Say Anything Blog

They’ve taken over the Weather Channel...can HGTV be far behind?

Why doesn’t Reginald Maudling do something?

The Iraqi Government has issued a warrant for the arrest of an apparently very real Capt. Hussein, the subject of much wailing and gnashing of teeth on some conservative blogs I frequent.

Does this mean that the big trip to Iraq is off?

But wasn’t he a president of the United States? I don’t know if anyone here has any pull with this Goode fellow but somebody should tell him to sit down and take some quiet time.

Spanish bears that is. It seems that some 130 of them in northern Spain haven’t been hibernating the past few years.

“If the winter is mild, the female bears find it is energetically worthwhile to make the effort to stay awake and hunt for food,” said Guillermo Palomero, the FOP’s president and the co-ordinator of a national plan for bear conservation. This changed behaviour, he said, was probably a result of milder winters. “The high Cantabrian peaks freeze all winter, but our teams of observers have been able to follow the perfect outlines of tracks from a group of bears,” he said.

Another interesting data point to consider in the debate over global warming.

Jim Rutz lays out an alarming story at WND.

The dangerous food I’m speaking of is soy. Soybean products are feminizing, and they’re all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore.

Who knew?

I recently referred to the GWOT as a “marketing strategy” because terror is a tactic and we are fighting against terrorists, not a tactic. It seems that Mr. Rumsfeld has similar thoughts:

I don’t think I would have called it the war on terror. I don’t mean to be critical of those who have. Certainly, I have used the phrase frequently. Why do I say that? Because the word ‘war’ conjures up World War II more than it does the Cold War. It creates a level of expectation of victory and an ending within 30 or 60 minutes of a soap opera. It isn’t going to happen that way. Furthermore, it is not a ‘war on terror.’ Terror is a weapon of choice for extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and (through) a small group of clerics, impose their dark vision on all the people they can control. So ‘war on terror’ is a problem for me.

The entire interview is posted at Townhall. I rarely agree with Rumsfeld but I do appreciate his respect for the English language.

The Canadian Press reports

OTTAWA (CP) - The last major threat to same-sex marriage rights in Canada was soundly defeated in the House of Commons on Thursday, with MPs sending the message they don’t want to revisit the emotional, divisive debate.

The late Pierre Elliott Trudeau once said that “the State has no business in the bedrooms of the nation”. The House of Commons has affirmed that view and once again fans of limited government can raise a toast and tip their hats to the eminently wise nation of Canada.

Hoorah! Hoorah!

Anyone who played Mario on NES will get a chuckle out of this.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Robert Gates, U.S.
President George W. Bush’s choice to run the
Pentagon, said on Tuesday America was not winning in
Iraq and the next year or two would determine whether the Middle East explodes into violence.

Asked by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan if the United States was winning in Iraq, Gates replied: “No, sir.”

There’s no shortage of SA readers who think that the battle in Iraq is being won...maybe this Gates nomination should be rethought.

It appears that Iraqis would prefer foreign troops leave their country sooner rather than later. It’s possible that the poll is biased although I’m pretty sure that Republicans are not underrepresented in this one.

BURIED WITHIN a recent government brief in the case of Guantanamo Bay inmate Majid Khan is one of the more disturbing arguments the Bush administration has advanced in the legal struggles surrounding the war on terrorism. Mr. Khan was one of the al-Qaeda suspects who was detained in a secret prison of the CIA and subjected to “alternative” interrogation tactics—the administration’s chilling phrase for methods most people regard as torture. Now the government is arguing that by subjecting detainees to such treatment, the CIA gives them “top secret” classified information—and the government can then take extraordinary measures to keep them quiet about it. If this argument carries the day, it will make virtually impossible any accountability for the administration’s treatment of top al-Qaeda detainees. And it will also ensure that key parts of any military trials get litigated in secrecy.

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has posted most interesting study called The Militant Ideology Atlas. The data base identifies key intellectuals in the jihadist movement and presents the texts and sources commonly cited in jihadist circles. The main report is more than 4 MB but the Executive Report is just under a meg...I’m sure it will make for interesting reading on a rainy day.

Not very civil of her...would this constitute an act of treason in American law?

Somebody mentioned George Orwell the other day and this quote of his came to mind:

All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.

I know I’m guilty of it at times as are others I’m sure.