Charlie Wilson's Opinion ...

is pretty darn straightforward and pragmatic in this op-ed piece for the Washington Post.

If you don't remember Charlie Wilson, he's the former Congressman (D) from Texas who played a large part in funding the mujahideen, in large part through covert and misnamed earmarks in the 1980s.  A book and a movie portray (to varying degrees of success) "Charlie Wilson's War."

In the article, Wilson points out that:

" ... as we commit troops to the "war on terror," America's civilian institutions of diplomacy and development continue to be chronically undermanned and underfunded. We spend 1 percent of the federal budget on these critical elements of our foreign policy, compared with 22 percent on the military and weapons."

Wow. When people suggest a "Marshall Plan" for this region or that, they out themselves as politicians who have a poor grasp of the issues who simply don't understand the complex differences between "then" and "now." However, a new approach to the way that aid is used and distributed should be a top priority of our next commander-in-chief. In such a short post I could never do justice to the topic, but I can say that I'd put Thomas Friedman in charge.

Not Blogging Night One of the DNC

A couple noteworthy columns from the past couple days include:

Dave Barry’s take on the DNC: “Sen. Clinton will either call on her supporters to unite behind Obama, or attempt to snatch the nomination and escape with it by helicopter to a secret mountain fortress.”

Tommy Friedman had a good article on Sunday examining what makes the US Olympic team different from the China Olympic team, and why the things that make them different contributed to each team winning so many medals.

Andrew Breitbart wrote a must-read article on the absurdity of the mud-flinging campaign coming from the left.

Baseball: I can’t believe that Hardball Times doesn’t advertise this better. I also can’t believe that I immediately spent an hour on this when I found it. Wait, I absolutely can. It’s a page where you rank baseball’s ethical scenarios, from religious imagery in scoreboards to umps asking fans for their opinions to pine tar to corking bats. The idea is that once enough people do it enough times, the people doing the study will come up with a master ranking of what were the least ethical transgressions in baseball history. Fascinating.

In the mean time, the Yankees are going to miss the playoffs and Carl Pavano won a Major League Baseball game. What’s going on here? More tomorrow.

Morning Links

►I didn’t plan on posting anything this early today, but reading Tom Friedman makes me want to literally jump from my desk and get out there and start saving the world. I can’t, because I have a lunch to go to at 11:45 and I don’t think I can save the world and be back in time to leave for lunch, so instead I will just link to his article, as usual. It scares me a little how riled I get by reading him; I’m afraid that he could convince me of anything. His writing is so clear and thinking so logical. I’m glad that Tom and I disagree on global warming, or else I’d truly be worried that I am not just agreeing with him because we think similarly but because I am unable to disagree with him.

►These guys also disagree with global warming as they are promoting Carbon Belch Day to “help Americans break free from the 'carbon footprint guilt' being imposed by Climate Alarmists.”

►Friedman quotes a Memorial Day essay by Tom Shriver of the Washington Post, which you can find here. I will pass along the same quote for you to read if you decide you don’t have time to read any of the articles in their entirety:

This weekend only, you can buy a new Dodge and the company will subsidize your gas costs for 3 years. So Dodge wants to sell you a car you don’t really want to buy, that is not fuel efficient, will further damage our environment, and will further subsidize oil states, some of which are on the other side of the wars we’re currently fighting. And on top of it, Dodge is willing to subsidize your purchase with borrowed dollars since the company is currently drowning in debt.

Imagine that happening during the Civil War. Imagine that happening during World War I or II. Imagine celebrating Memorial Day in those days with such limited attention to honoring the dead that companies would get away with ignoring the fundamental struggle in which they’re giving their lives. The planet be damned, the troops be forgotten, the economy be ignored: buy a Dodge. Imagine.

More later, time permitting.

Links Links

A real grab bag today:

►George Will doesn’t buy that the polar bears are threatened, and he offers some more thought on the global warming fad.

►Lorne Gunter challenges the idea that the fad is a “settled science”.

►I haven’t been able to decide if Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN is a good columnist. I’m pretty sure he isn’t, but the verdict is still out. Anyway, here he apparently wishes there were more global warming as he bitches and moans about the recent decision to play the 2012 Super Bowl in “cold” Indianapolis. I have zero sympathy for sports writers who complain about the location of Super Bowls. His argument is that locations like Indianapolis, Detroit, and Minneapolis are no fun because they’re cold, and no one likes the cold, and the NFL is punishing not only the players but the fans (Oh, sports writers! Always thinking of the fans! How valiant.) by choosing these awful locations. “Playing in a Super Bowl is supposed to be a reward, not a reason to visit your local North Face outlet. And attending a Super Bowl as a fan is supposed to be the experience of a lifetime, a chance to break out multiple bottles of SPF 30.” First of all, isn’t going to the Super Bowl enough? It’s the freaking Super Bowl! As a player, that should be your ultimate goal, no matter where it is! Does Gene really think that players can’t afford to take their own vacations to exotic locales in the offseason? Not to mention, the NFL does offer this reward for good players, known as the Pro Bowl; which, incidentally, many players turn down invitations to! I guess tropical destinations aren't as important to players as Gene thinks they are. As a fan, seeing my team win the Super Bowl would be enough of a reward. Plus, if the point of the trip was to go to the beach, I’d go to the beach. On top of it all, whiny sports writers like Gene need to remember that they’re being paid to go to the Super Bowl and write crappy, unoriginal columns, so shut it.

►Speaking of football, I thought TMQ was gone until the fall, but he made a special appearance and wrote about why Bill Belichick should be suspended over Spygate. As usual, I have trouble disagreeing.

►Tom Friedman is terrific once again. He mentions Fareed Zakaria’s new book, which I think is great because in my senior seminar class at Mason, which was about globalization, one of the possibilities for a project was to come up with a TV show that would encourage dialogue between the West and the Islamic countries, and my choices for dream team hosts of this show were Friedman and Zakaria. Look for Zakaria’s book, “The Post-American World”.

►Finally, Ed Koch thinks that in the end (whenever that is), George W. will be seen in a similar light as Harry Truman: a President who leaves office with superbly low ratings, only to be reviewed later as justified in their fear (or realization) of a foreign aggression (the Soviets for Truman, extremist Islam for Bush). Koch also thinks that W’s Hitler comments were reasonable, and offers up the best explanation I have hear yet.

►In the mean time, the Yankees continue to free fall, although they pounded the Orioles yesterday. The Yankees have begun to stretch out Joba’s appearances in preparation to move him to the rotation. I am excited.

►Jon Lester’s no hitter was a great story and I am happy for him and his family. My challenge has been to try my hardest to not quickly hate the story, as SportsCenter had Lance Armstrong on the phone congratulating Lester and telling him what a fan he is, and various news outlets that Ted Kennedy watched Lester pitch and how significant that was. Guess what, people: it’s not significant. I take that back. It’s significant, but none more so than any other person in the world who has cancer watching Lester pitch. And the Armstrong call was just another example of how contrived and exploited everything becomes. If Armstrong had really wanted to call so badly, he would have done it in private. Do you really think that Lance Armstrong can’t get Jon Lester’s phone number, that he needed ESPN to hook them up?

►Exploiting loved ones is bad; exploiting loved ones who have asked specifically not to be exploited is worse; exploited loved ones who have asked specifically not to be exploited who are risking their lives in Iraq is even worse. I heard the story last week or whenever it was about the soldier whose phone accidentally called his parents’ house while he was in the middle of a fire fight and getting shot at. The parents weren’t home so a minutes-long message was left on their machine, so they had the displeasure of listening to their son call for backup, that he was out of ammo, that he was in trouble, and that an RPG was on its way right when the message cut off. They immediately called his post and got in touch with him some hours after the initial call; thank heavens that he and everyone he was with was reportedly fine. In that conversation, he asked his parents to “don’t tell Gramma”, he didn’t want anyone to be upset. And then the parents ran to the news station. Okay, to be fair I don’t know that they ran to the news station. But I do know that they are so dumb as to not see the irony in telling a news reporter that their son asked to not let his grandmother know what happened. Oh I get it. Maybe they knew Gramma was going to be at bingo when the news was going to be on so she’s miss it. That must have been it.

Morning Links

"I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year."

You're darn tootin' they will. Usually I'm against the media getting lazy/ier and drudging up old stories, especially when it feels like they're doing it just to be annoying, as they are with this story. However, I post the link because I had never heard the alternative explanation by the White House about the banner, and found it interesting. Regardless of whether the alternative explanation is accurate, it was still a horrible decision by whoever makes those decisions and someone should have said something. To create a loose analogy, someone said on a podcast I was listening to, about a movie's bad sound editing: "Even if you're the wardrobe director, not the sound editor, and you're watching the movie, and you notice that when the guy knocks on the door you don't hear the knock sound until he's done knocking, wouldn't you say something?" Was there no one who saw that banner and thought "Hmm, maybe this is a bad idea"?


It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away.

Again, an article that is written so crystal clearly and concisely that I feel like describing it too much would ruin it. Please read it. It's Friedman on the current state and possible near future of our national energy policy. I'm so glad he's off his book-writing sabbatical; that means he's writing articles again and, more importantly, the book is probably done.


From the "Throwing Jersey Matt Under the Bus" Department: Jersey Matt has some bold thoughts on Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and this is a formal, public request for him to put them to paper (or whatever) here, to which I will attempt to write a coherent response.