Best of the Web Today... Today

Your Faithful and Humble Blogster got a mention in the Big Time today (at the end):

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They said yesterday that the original of the Petr Ginz drawing was lost in the shuttle disaster; I wrote and told them it was only a copy. Apparently, lots of other folks wrote them about it, too: the list is unusually long, I think.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 02/03/03 06:01:50 PM
Categorized as Other.

"The Kiss-Me-Kate Democrats"

In a column dated Jan. 28, Brent Bozell addresses the appalling, boot-licking hypocrisy of MM when it comes to Democratic politicians prostrate before left-wing pro-abortion extremists:

.... On January 21, the militant pro-abortion group "Naral Pro-Choice America" held an abortion-affirming dinner. Their leader, the ever-shrill Kate Michelman, laid down her marching orders. Every judicial nominee who ever stood in the way of a 12-year-old getting an abortion without telling her mother must be filibustered and defeated. And there on stage were six kiss-me-Kate Democrats, all tap-dancing on her hard line: Howard Dean, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and Al Sharpton.

Just how far out on the fringe can we find the Michelman agenda? The latest Gallup poll tells us only 24 percent favor abortion for any reason. Another 14 percent think it should be "legal under most circumstances." Add those together and you get barely a third of public opinion. The other side now carries the majority: 18 percent want abortion completely illegal, and 42 percent say "illegal under most circumstances." That 60 percent can elect a president – easily.

And yet the Democrats are all chasing that 24 percent, the abortion-on-demand fringe, with absolutely zero fear that they’ll look "out of the mainstream" to the American people. Why? Because they know the Democratic primaries are dominated by feminist pro-abortion militants, and so are the "mainstream" media....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 02/03/03 12:06:31 PM
Categorized as John Kerry & Media & Political.

And Some Wonder Why....

From Reuters, Saturday:

Immediate popular reaction in Baghdad on Saturday to the loss of the U.S. space shuttle Columbia and its seven-member crew -- including the first Israeli in space -- was that it was God's retribution.

"We are happy that it broke up," government employee Abdul Jabbar al-Quraishi said.

"God wants to show that his might is greater than the Americans. They have encroached on our country. God is avenging us," he said....

From The Jerusalem Post, yesterday:

God punished the space shuttle Columbia because its crew, which included an Israeli astronaut, was on an espionage mission against the Arab and Muslim nations, some Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip told The Jerusalem Post today.

Many did not share the feelings of their leaders, such as Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat who offered his condolences to the US over the Columbia tragedy.

"They were sent to space to spy on the Arabs and Muslims,"said Rudainah Salman, a 28-year-old schoolteacher from Ramallah. "I have no sympathy for the astronauts because they were doing something bad to us. Allah punished them because of their bad intentions. I hate the Americans and the Israelis because of what they are doing to our people."

Salim Najjar, a mosque preacher from a village near Jerusalem, told a group of Muslim worshippers that a "divine omnipotence" was behind the tragedy....

From Arab News, yesterday:

.... “Once again we see that space technology can fail,” Bruce Gagnon, international coordinator for the Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, told Arab News last night. “I’m troubled because the Bush Administration has recently announced a program called the ‘Nuclear Systems Initiative’, a $1 billion research and development program to expand the launching of nuclear power into space. The problem is that as you increase the numbers of launches carrying nuclear payloads into space, but you are also going to dramatically increase the chances of a catastrophic Chernobyl in the sky.”

Asked why NASA was advising extreme precaution at the crash sites, Gagnon said: “We haven’t heard that there was a nuclear payload on this shuttle, but one of the great hallmarks of the Bush administration is increased secrecy. I must admit that when NASA said no one should go near a site because of the toxic potential of the fuels and ‘other reasons,’ I couldn’t help but wonder what those reasons are.”

Due to cuts in NASA’s budget in recent years, NASA has been forced to turn to the Pentagon for increased funding, said Gagnon. The result is that the space shuttles are now also NASA missions and carry both military and civilian technologies.

“What you have now is the military takeover of the space program. NASA is not just about gazing at the stars, it now also has a political and military agenda.” What is of concern, he said, is that the Pentagon in now working on a program called the “Space Based Laser.” “Its nickname is the ‘Death Star,’ and its job is to destroy other country’s satellites, and also hit targets on the Earth below. NASA hopes to have the first operational tests by 2016 or 2017,” Gagnon explained.

“This would give the US full control and domination of space and the earth below, because whoever controls space will control the Earth.” ....

And some wonder why we think that so many of them bear nothing but ill will towards us; that so many of them scheme malevolent plans against us; that so many of them are waiting and watching for the opportunity to wreak havoc and ruin upon us.

Why wonder?

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 02/03/03 11:51:03 AM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.

Bush and Reagan on Shuttle Disasters

Dr. Cline of Rhetorica has a side-by-side display of President George W. Bush's address (02/01/2003) after the Columbia disaster and President Ronald Reagan's address (01/28/1986) after the Challenger disaster.

P.S. Peggy Noonan relates some of the genesis of Reagan's speech, from which one may gather that she had a hand in writing it:

.... The morning the Challenger blew up, President Reagan was meeting with a handful of network anchors, giving them a preview of his State of the Union address, which was to be given that night. The president got the news of the explosion and spoke of the tragedy with the anchors, who asked him questions. Their conversation was witnessed by a staffer in the National Security Council, who took notes. She ran them into the speechwriting office. The notes became the basis of the Challenger speech, which the president gave later that day....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 02/03/03 08:30:52 AM
Categorized as Literary & Ronald Reagan.