Trump, the Democrats, Syria and Iran

Interesting article that claims that President Trump may have prevented a war with Iran by withdrawing our troops from Syria. This paragraph really got my attention (and my blood pressure up):

"People should remember that in the height of the Nixon Watergate Impeachment tumult during late 1973/early 1974 culminating in Nixon's resignation in August 1974, the North Vietnamese reneged on the Nixon Paris Peace Accords, and Saigon fell soon thereafter, in April 1975. G-d only knows what will happen because of Democrats' paralyzing of an American President while the world is in flames."

Now I hesitate to draw any comparisons between Trump and Nixon and I would also hesitate to use the description that "the world is in flames" but there's a special place in hell for those of either political party who claim to be acting on behalf of world peace or downtrodden folks in foreign lands when they are only acting in the interests of their own domestic political agenda. A special place in hell!

Do you remember the plight of the "boat people"?

Remember how eager the press was to hear from General Mattis prior to his recent book tour when they thought he was going to speak badly about President Trump? Remember how quickly they dropped any interest in him when they learned it was President Obama who was slammed in the new book?

Remember the 24/7 news cycle about how "Trump was abandoning the Kurds" and the predicted horrors that awaited those poor people? Can you remember any of those horrors coming to pass? And you know if they did come to pass it would have been an orgy of coverage. Instead we got fake news footage from a  Kentucky shooting range. 

Remember how Libya is now a failed nation-state because of the actions of President Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? Slavery is now an accepted practice in what used to be Libya! Talk about horrors (horrors you won't learn about on the MSM).

I remember! And I hope you do too! A SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL!

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Libya is an absolute mess

- Heh heh - "Profanity Pop" art

- How Harry Potter shaped a generation

- Joe Posnanski has a nice story of the first time he met Tom Glavine

- As far as I'm concerned Israel has nothing to apologize for

- Such an awesome photo

- Gotham looks like a good TV show (too bad I cancelled cable)

- Impressed by how well read Bill Hader is

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Libya is a mess. Another example of "smart diplomacy"

- Very cool finger paintings

- A scuba diver and a moray eel have an incredible relationship dating back to 1974

- Lost episode of Seinfeld - Elaine buys a gun (if it was Elaine gets an abortion would it have been OK?)

- This actually looks like a pretty cool event

The War in Libya

Interesting article on the Obama Administration not dealing with the issue of if what the military is doing in Libya is war. Even FDR had to get Congressional approval to declare war on Japan after Pearl Harbor but Obama seems to see no such necessities.

The ideas of fairness and common sense seem to elude the Obama Administration. I know that if Libya was bombing us the way we are bombing them - I would say we were at war. I know that if this was a Republican President the press would literally be screaming bloody murder. I know that if this was a Republican President we would be seeing Code Pink demonstrations almost every night on the network news. Senator Obama would have been among the most vocal critics.

In terms of common sense - the US has no real strategic or critical interests at play in Libya. Some NATO nations do (oil rights) and the President allowed himself to be played by these countries. The President can't even reasonably explain why we are doing what we are doing or even what it is we are doing. That opens up a huge issue that the left wing of his own party will use against him in 2012. Remember - Jimmy Carter didn't lose to Ronald Reagan so much as Carter was mortally wounded politically by a challenge from Ted Kennedy.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

It will be interesting to see who posts better offensive numbers as a C/1B this season - Mike Napoli or Victor Martinez... Sad to say but I think if 100 Americans were asked where the Island of Libya is located on the globe at least half wouldn't argue with you about Libya not actually being an island... The things you learn from the Internet: Sobering statistics for the day - Causes of death worldwide in March 2011 - Starvation 3,000,000; Malaria 250,000; Car Crash 100,000; Earth Quakes and Tsunamis less than 28,000... Who knew? I always assumed Bon Scott was the original lead singer for AC/DC but that honor actually goes to a guy named Dave Evans. He was replaced by Scott after a year... You don't see the media going out of their way to interview Cindy Sheehan now that Bush is out of office. If I was Fox News I would have her on to see what her thoughts are on Libya and if she thinks her pain and suffering were used for political purposes. My guess is that it would take very little to get her to call President Obama a "chickenhawk"... If Clifford the Big Red Dog got so big because of Emily Elizabeth's love - does that mean Chihuahua's are so small because of racist hate?... April 4 is an important day in computer history. On that day in 1975 Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen and 19 years later in 1994 Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark founded Netscape. The creation of the Internet browser will go down in history as one of the more important developments in technology. Michael Lewis included the story of the founding of Netscape in his overlooked book The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

It made the news recently that there was an app that supposedly helped homosexuals pray away the gay. Some people have now noticed that the app store no longer has that app and I just wanted people to know that the gay conversion thru prayer app wasn't yanked - I prayed it away!... Dude puts on scuba gear, jumps into TSUNAMI, dodges debris, finds his house and his wife and saves her. For his next trick he will kick Chuck Norris' ass with one-hand tied behind his back... My new "10 Inch Penis through Prayer" App is going to make me rich!... Charlie Brooker on the Media's Japan coverage. I haven't seen this Charlie Brooker before but he seems pretty funny... "'When I use a word,' Barack Obama said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." The quote is actually from Humpty Dumpty but you easily could see Barack saying it - couldn't you?... I've been thinking about this shot a lot lately. 30th anniversary of most famous shot in BYU history: Ainge's end-to-end dash... Even Lefties like Sam Simon are abandoning Barack Obama over Libya. This was a Tweet from Simon the other day:

The only thing I can think of that explains what Obama's doing in Libya: Gadhafi has his real birth certificate.

Saddam had Baghdad Bob - does Qaddafi have a Tripoli Timmy?... The damning contradictions of Obama's attack on Libya... Semi-kidding but is it too early to call American involvement in Libya a quagmire? The press didn't wait this long to declare Iraq a quagmire... Very cool - skiing with a jetpack... In 1981 BYU makes it to the Sweet 16 while the best Notre Dame basketball team in ages gets upset in 2nd round. That same week REO Speedwagon hits #1 with its hit Keep on Loving You. Now 30 years later BYU is back in the Sweet 16, Notre Dame has its best team in 30-years beaten in the 2nd round and Rebecca Black comes out with a song that is as bad and as popular as Keep on Loving You... Cool - Ballhawks: The Obsession of Catching a Home Run Ball Outside Wrigley. Narrated by Bill Murray.

Libya and Broadcast News

Muammar Gaddafi and Libya have been in the news the past few days. Normally when I think of Libya or Gaddafi - I think of three things:

1. The US Marines (and the shores of Tripoli)
2. Ronald Reagan ordering the bombing of Libya in response to the bombing of a West Berlin disco which killed two American servicemen
3. The 1987 movie Broadcast News where Tom's big break comes during an emergency involving a Libyan fighter pilot bombing a US base in Egypt

I was looking for the quote in the movie where they described Gaddafi as "presidential" when I came across the entire script for the movie. Last night I was hooked - I had to read the whole thing. I came away surprised.

I've seen the movie perhaps a dozen times and my take-away has always been that the movie was a defense of journalistic ethics and the demise of those ethics in modern TV media. I am not sure if it was even intentional but reading the actual script you can't come away not liking Tom Grunick. The people defending journalistic ethics come off as jerks who are more likely defending their intellectual superiority more than anything else.

Tom is written as everyman - except much better looking. He becomes successful not just because he's good looking though but because he's a decent person who treats people with respect. In the script Tom gets an important source of hard news because he simply treats the person nicely while Aaron (Albert Brooks in the movie) is dismissive of the person as not worth his time. While others treat the female reporter Jennifer as a tramp who slept her way to her position - Tom treats her as the girl next door. The assistant producer who is the butt of everyone’s joke he treats with respect. He’s the only one to ask the opinion of the guy who runs the editing machine. In the script Aaron is taken aback when Tom helps him because such camaraderie is foreign to him. Tom is the only decent person (besides his father) in the script.

Aaron ends up thinking Tom is the Devil because in his world the Golden Rule doesn't apply when you always consider yourself the smartest person in the room.

I couldn't help but think how much has changed since the movie came out in 1987. A Tom Grunick couldn't exist today because the role and influence of broadcast news has been so diminished. A Tom Grunick of today probably would have stayed in sports and if the movie Broadcast News came out today it would be a complete flop.