First Roundup of ’06

Overheard in NY:

Toddler boy: Look, Daddy! The airport!
Dad: That’s the moon, Milo.
–86th & 3rd

The moon is where I feel like I’ve been! If I ever tell me kids they can have all their friends over, and that everyone can sleep over, and also have my best pal and her family over, and agree to watch a freaking football game – which you know I hate football – and then have to watch a weakened Dick Clark and Mariah “There are my breasts!” Carey at midnight, and then listen to all the young folks NOT SLEEP until almost 6AM, please just shoot me.

It wasn’t that bad, but I was a little cranky. I have decided that my 2006 resolution is to go through menopause and finally settle down into one glorious, testy-but-at-least-dependably-so mood for the rest of my life. I’m a bit tired of being the poster girl for “bitchy and hormonal” a couple days a month.

Now, I know, I know, that’s not the sort of things one expects to hear from your Anchoress, but the NY Times Magazine informs us that ludicrous obsessing on genitalia is the new naval-gazing, so I thought I’d broaden out the scope a bit and include hormonals in that. I mean, if we can’t write about labia and ovaries, and uncover those moody mysteries, then what’s the point of living, right?

Speaking of mysteries, Tom Maguire has brillianty uncovered the meaning behind the odd Plame-in-Pajamas photograph we recently saw of Valerie Plame and Joe “my daddy is famous and my mommy is a secret spy” Wilson:

“…an odd photo of Valerie Plame coming downstairs in her pajamas while hubby Joe sits on a sofa dressed to the nines. What does it mean?

Simple – Valerie is confused, vulnerable, and surprised as she comes out from undercover (pajamas, under the covers… oh, forget it).

Joe, on the other hand, is fully prepared for the presence of the photographer. Why? Because he outed his wife by advertising his own CIA connection in his NY Times op-ed. The resulting publicity was no surprise for him.”

Sounds precisely too-cute-by-half to be right, to me. H/T Dr. Sanity’s Carnival of Instanities

More mystery: The Astute Blogger scoops Der Speigel and most of the world by posting his thoughts on big doings in Turkey ‘way back on December 27th! Pretty smart!

Speaking of smart, Ace has figured out what the UN’s message to outer space will be.

Michael Barone has some thoughts about our surging economy and how dynamism is killing the dinosaurs.

Rendition Watch: A big story getting almost no attention – not surprising – from the MSM, the fact that the “scandalous” CIA renditions which have caused so much moralistic finger wagging from the left began in 1998 under Bill Clinton. Gateway Pundit examines that story and also tells us how the ACLU is running from honesty, too. Ed Morrissey, meanwhile, has excerpts of Melchior’s multipart translation of Die Zeit’s interview with Michael Scheuer. Pretty interesting stuff. We will soon hear about how brilliant the renditions were, how prescient they were, and that they were actually Hillary’s idea. Or something.

Staying on Ed Morrissey, because he’s brill, he gives us two more posts on the media’s hysteria re President Bush doing his job, all within reasonable and legal bounds:

Hmm. We have Ashcroft going to the hospital for a serious medical condition in 2004 after having signed off on the NSA intercept program every 45 days since 9/11, and after ranking members of Congressional intelligence committees from both parties had received numerous briefings on the efforts. With Ashcroft in the hospital, the administration went to James Comey, who had some concerns about the program. The White House went to Ashcroft afterwards, who concurred with Comey. The White House then voluntarily suspended the program and worked with the DoJ to revamp the program to satisfy their concerns and once again get the necessary sign-off for its resumption, and the DoJ then started doing regular audits to ensure that its concerns remained addressed.

So what’s the problem?…(The WH) followed the FISA law in getting the certification of the Attorney General, and when that couldn’t be done, they stopped the program. They proved willing to make adaptations that would satisfy the AG, who then certified the program for a restart. The administration continued briefing Congressional committees on the program and its progress, and except for one note from John Rockefeller, never received any objections. To this day, not one of the people briefed on the NSA intercepts has called for cancellation of the program.

Lichtblau and Risen continue to push this as a major criminal enterprise without producing even the hint of a crime. They want to paint the White House as an imperial Presidency, running roughshod over the law, when their own account shows the White House following procedure, maintaining the necessary approvals, and suspending the program when it couldn’t secure the approvals. So far, the only story here is that the New York Times has apparently gone into business to shill books written by its reporters, and that the editors of the paper won’t even hold themselves accountable to their own ombudsman, let alone their readers.

Indeed!

Joe Marshall quite disagrees on the matter. I suspect he and Sr. Joan Chittister would enjoy knocking back a few together! :-)

Those considerations aside, President Bush talked about the NSA “scandal” today and Powerline paraphrases him.

When I said Paris would burn, I didn’t mean that quick! But apparently it was just a traditional thing.

This WSJ reporter has become a marine!

Slightly tardy: Beautiful Atrocities has a great round-up of internet predictions for 2006. Also, Viking Pundit and Red State.

An Iraqi war vet is the very model of an action figure.

The Moderate Voice has a really stupendous, mother-of-all-round-ups on the NSA story and the Justice Department’s investigation of it! Bill Quick is also commenting and Jay Rosen has a long and thoughtful piece on the press. Michelle Malkin takes a look at “nefarious spin”.

Jack Kelly has some thoughts on Kathleen Parker’s piece on blogs.

Jason looks at differences in attitudes between left and right.

I like #3 the best.

Jeff Goldstein says “meet the new year…”

Ugh. Just tiring.

Sigmund writes on what citizenship is.

Kobayashi Maru finds God in a single atom.

Jeff Miller has a book review I mostly agree with.

Christmas is still not over, and Greg has a really nice little post: Small Moments Fill Me With Wonder.

Monastic Christmas sounds exhausting and exhilerating. Seems they’ll be welcoming another postulant in just a few days.

He’s Papa to Julie, but he’s always Uncle Benedict to me:

A note re emails: Over the past few weeks my email has been a little overwhelming for me – both in terms of sheer numbers and inemotional content – and I’ve found myself falling quite a bit behind. I do read all of my email and I do try to respond to most of it, but it’s taking longer and longer to do so – I thank you for understanding.