I thought I'd devote a post to a topic near and dear to my heart.  Today's topic is about the crying need for separate lines for men and women making retail purchases. One of the main reasons for the need for separate lines for men and women in almost any retail establishment is what I call the "Handbag Disassembly and Reassembly Cycle."

What is the "Handbag Disassembly and Reassembly Cycle"? Well, I'm glad you asked. It is most probably a symptom of a larger problem which we might call the "Transaction Prolonging Syndrome" or the "Economic Interaction Pleasure Cycle." More about those in another writeup.

The "Handbag Disassembly and Reassembly Cycle" is most readily observable in a coffee house or a fast food outlet or some other retail establishment where people are purchasing something at a point of sale station. It's probably most vexing, however, in a coffee house or fast food outlet.

First here's some background. Most handbags are owned and operated (notably without a license) by female human beings (girls, chicks, or women). Handbags contain a number of things which we Real Guys refer to as a bunch of stuff. In and among this stuff is the wallet which contains I.D.'s, financial transaction instruments (cash or credit cards), receipts from 1996, and other things.

When purchasing an item it would seem to anyone thinking logically that there is a sequence implied by the environment and the objective of the transaction. Here is a general outline:

1. Figure out what you want.

2. If it's something in the store that you are obligated to bring up to the register, remove it from the shelf and take it with you.

3. If there is a line get in it, otherwise proceed to step 4.

4. Open the handbag.

5. Pull out the wallet.

6. Be ready to purchase your order/item(s) by removing one or more of the financial instruments from the wallet (if there was no waiting line, this is the correct time to walk up to the point of sale location -- the cash register).

7. When it is your turn to purchase things, be ready with your order and finish the transaction as quickly as possible.

8. Take your change, receipt, and purchased items and get out of line.

9. Reassemble the wallet (or handbag) at some other location. NOTE: This is also where you wait for the items that have to be prepared, bagged, poured, sleeved, topped, shaken, stirred, or strawed.

Way too often, this totally logical and entirely understandable (and considerate) sequence of actions is inverted by handbag toting customers to the point of being unrecognizable. Here is a worst case scenario.

1. The handbag toting customer gets in line (often while talking on a cellular phone).

2. They wait in that line, often talking on the phone, until it is their turn.  NOTE:  They haven't bothered to read or even glance at the menu at this point.  

3. The handbag toter looks at the menu or list of possible purchases to attempt to figure out what she wants.  (There may be a reason -- not an excuse but a reason -- for some of this behavior.   I've noticed that it is at this point in an average Starbucks where some people can actually read the menu for the first time.  This is not Starbucks' fault.   If people weren't too vain to wear their glasses to correct their 20/200 vision then they may have been able to see the menu earlier and be ready with their order).  In a coffee house scenario, my recommendation is that people should narrow their choices to some form of decaf non-fat latte or mocha thing and quit trying to make it look like they are considering everything on the menu.

4. They have to take time to explain to the person on their cell phone that they are in a Starbucks and are at the register and are trying to make a purchase decision.

5. If there is something in the store that is on one of the storefront shelves, they ask to cashier to ring it up even if they have not actually taken it off the shelf and carried it with them. The cashier often asks them to go get the item and bring it to the register so that it can be scanned and rung up.

6. They explain this to the person on the cell phone and then go get the item.

7. They finally decide what they want and order.

8. Their order is wrung up.

9. The customer presses her hip up against the point-of-sale counter, cocks her shoulder to hold the cell phone between chin and shoulder, tells her cell phone conversation partner to hold on, hoists the handbag onto the counter, and opens at least three zippers to get into the handbag and find the wallet.  NOTE:  In a coffee house this can require so much counter space that a second customer can not approach the other cash register nearby.  Thus, the handbag person has effectively blocked all further commerce in the store for an extended period of time.  

10. She pulls out the wallet.

11. Now another decision must be made. Credit Card? Debit Card? Check? Cash? After mulling this over and discussing it with her cell phone conversation partner, she pull out a card of some sort.

12. The transaction is wrung up at least once (more than that if any "mind changing" takes place).

13. The need for a pen causes some more fumbling around in the handbag in spite of the fact that the cashier has offered the use of a perfectly good 19 cent Bic.

14. Things are bagged, a receipt is printed.

15. The card is put back in a slot in the wallet, the receipt is put in the wallet, the wallet is snapped shut, the wallet is put back in the handbag, and the three handbag zippers are rezipped shut.

16. The handbag is then slung back over the shoulder (which could hurt some people in the wrong circumstances) and the items in bags on the cashier's counter are picked up.

17. The cashier, after getting the attention of the customer during her cell phone conversation, politely informs the customer that her non-fat decaf latte will be put out at the Order Pickup area.

18. A full three seconds elapse before this sinks in and the customer moves out of the way.

Whew.

What's the answer to this problem? Education and separation.  Education may help return some of the offenders to civilized society.  The rest of us need to be protected from this problem by having retailers offer a separate line to people who aren't carrying a handbag (guys).

Spread the word. Stop the "Handbag Disassembly and Reassembly Cycle" before it consumes us all.

Remember, the half hour you save could save your life (if you get home before the traffic gets too heavy).

Take care out there.

 We at the Real Guy Entertainment and Culture Institute are often asked, “Which movies are the best Real Guy movies of all time?” In an effort to further the cinematic literacy of our readership we have come up with the definitive list. This “Top Ten Real Guy Movies of All Time” list was compiled from a survey of six of our own staff members (one of whom could only think of seven movies). It is authoritative. It is definitive (I know I said that already). It is final. No amendments, criticisms, or edits to this list will be accepted (unless they make sense to us).

What, you may ask, are the criteria for making the “Top Ten Real Guy Movies of All Time” list? This is an important question so we have invested the time and energy to make up an answer for it.

First, a movie has to have guys in it to make our list and, to be more specific, there has to be a strong male leading role. There are no films here that have exclusively female casts.

Second, the movie has to have been seen by somebody on our staff. Obscure German documentary films about Nietszche didn’t make the list. Sorry, all you Nietszche fans.

Third, it didn’t make the list if it was a French film. No French films have ever been Real Guy Movies.

Fourth, the movie has to have a minimum of “introspection.” We had to look this word up, because generally only introspective people know what introspection is. However, in our movies somebody has to take action after a short period of introspection. So, the balance is a small amount of introspection with a large amount of action (like you’d see in any Chuck Norris movie) as opposed to a large amount of introspection and a relatively small amount of action (like “Hamlet”).

Fifth, the movie has to be instructive in the ways of Real Guyness. You either have to learn how to handle weapons or big tools, dispatch bad guys, face down bullies, or pick up chicks. These are all important Real Guy knowledge areas that should be enhanced by watching a Real Guy Movie.

One final observation – In many Real Guy comedies the punch lines or slapstick action will be such that many Real Guys will be roaring with laughter while many women or non-Real Guys will be shrugging their shoulders and asking, “What’s so funny about that?” This is not exactly a criteria for appearing on our list, but it is a fairly well-known and pretty normal characteristic of a Real Guy Movie.


So, here’s the list:

THE TOP TEN REAL GUY MOVIES OF ALL TIME:

10. “Saving Private Ryan” – the best war movie of all time. If you don’t feel like you’ve been in some serious wartime scrapes after watching this, then you have to enlist in the Marine Corps and volunteer for duty in Iraq.
9. “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” – the best sendup of King Arthur ever. You’ll never be able to look at a Trojan Horse without laughing again.
8. “Three Days of the Condor” – the best pure paranoia movie ever. Everybody’s out to get Condor.
7. “Strictly Ballroom”- a lot of guys may never watch this because they think it is about ballroom dancing. It’s about refusing to live your life in fear (and ballroom dancing).
6. “The Natural” – the best combination of baseball, redemption, and romance in a movie ever.
5. “Major League” – the funniest baseball movie ever.
4. “Stripes” – the best look at basic training ever. Also, it’s Bill Murray’s best movie ever.
3. “The Commitments” – the best rock and roll band comedy ever.
2. “The Great Escape” – the best prisoner of war movie ever.
1. “Animal House” – the best comedy and, in many ways, the best Real Guy movie of all time. Frat parties, Belushi, college girls, “Shout”, togas, a parade, and one dead horse.

 

I saw Ann Coulter on Donny Deutsch’s CNBC program two nights ago. Ann was a sport despite Donny’s talkative (he talked, she listened), unimaginative interview which seemed to consist of an average of 1.2 questions between each commercial break. Note to Donny: if you talk less (about yourself) you could listen more and ask more questions. I didn’t actually write Donny’s questions down and some transcript somewhere would reveal my inaccuracies if I attempted to write them from memory. So here is a series of questions that represent the spirit of Deutsch’s Coulter interview (and just about any other interview Ann has endured in the liberal lion dens that she fearlessly enters):

  “Why are you so mean spirited, Ann?”

  “Ann, why are you bashing these poor, downtrodden 9/11 widows?” 

    “Have I asked you about being mean spirited?”

  “What makes you think Bill Clinton has homosexual inclinations?”    

   “How could you grow up under circumstances similar to mine (stable home life, relatively well off) and become such a disgusting, mean-spirited conservative?”

  “Why do you hate liberals?”

  “I’m a liberal, do you hate me?”

  “Did some experience you had with guys make you so mean spirited?”

  “Why are all conservatives so mean spirited?”

  “Did I mention that everybody thinks you’re mean spirited?”

Ann is one of those people who are criticized before they even say anything and I love her for it. I love her for being consistent and saying what she thinks needs to be said with a great edge of sarcasm and humor. She’s wound a little too tight for my tastes and thinks all strippers are overweight (possibly a result of her own very thin physical dimensions), but she’s a warrior who won’t back off just because the left is trying to throw knock down pitches at her night and day. To stretch a baseball analogy further than it probably should go, all they’re doing is putting Ann on base so she can steal second, third and home.  Her book is a best seller and they keep helping.

The left doesn’t like her and they love to say that she’s mean spirited. “Mean spirited”, by the way, is codespeak on the left for “this is somebody that we have to neutralize.” That’s the best they can do. They don’t think it’s mean spirited to tax teenagers, old people, and poor people. They don’t think it’s mean spirited to transfer wealth from producers to non-producers. They don’t think it’s mean spirited to avoid confrontations with Islamofacism and seek diplomatic solutions with crazy people while more and more people die every day because of a cancerous perversion operating under the cloak of a god-fearing religion. But, they do think it’s mean spirited if you criticize them or anybody who represents their position on issues. The list of people and things that should be above criticism according to liberal orthodoxy includes Cindy Sheehan, the 9/11 widows, gays, global warming alarmists, and a whole host of spokespeople like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Alec Baldwin, Barbra Streisand, the Dixie Chicks, Teddy Kennedy, “Slow” Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, etc. The neat thing is that if all of these people would get together in one room to debate Ann they’d be outnumbered.

The left won’t debate the truth in Ann’s writing or her remarks. To be specific, the 9/11 widows that Ann criticizes in her new book “Godless” are the small group of widows who banned together to use their notoriety as a platform for becoming activist, Bush-bashers. These women apparently feel as though their widowhood gives them the license and the platform to remark publicly on the entire range of Democratic Party agenda talking points. They also convey the impression, intentionally or not, that they are speaking for all of the families who lost loved ones on 9/11.  (They aren't, by the way, and nobody asked them to).

That’s really Ann’s criticism. These women should stick to being widows and speaking out on issues related to that. They do not have the political portfolio to venture far from this subject. It’s kind of like the Dixie Chicks. We give them the stage to sing their brand of country/rock music, not to share their uninformed poltical viewpoint. These women probably believe that not only do they have the right and responsibility to speak out on any issue, but that because of their 9/11 widow status they should be above criticism. They want to swing away at their opposition with complete impunity.

Ann’s done a nice job of welcoming them to hardball politics. Chin music always deserves an answer in kind.   I haven’t read “Godless” yet, but it’s on my list…right after “Marley and Me.”

By the way, Craig Biggio is probably the most plunked active player in baseball.    Ann may have received the most knockdown pitches from the left of anybody in modern politics. 

I tend to sleep in on Sundays.   That doesn't mean the same thing for me as it does for my son.  He can "sleep in" until noon or later.  For me it means sleeping until 6:30 or so.  After getting up it's the following things -- help with feeding the animals, retrieve the Sunday paper on the driveway, and get a cup of coffee.  A little later I like to plop down and watch "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace."  Today, Brit Hume was hosting and Dennis Hasbert was one of the guests.

However, my favorite segment is the panel discussion.   Today  the panel members were Paul Gigot, Mara Liasson, Bill Kristol, and Juan Williams.   The discussion centered on the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

I can always count on Juan to highlight the left in his viewpoints.   He apparently is an avid reader of the New York Times and is a bright articulate man.  He is also a great talking points guy for the left.  He probably wouldn't see it that way, but that's what I hear.

What did I hear from Juan today?   That the real story in the war between Israel and Hezbollah, according to Juan, is the damage that Israel is doing to Lebanon.  Juan pleaded that this is causing public opinion "on the Arab street" to go against Israel and the U.S.   Israel has killed too many people (does this mean that Hezbollah has surrounded their military positions and rocket launchers with too many civilians?) and done too much damage (are the Israelis supposed to leave the airport and roads into Lebanon intact so that Hezbollah can resupply?).   Also, according to Juan, the U.S. isn't doing the situation any good by responding to an accelerated purchasing arrangement with Isreael to deliver smart weapons to them in the next few weeks.

Is it just me or has Hezbollah launched about 99% of their 1,000 plus rockets launched so far against civilian targets - cities and the people that live in them?    Isn't the inaccuracy of these bombardments the only reason that more Israeli civilians haven't been killed or injured?   Haven't there been indications over the last couple of days that Hezbollah's targeting has been getting better and it is only a matter of time before many more Israeli citizens are killed by the remaining 10,000 plus rockets and missiles that Hezbollah supposedly has in their inventory?  (I've heard or read somewhere that they may have 30,000 rockets).  

One of the things I find amazing about this is there has not been, to my knowledge, an official, comprehensive statement from Hezbollah about just what they are doing and why.   Has the press asked them what the heck they think they're doing or are our reporters just so grateful to get the PR tours that Hezbollah has been willing to orchestrate and get out alive?    Let's go through some possible rationale for Hezbollah's actions:

1. Iran told us to attack.
2. We got our last shipment of rockets so it was time to start things.
3. Everybody knows that Israel has to be wiped out so that Sunnis and Shia Muslims can get back to killing each other.
4. We have a trust deed from 1200 A.D. that gives this land to us.
5. Our soldiers need live training to learn how to fire these things.

Juan, here's the point.  If they put a rocket launching truck in or next to an apartment building and launch rockets the Israelies have a right and a responsibility to respond with counterbattery efforts.  Those trucks have a way of moving so you have to hit them quickly and and have to hit them hard to destroy the target and influence the tactics of the enemy.  

At any rate, I'm probably not adding much to an already heated debate on this conflict, but I thought it might be useful to treat Juan's discussion this morning as a measure of the success that Hezbollah has had in getting some public opinion on their side.    Juan echoed, as any viewer of "Fox News Sunday" would expect him to, the NY             Times/Democrat/U.N./elite Europe/ talking points regarding "disproportionate response" and  U.S. provocation.    What we need to be careful of is that his viewpoint doesn't stick.   We can't have a case where Hezbollah can resupply at will from Syria and Iran, and the Israeli's can not.  

P.S. My lovely wife can't see the word "Hezbollah" spelled out without thinking about the old (1941) Martha Raye comedy "Helzzapoppin'".   Just thought that was worth mentioning.

 

Steve Rattner wrote a WSJ column called "The Mother of All Electoral Issues"  (19 July WSJ online).  I love guys like Rattner. He'd like to think his frustration with the wealthy class is the mother of all electoral issues.

Only people like Rattner can rationalize that the rising tax contribution of the upper 10% of income earners is a problem because the bottom part of the economic spectrum isn't paying more taxes. It could be that they're not paying more taxes because the bottom rate for paying income taxes was lowered from 15% to 10% and the qualification level for paying income taxes was raised, but somehow that was conveniently left out of the argument. If you recall, the Democrats weren't (and still aren't) happy with the tax rate cuts of the Bush administration because it didn't help the poor enough.

You know what? You can't help people who don't pay any income tax with a tax rate cut or a credit. They have to be earners. The attempt, and I believe it was fairly successful despite all the Bush bashing, was to let the bottom income tier to keep more of their money. Now Rattner and his ilk are unhappy because the bottom tier isn't paying more in taxes.

By the way, part of his argument is that the bottom 10% of income earners actually lost ground over the last five years against inflation.   This is probably true although the same people who were in this category in 2000 isn't necessarily the same group of people in this category in 2005.  However, I am an advocate of raising the minimum wage which, in my opinion, needs to be regionally adjusted. If minimum wage is supposed to be a living wage, then it ought to be about $25 an hour in San Diego where I live.

This doesn't have anything to do with Mr. Rattner's problem.    The real problem is that people like Mr. Rattner are fundamentally unhappy.   They choose pessimism as a persistent prism through which to view the world.  People like Mr. Rattner work real hard to sustain their unhappiness while employing tortured, statistics-laced logic designed to justify a consistently frustrated and angry viewpoint on life.  Rattners are class-warfare specialists who see life as pitting one group against another. The normal solution to all of the problems for Mr. Rattner and people like him is some form of oppressive government intervention to "level the playing field" -- codespeak for a large wealth transfer from the builders and risk-takers to the risk averse. If the top 10% of the earners of this country are paying 56.2% of all taxes isn't that pretty close to what they want? 

Don't forget that two of the wealthiest folks in the U.S. took much of their tax base off the table (Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett) as they sheltered over $60 billion via wealth transfers to their own philanthropic organizations.   Apparently, Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett would rather manage the distribution of their wealth rather than rely on government to do it.   Is this some cynical method of avoiding paying their fair share of the national security bill?

By the way, with things like a growing warfare threat, a series of touchy immigration policy proposals, endless arguments over stem cell research, stalled judiciary appointments, and the Nancy Pelosis and Howard Deans of the world fronting the 2006 Congressional campaign for the Democrats with an endlessly hilarious and disjointed set of press appearances about achieving diplomatic solutions with Hezbollah through the election of a Democratic Party majority, I doubt seriously that a wealth redistribution issue is going to be a central campaign theme this year or anytime in the future.

While one side sees inequity another sees opportunity.

I'm sorry Mr. Rattner, I'm not going to let statistics or even facts dampen my optimism. Am I a Bush cheerleader? No. Is the worst Republican better than the best Democrat? No.

But the Democratic Party will never let Joe Lieberman be their candidate and JFK is gone.

Paraphrasing an old joke:

Question: Why is the Democratic Party like a granola bar?
Answer:  Because once you get rid of the fruits and nuts you still have the flakes.

Why does this joke remind me of the highly expert Rep. Nancy Pelosi and the talented and brilliant Dr. Howard Dean?   Because they are a couple of fruits or nuts that the Democratic Party should do their level best to neutralize.

At the risk of giving advice to the loyal opposition (whom I would prefer to see in minority status for the rest of my lifetime) the Democratic Party really has to put a muzzle on these people.   There are others who do them no good (Senators Kennedy, Kerry, Biden, and Boxer, Alec Baldwin, the Dixie Chicks, Barbra Streisand, etc.) but Rep. Pelosi and Dr. Dean are exceptionally talented at damaging the party's chances of feigning competence.

Rep. Pelosi, who apparently considers herself to be a spokesperson for almost every bad idea her party has, conveys, at a minimum, a fierce determination to be miserable no matter what.  She hates the Bush administration and thinks there is no reason for anyone to see even a glimmer of hope or sliver of competence among the "neocons" in the administration.    Bush hatred is her platform.

She has a solution though.  Rep. Pelosi recently announced her party's "New Direction."  It's kind of vague as to just what the New Direction really is, but just trust them.  They'll unveil it after you elect them.   It probably has something to do with "robust diplomacy" which, in my opinion, is a euphemism for appeasement, but that's just me.   It could be that they think that once Democrats are elected, they can meet with Al-Quaeda and Hezbollah and Hamas and achieve "an understanding" which the Bush administration is apparently incapable of doing.  They probably also think they can meet with Syria and Iran and achieve a "diplomatic solution to the Crisis in the Middle East."

You can't beat a Nancy Pelosi press release for incompetence and ambiguousness.   It's just good reading.

Here's my take on Howard Dean.  Dr. Dean would like you to think that if Al Gore had just managed to get elected in the 2000 election (a subject of worldwide derision and shame), 9/11 wouldn't have happened and none of the current Middle East crisis would have taken place.  Dr. Dean implies that everybody knows that the rest of the world, particularly the Middle East, loves Democrats and hates Republicans.  Therefore, it goes against our national security interests to elect Republicans because then we have to fight other countries because they suddenly hate us for being so stupid.   So, if you want your sons and daughters to live in peace, elect Democrats. 

It's just that simple.  

With thinking like this how could the Democrats lose? 

They lose everyday they have leaders like Rep. Pelosi and Dr. Dean who can't write a sentence, formulate a coherent idea, edit bad ideas from their press releases or remarks, or even raise money for their party.  What's really stupid is that I'm not even sure they believe their own ideas or their criticisms of the administration.  I think they think that the American voting public does believe them, though.   They think Amercian voters believe them because they are morally and intellectually superior (just ask them).   Their comments are typically small masterpieces of insincerity, yet, Rep. Pelosi and Dr. Dean consistently underestimate the ability of the American voting public to see through them.    

Keep it up guys.   It's great entertainment. 

P.S. What medical school did Dr. Dean graduate from? 

This entertaining set of factoids about wooden men and iron ships came across my email transom this morning and I thought the writeup was worthy of a good posting. I'm not sure who compiled these facts, but if you're responsible, send me a note and I'll attribute the writeup to you.

Subject: HISTORICAL FACTS ABOUT U. S. NAVY

The USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) as a combat vessel carried 48,600 gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475 officers and men This was sufficient to last six months of sustained operations at sea. She carried no evaporators (because evaporators as we know them hadn't been invented).

According to her log, "On July 27, 1798, the USS Constitution sailed from Boston with a full complement of 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of fresh water, 7,400 cannon shot, 11,600 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of rum." Her mission: "To destroy and harass English shipping."

Making Jamaica on 6 October, she took on 826 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum. Then she headed for the Azores, arriving there 12 November. She provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine.

On 18 November, she set sail for England. In the ensuing days she defeated five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled 12 English merchantmen, salvaging only the rum aboard each.

By 26 January, her powder and shot were exhausted. Nevertheless, in this largely unarmed state she made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. Her landing party captured a whiskey distillery and transferred 40,000 gallons of single malt Scotch aboard by dawn.

Then she headed home. The USS Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 February, 1799, with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, no wine, no whiskey and 38,600 gallons of stagnant water.

GO NAVY!

Sometimes in the blogging world we think we have to respond immediately to issues or we've lost our opportunity to address them.  However, I read an excerpt from a book by Peter Beinart recently and had every intent of posting a response on this website.  Then we had car trouble, television trouble, network trouble, dog trouble, inappropriate language filter trouble, and Hezbollah trouble and I put it on the back burner.

However, maybe the desire to respond after all that is a measure of how intense the feeling is that there should not be a free pass in this case.

Let me start by saying don't buy Mr. Beinart's book which is called "The Good Fight: Why Liberals - and Only Liberals - Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again".    I purposely didn't provide a link to Amazon's sales page or any other place (other than the RealClearPolitics.Com excerpt linked above) so that I won't be responsible for anyone buying this stuff.

Let's get something straight from the beginning.   Americans and their allies will win the war on terror and it won't be a liberal versus conservative argument as to who should get credit for the victory.

In the excerpt from Mr. Beinart's book he says:
 
"Bill Clinton--by defusing racially saturated issues like welfare and crime, and wisely managing the economy--restored public faith in government action. But he did so at a time when the United States had turned in on itself, when international threats no longer shaped national identity. Today's political environment is more like the one that stretched from the late 1940s through the late 1980s, when debates about America were interwoven with debates about America's role in the world. "

Sometimes having a discussion with a liberal is a very difficult thing.  You can't get liberals  to stop using their progressive-speak long enough focus the conversation on any issue.   However, one might criticize Mr. Beinart's congratulatory description of the Clinton era  from the perspective of the Clinton administration's unwillingness to engage in any meaningful response to numerous terrorist events.  These events include the first bombing of the World Trade Center (1993), the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia (1996), the African embassy bombings (1998), or the attack on the USS Cole (2000).  Also, there was no meaningful Clinton administration effort to pursue leads which indicated that the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City involved foreign Islamic terrorist elements.  

If by saying that "the United States had turned in on itself" Mr. Beinart means that the Clinton administration ignored the obvious signs of a building terrorist threat then I would a agree with his description.  Yes, they turned in on themselves as they selfishly pursued a set of self-indulgent domestic tinkering policies that were designed to buy votes and deflect attention from serious national security threats. 

As Clinton left office the stock markets were already well on their way to crushing 5 trillion dollars in market equity and numerous successful terrorist attacks directed at the U.S. remained unanswered.  Yet somehow Mr. Beinart insists on perpetuating the myth that the Clinton administration had successfully navigated eight years of economic and national security bliss -- except for that sex scandal thing. 

Now Mr. Beinart's book argues that there is a liberal vision, and only a liberal vision, that can save us and win the war.  The liberal vision has to do with accepting the notion of "constraints on our power" (and probably reinforcing those constraints by reducing our investments in national security and defense in favor of higher expenditures on prescription drugs and national health care).  Somehow a constrained power will be more effective.  This the same kind of progressive-think that expresses a belief in unilateral negotiations when a multi-lateral approach is being taken or vice versa.   Constrained power advocates also believe in proportional response.  This is so the enemy (my term not theirs) knows in advance what price will be paid for any given terrorist incident on the menu.   They also believe in One World Government, the U.N., global taxation, global policing, and international law (until they personally are at the wrong end of a politically motivated international judicial action). 

The excerpt of Mr. Beinart's book is about as muddled a description of liberalism as any such description could possibly be.   Liberalism itself is a muddled thing.  How could it possibly help anyone to read Mr. Beinart's entire book?

I'm just getting started.  This is my first post.
I'm a big Hugh Hewitt fan and thought I'd try to blog in this environment.

These are some 2005 Headlines I got in my email today.  THIS IS NOT MY ORIGINAL WORK.  I just thought they were funny so I wanted to pass them on.

If you're reading this and you're the person who collected these, let me know and I'll attribute the effort to you.

Thanks,

One of the Real Guys

--------------------------------------- 

THE YEAR'S BEST (actual) HEADLINES OF 2005:
 
Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers

Is There a Ring of Debris around Uranus?

Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over

Miners Refuse to Work after Death

Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant

Crack Found on Governor's Daughter

War Dims Hope for Peace

If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile

Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures

Enfield ( London ) Couple Slain; Police
Suspect Homicide

Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges

Man Struck By Lightning: Faces Battery Charge

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group

Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half

Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors

Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead