Month: August 2005

The Commission that wouldn’t die

The 9/11 Commission (yes, the 9/11 Commission) throws a hissy fit[*1] when Administration tells them that the material they’re asking for is already out there, go find it yourselves.

The requests came not from the disbanded commission, which was created by Congress and had subpoena powers, but from its shadow group, which the members call the 9/11 Public Discourse Project. It was established by the members of the Sept. 11 commission when the panel formally went out of business last August, shortly after releasing a unanimous report that called for an overhaul of the nation’s counterterrorism agencies.

These folks acted like bozos during the Commission hearings, but want to continue to pretend that they’re “bipartisan.”[*2]

They would like to do so by reaching out, in bipartisan pairs, to communities around the country, encouraging a national conversation on these critical issues. In the absence of such an effort, they are concerned that there will be insufficient public examination of how the lessons learned from the terrorist attacks can be used to shape public policy.

And a special hello to partisan hacks Richard Ben-Veniste and Jamie S. “Intelligence Wall” Gorelick.

Mark Steyn on Democrats

Sometimes, it takes a Mark Steyn[*1] to say what needs to be said.

The DNC’s Bush-is-the-reason-your-kid-is-fat press release is a convenient precis of the party’s problem: While he runs rings around them, the Dems lounge about getting flabbier by the week and telling themselves it’s all his fault they can barely move except to complain about Bush’s Supreme Court nominee’s kid being overly cute. What’s the betting for 2006? The Dems will have a few more “nearly the biggest political upsets,” while the Republicans will have the actual political upsets — a couple more Senate seats? Including Robert C. Byrd’s venerable perch in West Virginia?

At this point, I’m almost desperate for a rational and reasoned voice to emerge from the left. I assume that this is possible, but current evidence does not seem to support that assumption.

NCAA bans “offensive” nicknames from post-season

Florida State to challenge ban[*1] .

Starting in February, any school with a nickname or logo considered racially or ethnically “hostile” or “abusive” by the NCAA would be prohibited from using them in postseason events. Mascots will not be allowed to perform at tournament games, and band members and cheerleaders will also be barred from using American Indians on their uniforms beginning in 2008.

The University of North Dakota (“Fighting Sioux”) has a problem[*2] :

Ralph Engelstad Arena, on the UND campus, will be the host site for the NCAA’s West Regional men’s hockey tournament in March. The $100 million facility, built as a shrine to UND hockey, has more than4,500 Indian-head logos and references to the nickname.

A’s 5, Royals 4

Kansas City begins home stand the same way they played their entire road trip–with a loss[*1] .

“There are reasons you win and reasons you lose,” Royals manager Buddy Bell said. “Tonight, the reason we lost was because we couldn’t throw strikes.”

Royals need to go 43-10 to finish .500, 25-28 to avoid 100 losses, 1-52 to avoid losing all of their remaining games.

Blog Taxonomies

Point: leftie blog Fables of the Reconstruction[*1] offers a taxonomy of right-wing blogs:

Calling Glenn Reynolds intellectually lazy would be to praise him. He doesn’t write, he grunts. Has gained prominence by posting a lot and never making his audience think; has done those things by never thinking too much himself. Never met a Democrat he couldn’t casually accuse of treason.

Heh[*2] . Indeed[*3] .

In retaliation, Right Wing Nut House offers a Moonbat taxonomy[*4] . He offers this explanatory comment:

I discovered that the more forcefully the denizens of these sites bragged about being a member of the “Reality Based Community” the farther they actually were from existing on the same plane of the universe as the rest of us. Some maintain a passing familiarity with reality – as if reality were like walking past a beautiful woman and getting a tantalizing whiff of an exotic perfume. Others have had reality slap them upside the head and still deny the evidence of it with their own eyes and ears.

For a view into the leftie-righie food fight, both articles are highly recommended.

Shuttle undocks from space station

The shuttle is packed up and ready to return to Earth.

Discovery’s seven astronauts spent a day longer than originally planned aboard the station to bring over additional supplies — such as paper, laptop computers and surplus food and batteries. Discovery is the first shuttle to visit the station since 2002.