chamomile

From DANEgerus:

The professor told his class one day: "Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, also sending another copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph and so on back-and-forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is be absolutely NO talking outside of the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."

The following was actually turned in by two of his English students: Rebecca and Gary.
( first paragraph by Rebecca )
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating and if she thought about him too much that her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.

( second paragraph by Gary )
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far...." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the c0ckpit.

( Rebecca )
He bumped his head and died almost immediately but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped it's pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she wondered wistfully.

( Gary )
Little did she know but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow 'em out of the sky!"

( Rebecca )
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.

( Gary )
Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh, shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F$%*ING TEA??? Oh no, I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels!"

( Rebecca )
A-hole.

( Gary )
B*tch

( Rebecca )
F**K YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!

( Gary )
Go drink some tea - *****.

( TEACHER )
A+ - I really liked this one

When is it ok to use the troops?

Ace says:

It is strange, but here's how liberals think:

If there is a strategic advantage to America taking military action against a corrupt and murderous regime, we must not do so. The mission may be justifiable on moral grounds, but the possibility that America herself will gain from taking the action taints it too much to even comtemplate.

Meanwhile, if there is absolutely no possible selfish national-security benefit to be gained for America, the left is pretty comfortable with putting our soldiers in harm's way. Haiti, Bosnia, Dafur. Each of these presents a strong case for intervention on moral grounds alone-- without any appreciable strategic benefit to America. As there is no chance that America may benefit from such interventions, the left supports risking our soldiers' lives and limbs to intervene.

They're so fearful of Enemy America that they would rather innocents suffer than so much as risk America gaining in some way from a use of force.

Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life

Everyone knows that "pro-choice" is doublespeak for "pro-abortion" and that "pro-life" is doublespeak for "anti-abortion," but I find the phrasing itself interesting. Is it not the case, assuming an issue has two sides, that every pro has a con? If you are pro- one thing, then you must be anti- its opposite. So if pro-choice and pro-life are the opposing sides on the abortion issue, then pro-choice must be anti-life, and pro-life must be anti-choice. Is it life in general that those who support abortion on demand oppose? I don't think so. Apparently, it is only the lives of unborn and unwanted babies that those of the pro-choice group are against. Is it choice in general that those who oppose abortion on demand are against? I don't think so. Apparently, it is only a woman's choice to kill an unborn and unwanted baby that the pro-life group opposes. It is certainly not a man's choice - in most states a man's wife can abort her baby and doesn't even have to notify her husband. (So much for "reproductive rights.") Are the two views mutually exclusive? I don't think it is possible to be pro-choice and pro-life at the same time, though many men dodge the question entirely with a logic something like, "I can't get pregnant so who am I to judge?" Many people, perhaps even a majority, would say that abortion isn't so bad if it's in the first few months, but an atrocity if done in the final months of pregnancy. Is this attitude both pro-choice and pro-life?

Figure out what the Left wants then do the opposite

I think Bill Hobbs is on to something. And while he's at it, W should figure out what al Qaeda wants and do the opposite of that, too. And so should the "American" mainstream media. They wouldn't necessarily have to be pro-Bush, but would it hurt their ratings to at least pretend to not be on the same side as the people who want us all dead?

War of Words

From the Daily Dispatch:

The main stream media are willing accomplices in conducting psychological operations against the American people to undermine support for the Counter-Jihad. Former Marine Sgt. J.D. Johannes at Daily Dispatch writes: I have concluded, based both on my experience, and the reports of other newsmen, that an unconscionable amount of what we in the press have been feeding the American public regarding the war in Iraq is fashioned by the propaganda arms of our enemies. Ba’athist kidnappers and Jihadi bombers are planning their operations not to win the war in Iraq, but to win it in America. To that end, they are assessing what American reporters are willing to cover, and what American news organizations are willing to risk. Stated simply: Al Qaida is not even trying to win the war on the ground anymore. It is attempting to win the war in the press.

Quagmire

Maybe it's time to withdraw from Baltimore, and Atlanta, and Washington DC. After 230 years of fighting, maybe it's time to admit that the American Revolutionary War is unwinnable.

This chart comes from Rep. Steve King of Iowa. One problem with these numbers however: The figure for Iraq is not actually the "violent death rate". It is the rate of violent death from war. To get a "violent death rate" for Iraq one would need to add in the civil homicide rate. On the other hand, CNN and BBC do not distinguish between innocent "people" and terrorist "militants" normally, so maybe the numbers in the chart are accurate. Besides, terrorists (those blowing up and decapitating civilians in Iraq) are just criminals, right?

Ignorance is a plague

Iraq the Model is one of my favorite blogs. In this post, Mohammed has to endure a conversation with several men in a barber shop. He is frustrated by the mentality of the average Iraqi in Baghdad, and I can't help but notice that the problems Iraqis face are, in some respect, similar to problems here in the US:

...the guys were convinced that everybody wants to kill them supporting this belief with rumors and conspiracy theories that simple minded people love; they relieve the mind off the duty of making any effort to find answers and it allows them to not have to blame themselves for anything that goes wrong.
An Iraqi finds it so hard to admit his mistakes, not only that, he doesn't even want to review his history...

Ignorance is a plague nurtured by turbans that lack logic and knowledge and by media and political analysts who are keen to keep the people misinformed and to which truth is an enemy.

See... we're not so different.

"Just to be different"

From TBOTW:

Cliff May writes:

To win--in the eyes of the media--the insurgents don't have to take the city or the airport or the radio station. All they have to do is commit an act of random terrorism. They can count on the media directing outrage not at them but at President Bush. Bush--not they--is responsible for the carnage.

And reader Marv Benson:

The al Qaeda document you reported on described the media strategy as one in which al Qaeda bombs and the media blames the U.S. and Iraqi forces for not stopping it. Sure enough, that is exactly the spin that the Washington Post puts on the Tal Afar story. Shouldn't they at least acknowledge that they are following the enemy's script?

Just to be different, how about discussing the wickedness of fooling noncombatants into thinking they are getting bargain flour so that they can be murdered and be part of a story attacking people not responsible for their murder?

Speaking truth to power

It is interesting to me that seemingly the bravest people I know, those who really are speaking truth to power at great personal risk, are women. What am I talking about? Just watch .

Clinton's legacy

Kosovo was supposed to be the "good war," the one liberals didn't complain about hardly at all (compared to the screeching over Iraq - the "bad war"), the one where the US had moral authority, the war of the social worker. Absolutely no one could argue that Kosovo was a threat to US security prior to our going in and bombing the crap out of all those Serbs. Well, it is seven years later now, and guess what? Kosovo is now the slave-trade capital of Europe:

The Albanian mafia has set up a real cartel on prostitution. It handles more than 65 percent of the trafficking in women in the Balkans." From 2004: "In Kosovo, as many as 80 percent of internally trafficked victims are children."
The response of international bureaucrats to this disgrace is predictable: ignore it and hope nobody notices. Or even better, pretend all is going well, declare the mission a success -- and hand power over to the criminals as the new sovereign "government."
If that happens, even the minimal interference in the Kosovo-based gangs' operations will be removed. A criminal state not seen since the defunct Taliban regime in Afghanistan will be set up with easy proximity to the rest of Europe.

Bias Schmias

Interesting comment (easily verified via Lexis-Nexis) from Dafydd (Patterico's post noting blatant bias in the LAT is good, too):

Pat, this is one of those “perfect storms” of bias that are so clear, even James Carville would be forced to recognize them.

Here’s one I saw a number of years ago. It begins in the 1980s: Ronald Reagan is president, and we’re ramping up the rhetoric against Iran, which is involved in the Iran-Iraq war.

During the middle of the night (D.C. time), two Iranian MiGs paint a couple of American Navy Tomcats — who promptly splash the MiGs. They duly report up the chain that they engaged and shot down two Iranian fighter jets.

It’s relayed to the Pentaton, from there to the National Security Advisor, who talks to the White House Chief of Staff… and the pair decide not to wake the president, since the incident is over. Instead, they tell him as soon as he comes downstairs in the morning.

When the news heard about this, they went ape: this proves, they shrieked, that Reagan is just a doddering old man, asleep on watch and mentally negligible to begin with, who’s already senile and has delegated away all the presidential authority to low-level flunkies (such as F-14 pilots and RIOs). They had a field day with the “hands-off” president snoozing his way through his second term.

Flash forward about six years. Bill Clinton is president. This time, a pair of Iraqi jets light up a couple of USAF F-16 Fighting Falcons… and swiftly become a duet of smoking holes in the ground. This, too, happens at zero-dark-thirty Washington time.

Again, the various folks in la Casablanca decide (rightly) not to bother waking the president; the incident is over, and there’s nothing he can do about it now in any event. They tell Clinton in the morning.

The news heard about it… and (I know, you’re way ahead of me) they inform the American people in story after story how this proves that Clinton is such a great and well-respected Commander in Chief that he’s not afraid to leave such decisions to the boots on the ground… or in this case, the butts in the cockpit.

A great leader delegates, intones Jennings, Rather, and Brokaw in near unison.

The media is against America and defends al Qaeda

Read this if you can stomach it. (See also, The Killing of Atwar Bahjat.) Even when one of their own is tortured and killed, they continue to defend the enemy and condemn ... us. The NYT and outlets like them are complicit in the unfathomable atrocities taking place. If Atwar Bahjat thought her friends in the media might at least sympathize with her over her inhuman murderers, she was wrong. On the contrary, our media goes out of its way to defend her butchers (way too nice a name for these subhuman shitstains). According to the NYT, "Mr. Zarqawi looked clean and plump," like jolly old Saint Nick. Meanwhile, the Times attacks Bush daily. I know it is a dumb question, but I have to ask it: Could we please at least stop debating about who the real monsters are? It's not us.