevertheless, to this day I love the topic. Heck, I was that one guy who saw Jaws: the Revenge in the theater, already knowing what crap it would be, and I just loves catching me some Shark Week. Now, this news:
The Monterey Bay Aquarium has an unusual visitor that experts are hoping will be a permanent houseguest: a great white shark.
Notorious for their inability to thrive in captivity, no great whites are currently on display anywhere in the world and none has ever been keep on exhibit for more than 16 days.
Hours after it arrived from Malibu, the young shark lunched on salmon fillets — the first time a great white has accepted food in an aquarium, according to aquarium workers.
The story details some of the precautions the aquarium has taken to try to make this a success. More detailed information, videos and photos can be found at the aquarium’s website. Go watch the first ever feeding of a white shark in captivity.
This would be a boon to marine biologists to be able to get such exposure to a great white. Fingers crossed while considering travel plans.
Well, they’re still a bunch of pathetic weasels that cheapen the journaliasm portion of my agricultural journalism degree.
For a more current, thorough nailing of CBS’ journalistic atrocities, I suggest this from Sling & Arrows.
As it should be, national defense is an issue in the 2004 presidential election. Unfortunately, it is not being discussed but, rather, manipulated in a seemingly concerted effort.
Vice presidential candidate John Edwards promised a West Virginia mother on Wednesday that if the Democratic ticket is elected in November the military draft would not be revived.
During a question-and-answer session, the mother of a 23-year-old who recently graduated from West Virginia University asked Edwards whether the draft would be reinstated.
“There will be no draft when John Kerry is president,” Edwards said, a statement that drew a standing ovation.
The current force is all-volunteer, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said he opposes reinstating the draft. But the Pentagon has taken several steps that have drawn criticism.
In June, the Pentagon recalled to active duty 5,674 members of the Individual Ready Reserve, soldiers who have served specified tours of duty but have years remaining in their enlistment contracts.
Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, has complained about the extent of the Bush administration’s use of Reserves and National Guardsmen and a device called “stop loss,” which prevents soldiers from leaving when typical obligations end. “They have effectively used a stop-loss policy as a backdoor draft,” Kerry said.
First, tie this to the (incorrect) allegation of a backdoor draft during Kerry’s DNC acceptance speech.
Second, tie this to an email campaign started from a “Soapbox Alert” on Congress.org, a soapbox alert that has been subsequently removed and has been replaced with the message “The Soapbox Alert you’ve requested is no longer available.”
Luckily, a discussion forum I’m a member of was subjected to repeated postings of this “alert” and threads are still available. The alert read as follows:
Pending Draft Legislation Targeted for Spring 2005
The Draft will Start in June 2005There is pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills: S 89 and HR 163) which will time the program’s initiation so the draft can begin at early as Spring 2005 — just after the 2004 presidential election. The administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while the public’s attention is on the elections, so our action on this is needed immediately.
$28 million has been added to the 2004 Selective Service System (SSS) budget to prepare for a military draft that could start as early as June 15, 2005. Selective Service must report to Bush on March 31, 2005 that the system, which has lain dormant for decades, is ready for activation. Please see website: www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html to view the sss annual performance plan – fiscal year 2004.
The pentagon has quietly begun a public campaign to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide.. Though this is an unpopular election year topic, military experts and influential members of congress are suggesting that if Rumsfeld’s prediction of a “long, hard slog” in Iraq and Afghanistan [and a permanent state of war on “terrorism”] proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to draft.
Congress brought twin bills, S. 89 and HR 163 forward this year, http://www.hslda.org/legislation/na…s89/default.asp entitled the Universal National Service Act of 2003, “to provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons [age 18–26] in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.” These active bills currently sit in the committee on armed services.
Dodging the draft will be more difficult than those from the Vietnam era.
College and Canada will not be options. In December 2001, Canada and the U.S. signed a “smart border declaration,” which could be used to keep would-be draft dodgers in. Signed by Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, John Manley, and U.S. Homeland Security director, Tom Ridge, the declaration involves a 30-point plan which implements, among other things, a “pre-clearance agreement” of people entering and departing each country. Reforms aimed at making the draft more equitable along gender and class lines also eliminates higher education as a shelter. Underclassmen would only be able to postpone service until the end of their current semester. Seniors would have until the end of the academic year.
Even those voters who currently support US actions abroad may still object to this move, knowing their own children or grandchildren will not have a say about whether to fight. Not that it should make a difference, but this plan, among other things, eliminates higher education as a
shelter and includes women in the draft.The public has a right to air their opinions about such an important decision.
Please send this on to all the friends, parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and cousins that you know. Let your children know too — it’s their future, and they can be a powerful voice for change!
Please also contact your representatives to ask them why they aren’t telling their constituents about these bills — and contact newspapers and other media outlets to ask them why they’re not covering this important story.
I looked into this and quickly was able to set up a pat response anytime this was posted: both pieces of legislation, while legitimate, were introduced in 2003 by Democrats (e.g. Rangel, McDermott, Conyers, Hollings). That President Bush is so brilliant as to be able to manipulate the Dems into submitting legislation supporting his secret plans is simply astounding.
Okay, enough of fighting the stupidity campaign with facts. Now, let’s look at Edwards’ promise.
This is simply a promise that never should be made. If unforeseen events demand a draft, the president would either have to break the promise or live up to it, cutting short our ability to respond.
Nobody wants a draft. The all-volunteer military is far more effective in its current form than it would be with a bunch of conscripts. However, it cannot and should not be promised that there will not arise a need for conscripts. Contrary to apparently popular perception, the draft wasn’t a public raping used exclusively in the Viet Nam campaign. No, the draft has a long history of being used by this country in time of need, back to the Civil War and even in WWII, despite the popular notions that these were wars fought by idealistic volunteers.
We are the United States of America. We have several advantages in our global position, militarily speaking, among which are the following:
It is my opinion that none of these advantages should ever be taken off the table. Our military is for this nation’s defense; I can honestly never see a reason to broadcast to a potential enemy that we, by policy, limit ourselves in any fashion.
I honestly do not think that the Kerry-Edwards ticket takes our national defense and the fight against Islamist terror seriously. I have spoken before, repeatedly, about wrestling with the idea of re-enlisting since 9/11. I state now that (barring disaster), this will not happen if Kerry wins the presidency.
It’s that simple. Short of disaster, I will not again volunteer to serve while John Kerry is Commander-in-Chief.
At least I’m wise enough to hedge and allow for necessity; Edwards isn’t.
Rathergate.com (Hat tip to Allah)
This morning’s lead editorial in the Dallas Morning News slams CBS over the Killian forgeries (registration required, try bugmenot.com).
In the world of investigative journalism, they don’t come any bigger than 60 Minutes. That’s why the lightning-quick takedown of the venerable CBS News program’s tale of President Bush’s alleged sweetheart Vietnam-era treatment in the Texas Air National Guard was so shocking.
We don’t know for certain if CBS and correspondent Dan Rather were really snookered by forged documents. CBS is sticking by its story that the papers on which it based its damning report were authentic. But that report was shredded by the school of piranhas in the blogosphere – and Old Media reporters who followed quickly in the Web bloggers’ wake.
The attack started immediately after 60 Minutes II aired the report Wednesday. Hours later, posters at the Free Republic Web site noticed something odd about the documents. The lawyer-run Powerlineblog.com site got interested, and then graphic designer Charles Johnson at littlegreenfootballs.com showed on his site how the documents were likely designed using Microsoft Word and its Times Roman font – which did not exist when Mr. Bush was in the Guard.
Sensing blood in the water, the professional sharks at ABC News, Newsweek, The Dallas Morning News and others took big bites out of the report’s credibility in other areas. Result: The story is now about CBS and what looks like its sloppy reporting, not Mr. Bush and what he did during the Vietnam era.
There’s a little more after this, but I think it’s fairly safe to say that the fat lady’s song has started on this story. Also, good to see another MSM recognize the role that Power Line and lgf played in this. INDC Journal and Allah deserved plugs, as well.
Roughly a day ago I compared the CBS stance on Rather’s Bush-Killian documents to the French stance at Dien Bien Phu, their Indochina demise.
Now, it seems the perimeter is weakening to the point of endangerment of penetration.
From INDC Journal, the WaPo lets go with both barrels.
From Wizbang!, Rather’s world crumbles.
From Vodkapundit, CBS News is backing away from the memos.
A terrorist group in Iraq is claiming to have nabbed two Australian nationals.
Two Australian security contractors yesterday became the latest foreigners to be kidnapped in Iraq after militants apparently ambushed their convoy on a road outside Baghdad.
In a statement, a group calling itself the Islamic Secret Army said it would execute both men “without a second chance” unless their government pulled its troops out of Iraq within 24 hours.
The group said it had seized the Australians, together with two east Asian nationals, in the town of Samarra, a Sunni militant stronghold effectively in the hands of the insurgents.
Is no news since the claim actually good news?
IT WAS a good sign that those claiming to have kidnapped two Australians in Iraq had not released the names of their alleged hostages, Prime Minister John Howard said today.
….
Mr Howard said the Department of Foreign Affairs was yet to verify whether a kidnapping had actually occurred, or whether it was a hoax, but said in past kidnapping cases, the names of those held had been released and their passports displayed on television.
In fact, maybe the claim holds as much water as CBS’ Killian documents.
Australia has accounted for all its nationals known to be working in Iraq following a claim by a radical Islamic group to have kidnapped two Australians, Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said Tuesday.
“At this stage we can find no evidence that any Australians are missing or have been kidnapped, but nevertheless we’ve got to be cautious in what we say because further information could turn up as the day goes on,” Downer said.
He said the Australian embassy in Baghdad had accounted for all 88 civilian Australians registered with it.
“We have also checked with four companies that we know employ Australians and those companies have all accounted for the Australians,” Downer said in a television interview.
“There is, though, one of those four companies that is doing a recheck to finally clarify the situation,” he said.
Let’s hope that this is nothing. However, with elections pending in Australia, one would expect that further moves by the scumbags against our allies are likely to be attempted thanks to the Spanish example.
With its firm stance supported only by weak defenses, CBS is walking a high-wire with Dan Rather’s assertions that the Bush-Killian documents are valid. These defenses are repeatedly rapidly overwhelmed by the research of the conservative side of the blogosphere, and this has led me to re-evaluate the situation.
Short of serious substantiation, CBS has two choices: first, crawdad on its assertions and confess its egregious errors in both methodology and mission; second, lay low and continue to deny, hoping it blows over or the rest of the mainstream media rides in to the rescue.
This brings to mind the French at Dien Bien Phu.
From Summons of the Trumpet by Dave Richard Palmer:
The French and the Viet Minh fought the climactic battle at an unimportant and unimposing village high in jungle-covered hills near the Laotian border — Dien Bien Phu. (Memories of that battle would return fourteen years later to haunt and distract American leaders at a crucial moment.) In January 1954, Viet Minh General Vo Nguyen Giap surrounded a large French force at Dien Bien Phu, isolating it from all support except that dropped by parachute. Through February and into March the French held on doggedly. But they were doomed without help — and by March they knew it. Desparately, Paris asked Washington to intervene.
Is CBS setting up MSM’s own Dien Bien Phu, with the bloggers in the role of the surrounding forces? It would certainly seem that the rehashing of the old AWOL stories would be the equivalent of “an unimportant and unimposing village” in this election year. The stakes on the confrontation? Nothing short of the credibility of the entirety of the old media. If the bloggers retreat into the jungle and let Rather escape, then the current situation continues. If critical mass of the story is reached with the public, MSM goes into a crisis. Will the other branches of the old media play it neutral and see how things play out, or will they do their actual job and seriously look at Rather’s claims? Their credibility may hinge on it, as the Swiftboat Vets story has shown that MSM no longer has exclusive claim to the public’s attention.
CBS and Rather are potentially setting up their own Dien Bien Phu. Will the rest of the old media support them or do what’s right and what’s their role in society — investigate and cover the story?
After toning down his rhetoric for the Democrats’ Boston shindig, former Vice-President Al Gore has once again bitterly gone over to the Dark Side and returned as Darth Gore. There’s little new in this story, but I’m linking it because I found humor in it.
First, the accompanying picture:
Second, the initial Republican response was a side-splitter:
GOP strategist Keith Appell likens him to “some kind of cheerleader on acid.”
“Some of the things he has said have been outrageous and he says them in this high-pitched scream,” Appell said. “I really don’t know what to call that.”
Third, pollsters are very astute observers:
Pollster Andy Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, said Gore is “emblematic of happier days” to many Democrats.
But Kohut cautioned that “swing voters tend to be moderate, and if he comes across as too over the top, there’s a risk.” The pollster added, though, “Certainly he’s not any more over-the-top than Dick Cheney.”
Swing voters tend to be moderate? Voters who cannot decide between left and right tend to be in the center? Really? Who’d have thunk it. I feel now that I can go to the polls and consider myself an informed voter. Thank you, Mr. Kohut.
And thank you, Associated Press, for the laughs.