Saw it on Sky News (Fox's British sibling) here. Initial reports were in the mailroom, then it was in a classroom. Pretty obviously (to me) a disgruntled student (staffer, professor) situation to me - not international terrorism. Interesting how soon the talking heads made the connection to the Bush family and Yale, but not one word about the fact that former President Clinton and Senator Clinton are both graduates of Yale Law School. Not that either connection is relevant, but that noone notices the obvious.

My wife and I agree - the British are just the nicest people. Thank heavens we are part of the Anglosphere. Thank heavens that they are on our side.

I'm off to the UK today, and I expect that the security at the airports is going to be really tedious, what with the higher threat and everything. But if the threat is higher, shouldn't the threat advisory say something about it? Still yellow - elevated.

The Saudis are saying that something may happen there or here, which one could ascribe to seeking to point fingers away from them. But according to the Fox News bit linked above, the FBI is saying it, too. Seems like if there really is an increase in the threat, the threat advisory should go up. Instapundit links to a World Net Daily (!) article that says the advisory thing is all politics. I don't think it is ALL politics, but there is certainly some measure of responding to the public mood, which is political almost by definition, though not in the "partisan advantage" way people think of as politics.

I suspect that the threat to the US reported by the Saudis and FBI is bogus. I am sure there is "chatter" out there saying that they want to do something here, but they don't have the capability to do it. They can only reach Saudi Arabia, where they live.

I know, hope is not a strategy, but I hope I'm right.

UPDATE: It's not political, and hope doesn't float. And Blogspot is acting up again. Poop.

Josh Marshall has a curious view of what democracy is.

I decided I needed to watch the original film so I could get the references that I couldn't remember. Seems the only thing I remembered distinctly from the original film was the lobby scene. I can't remember when or where I saw the original - was it in a theater or on video or what. Weird. Anyway, some things did make more sense after viewing the first film, but other stuff becomes discontinuous. Like the timeline, but I could come up with plausible explanations for that given the world the movie is set in. But the part about Mouse is just, uh, confusing, after watching the first one. Maybe I needed to outside reading of the graphic novels to understand it.

Regardless, it doesn't take away from the enjoyment of the film. And any review that says it is more of the same needs to go back and see the original.

Again, no spoilers, but the Frenchy bad guy - how great is that?

Anika Sorenstram is going to play in a PGA tournament. Which is fine. Great, even.

Now what would be said if Tiger went to play in the LPGA?

You are going to lose. Why? Because you think you need to have an effective message on national defense.

No. No "message." You need to to defend our nation. You need to want to defend our nation. You have to feel like our nation deserves to be defended. That isn't a message. Its a belief. And if you don't believe those things, your message can't be credible, no matter how good you are at faking sincerity.

UPDATE: Patrick Ruffini says they got trouble, too, but he uses numbers and maps and stuff.

Saw some bit on the news about President Roh of South Korea visiting the President, and everything is hunkydory. David Frum gives the backstory over at NRO:

For the decade since North Korea’s blackmail campaign began in 1993, those 40,000 US troops on the peninsula have stayed put, under the North’s guns. Now suddenly we learn that American forces will be redeploying in the south – out of reach of the North’s guns, but close enough to be used as a striking force if need be. South of the Han River, those forces cease to be hostages, and become again dangerous and deadly fighters. Bush’s drab communiqué is the first giant step toward regaining the ability to fight effectively in Northeast Asia. After ten years of chatter, we’re getting a decisive action, and in vivid, blunt Bush trademark style. Well done.

Sweet.

Saw it last night here in Idaho. It's cool, and worth seeing. But you were going anyway. And Stephen Hunter knows guns but doesn't get the cars right, so don't believe him on this one.

You really don't want to mess with Neil Cavuto. (Spotted at Andrew Sullivan.)

Interestingly, some dissension in the ranks about the coverage - some folks (like Michele, and Jeff Jarvis, and Charles Johnson) argue that there isn't enough coverage, and that is a bad thing, because now we are blase to terrorism. Other folks like Glenn Reynolds and Joe Katzman think that there isn't much coverage, but that's okay, because this bombing is a last gasp, and doesn't deserve much attention.

I disagree with all of them - I don't believe that the coverage of this terrorist attack is being ignored by the media - at least not on cable news. I'm here in Idaho, and MSNBC and CNN (no Fox here) have been covering this since it happened. Sure, we still get girls gone bad in Chicago and Lori Pederson and the mother in Texas, too, but the lead story is still in Saudi Arabia.

This bombing is most like the Khobar towers attack in 96 - I think people have short memories, because we certainly didn't have wall-to-wall coverage of that, because it was something that happened a long way away, and we certainly didn't do anything in retribution for that. So I think this event is getting more coverage than it would have prior to 9/11, but it doesn't get 9/11 or Battle of Iraq kind of coverage because it isn't that scale of an event. Glenn and Joe are right that the fact this attack occurred in Saudi Arabia is a sign that we are winning against these guys - sure, it would be better not to hear from al Qaeda at all, but they are reduced to attacking where they live, not where we live, and they don't go after the hard military targets, but soft civilian ones. This is not to pooh pooh the lives that were lost, but this shows weakness on their part, not a show of strength. I saw some talking heads droning on about how this was a big operation, and had obviously taken a lot of planning. It did take funding, but it didn't take a huge planning cell to load trucks up with explosives and drive them into areas with unarmed guards and blow them up.

The political response to this is kind of interesting. I saw Pat Buchanan on the Buchanan and Press show (it was on when I turned on the TV - it wasn't by choice) defending the Saudis, and laying the blame on Israel and President Bush. I just saw Democratic Presidential candidate and Florida Senator Bob Graham blame President Bush for this attack by taking on Iraq. But I have heard Democrats and Republicans both pointing out that Saudi Arabia is acting in bad faith in the War on Terror, and we need to deal with them as enemies. I haven't heard anyone suggest military action yet, but we do have a couple hundred thousand troops just across the border and freedom of action in Iraq. The real test for President Bush will be whether he is strong enough in his principles to take on "our good friends" the Saudis.

One unsettling note - Mrs. Blaster told me she saw lots of emergency vehicles headed into DC earlier today, and had heard on local radio that there was concern about future al Qaeda attacks there - not just in the Middle East. I haven't seen that on cable, or on the net anywhere. Dunno if there was some part of the big exercise going on in Seattle and Chicago in DC, or what. If we really are concerned about an attack in DC, then I'm wrong - very wrong.

Looks the Left is going all medieval on itself, too. I don't normally tread those boards, but where Jonah links, I must follow. In this case, a liberal blogger, Michael Totten, says that the Left needs to get a grip. A point he makes on other posts on his page, too.

In part, his argument is part of the old soft-headed v hard-hearted school, where liberals just care too dang much too, well, care about the consequences of their caring, and that conservatives are just too mean, so whether they are right doesn't matter. Sure, that oversimplifies the case, and Totten wrote an awful lot for that sentence to cover, but Patrick Ruffini spends more words covering it, and gives Totten credit for observing the problem.

Totten observes, but I think fails to understand. Recognizing this:

Radical leftists think the Bush Administration is like the Nazi Party for one specific reason. They haven’t studied the rise of the Nazis. They truly believe the comparison is apt not because they misunderstand Republicans, but because they misunderstand Hitler.

is important, but understanding why this is is a different story. Totten seems to see this as the cause of the problem, and the remedy for ignorance is to educate. If you understood Hitler, then you wouldn't make this comparison.

But that assumes that the folks making these comparisons are even interested in something like that. If you use the logic Hitler = bad, Bush = bad, therefore Hitler = Bush, it really doesn't change anything to make someone realize that Hitler did truly awful, unspeakable things, and that Bush is not doing those things. Because the purpose of making the comparison is to make Bush look bad. If you make a distinction, then you need a new rhetoric that you need to explain to people why Bush is bad.

For the Far Left, then, education does not help them. It merely takes away from their argument. They do not want to learn, so it isn't a realistic remedy. But there is a problem with the vast middle, that is not ideologically nailed down, and isn't all that educated about the rest of the world, not because they don't care, or because they are "builders," but because they just don't learn it. What they learn is that people everywhere are really the same, that a foreign culture is not better or worse, it is merely different. And probably, deep down, not really different, because people are all the same.

As a result, if an Iraqi exile says that Hussein is like Hitler, then his words can be discounted, because it is a mere political dispute, and heck, people here call our guy like Hitler, so why should this critique stir me? They probably just mean he wants to cut taxes or reduce the growth of school lunch or something like that. If I am not that involved in this country's debate on that, why should I be that involved with that country's?

And as for the argument that conservatives criticism of the Left as Communists as a misunderstanding of the Left, well, that is just plain wrong. The Left misunderstands Communists - it is the Left that loves Castro and Daniel Ortega an all that. It is the folks with the "Bush=Hitler" posters that are marching in protests organized by the World Workers' Party. I don't see why the Left would even take the comparison with Communists as a criticism.

Noone on the Right makes the argument that Naziism could be a fine system if the right people did it, or if it was just given a chance. Noone on the Right proudly holds up Mein Kampff (okay, I guess there are some that do, but one would have to admit that they are way fringier than the Karl Marx or Little Red Book people on the Left) as a lesson for how things should be.

Again, this equivalence of Far Right = Nazis, Far Left = Communists puts the Left in a better light because Naziism has managed to earn the whole world's condemnation. Communism still manages to capture the adoration of some. Steven Spielberg did Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, but he had dinner with Castro and found him one of the most interesting men in the world.

So I suppose it is nice that someone recognizes that being tied to the "Bush had Wellstone murdered" crowd is a bad thing, but not very useful. As part of the double standard out there, the Right is required to denounce those who might agree with their agenda but go beyond the pale in advancing it, but the Left never is.

Like I said, life isn't fair, just thought I would point it out.

So taking some time to cruise my blogroll, and now that the heavy lifting of beating back the "anti-idiotarians" is done, looks like the blogosphere is starting to have a civil war on the right/libertarian faultline. Clubbeaux and SDB and Michele are going at it about the existence of God, and Rachel Lucas doesn't want to be thought of as conservative, either.

Seems to me that this all really started around the Santorum thing, then got compounded by the Bill Bennett thing. In the calm after the storm, the anti-idiotarian side of the blogosphere is fractionating (yes, that's a word, you can look it up).

Can't we all just get along?

Just no posting for a bit. Travelling, and slow news, and post-war decompression. Of course, it isn't really post-war - the War on Terror is still ongoing, Post battle of Iraq, then.

Did spend a little time computer shopping, though - going to move my personal computing into the 21st Century. Current home system is a PII that has upgraded and accreted stuff over the years, but no longer is up to the task. Moving into a P4 Sony VAIO with all kinds of goodies, including the TiVo like GigaPocket. Now maybe my USB will work!

I think I know why the "so-and-so has moved from Blog*Spot to MT" post is such a staple in the sphere. Grrrr again.

The negative buzz about the President landing on the carrier. I get it over at Andrew Sullivan's - as long as there is a Santorum reference on the page, there will be Bush bashing. Don't get Glenn Reynolds' objection, though. The President wasn't being partisan, he was being Presidential. Lincoln took a rowboat to Richmond and sat at Jefferson Davis' desk. No, it wasn't televised. But the troops saw it, and it was publicized.

Will this imagery make its way into the Presidential campaign of 2004? I am sure. Was that the purpose of it? I don't think so. It was a message, to all the audiences who could watch. To the troops: I am here for you. To the country: we are winning, and I will make sure of it. To our allies: I am committed to the United States, and you cannot sway me from its defense . To our enemies: check out this bad boy - I got 10 more just like it.

Who says that President Bush isn't nuanced?

UPDATE: If you don't read Rich Galen, you should. Plus he has some nice words about some celebrities.

UPDATE 2: Mike at Cold Fury has a roundup of comments.

Spotted on Drudge: US Report Says Terror Attacks Declined Sharply Last Year

The State Department says there were 199 terrorist attacks last year, a 44 percent drop from 2001 and the lowest figure in more than 30 years.

A lot of people think that it is not possible to succeed in defeating terrorism. The truth is, no, we can't stop every terrorist act that is ever going to happen. But we can eliminate organizations, and states, that conduct terrorist acts or support them. A dead terrorist cannot harm us - no replacement magically springs from the ground, and martyrdom is not nearly so powerful as a living person with a gun or a bomb. If martyrdom were as powerful as some think, al Qaida leaders were be shooting themselves in the head instead of hiding from US bombs. But they don't, because the truth is that they know martyrdom doesn't help them.