Rummaging Around

From my last post to this post, I'm not in much of a mood to write and opine away. However, I will direct you to what I think is interesting and let you link away.

First up is this column from John Podhoretz. It is a must read, as he explains why the media are acting like fools over Sharon unilaterally pulling out of Gaza. I loved this part:

The astonishing changes on the ground over the past 18 months are creating a new political dynamic between Israel and the Palestinians. The effort on the part of the press, the pundits and the Europeans to make the theoretical Maale Adumim issue a major scandal is an effort to deny the existence of this new political dynamic.

You do realize that this is what Clinton wanted so desperately to happen during his tenure? It was to be his one, true "legacy". Sorry dude, the legacy ended up being a certain blue Gap dress. What a waste.

Next up: More reasons to hate the United Nations. This piece is written by an eye-witness to the corrupt and abusive United Nations.

I arrived in Sierra Leone as a legal aid worker in the summer of 2003, one year after the release of a damaging report on sexual abuse in U.N. refugee camps in West Africa. Although the report's description of widespread sexual abuse had prompted Secretary General Kofi Annan to issue a strongly worded "zero tolerance" policy, I found abuse of a sexual nature almost every day -- zero compliance with zero tolerance, as one investigator was to write. U.N. leaders had simply not expended any effort beyond lip service to carry out this zero tolerance policy.

In fact, abuse at these camps went beyond sexual violations: Injustices of one sort or another were perpetrated by U.N. missions or their affiliated nongovernmental organizations every day in the camps I visited. Corruption was the norm, in particular the embezzlement of food and funds by NGO officials, which often left camp resources dangerously inadequate. Utterly arbitrary judicial systems in the camps subjected refugees to violent physical punishment or months in prison for trivial offenses -- all at the whim of officials and in the absence of any sort of hearing.

Go read it all - Isn't there a shortage of housing in Manhatten? Think of all the apartments we could convert from that one building. I'm all for it. The UN should go and headquarter in the Sudan to get the full flavor of the hell on earth they've allowed/facilitated to form.

Jonah Goldberg has a good post at The Corner on what a misfit Sy Hersh has always been become. I guess Sy thinks Michael Moore's methods are the way to go.

Of course, we can't go on too long without sticking a pitchfork in the dead horse John Kerry. Looks like he has taken to 'outing' real covert CIA agents in a public forum. Oh the tangled web we weave....

Now for those of us who held the faith, always believed the US was doing the right thing in Iraq and was doing it well. The WSJ takes a moment to reflect on what the naysayers were saying just one short year ago. It shows you why support at home is paramount for the success of any military campaign.

I would like to end this with an opportunity to remind everyone of your own delicate mortality. Here is a quote from the short newspaper clip (too old for a link) that was run five years ago in my hometown paper when my good friend suddenly died:

Lee said all he knew about the incident late Sunday was that Sanderson went off riding his horse and that sometime later the horse came back to the house without Sanderson. Lee said Sanderson's father went walking in the direction Sanderson had been riding and found him in a pasture near his house.

A perfectly healthy, athletic 39-year old football coach just slumps over and dies. Most probably from an aneurysm. That is purely my speculation, but it happens folks. All the time actually. No one is immune. Life is so incredibly delicate and fragile... my heart still mourns.