Catching up on reading…

This round up may not be as weirdly entertaining as this one (what was I thinking?) but here are a few new links and a few pieces you may have missed over the past few days – I missed a few of them, myself, and pass ’em on to you because…well, they are worth reading and thinking about!

First up, Betsy Newmark has been writing gangbusters. I like her site all year, but I especially like her when schooooools out for summah!, when she has more time to really put her own thoughts out there. Check out her lament for the loss of the Brit’s stiff upper lip, and these posts on the founders and on the flag which you may well have missed while you were watching the Fourth of July Parades. Enjoy her observations about Democrat Disarray. If you’re not reading Betsy Newmark every day, you really should be!

Michael Yon brings us the story of a true warrior hero, Brad Kasal, and how TIME Magazine has rather misused him. You’ll want to read this.

Then you’ll want to read this very moving piece on a soldier’s memorial service in Iraq: There is hardly a whisper as the sight is taken in. On a raised platform sits a pair of boots, an M-16 pointing barrel down, sights out, a Kevlar helmet resting atop the buttstock, a set of dogtags dangling from the charging handle. To either side of the weapon are two medals: the Iraq Campaign Medal and the Purple Heart. Resting below the boots is a framed photograph of a smiling young soldier.

Read it all.

Sgt. T.F. Boggs(I just love his name – it sounds like a name Joseph Heller came up with) interviews an Iraqi General, and it is both amusing and informative.

The so-called “mediating intelligences” in the press (the ones who insist they are the sharp distinction which keeps the press more credible than any and all bloggers) have decided that the 45,000 boxes of documents found in Iraq are of no importance or interest, but Ed Morrissey is keeping track of the translations and finds a neat one possibly connecting Saddam to the Taliban.

UPDATE: Those “unimportant documents” are also talking about Saddam’s Anthrax Operations. Move along, nothing to see. The press is desperately hoping no smoking guns emerge, hence their disinterest.

Oh, and Gitmo? It’s been useful after all, sez France.

Jack Kelly at Irish Pennants gives us some perspective from two Iraqi war vets.

Oh, and Sen. John Kerry…who still hasn’t really come clean with his military records…is only going to endorse veterans, or at least that is what he says when asked to endorse Joe Lieberman. Poor Joe. Thrown under the bus for daring to disagree. What a tolerant crew.

Haven’t written anything on the Hamdan decision but Cobb is thinking about it and also linking to some interesting writing on it.

The Bush Boom continues strong, not that you’re hearing it reported that way, but lots of new jobs abounding. Reuters came up with the inevitable “but,” which is part and parcel of any good news they must print…”but… it may not be sustainable…” As usual. Dr. Sanity and Bizzyblog have much more on the economy and how it is percieved by some.

John Stossel writes about the convenient lie of global warming.
When he was in college, atmospheric-science professor John Christy was told, “it was a certainty that by the year 2000, the world would be starving and out of energy.”

That prediction has gone the way of so many others. But environmentalists continue to warn us that we face environmental disaster if we don’t accept the economic disaster called the Kyoto treaty.

Read it all, then repeat after me, there is no consensus on this issue. Just lots and lots of PR work. “Experts” are almost never right and “studies” more often than not do nothing but excite legislation to enact ever more laws. That’s my mantra for 2006.

You’ll note the Stossel piece is from Townhall.com, which while I wasn’t looking became a kind of blogging co-op or conglomerate, or something. Lots of bloggers are signing up over there, and it seems like it’s making very good headway in becoming a “one stop news center” for conservative bloggers and writers, talk radio, etc. Hugh Hewitt says of the endeavor: We gave the other side a few years head start –so they have a sort of political Mordor up and running, captained by Kosputin. (Its a joke. They aren’t our enemies, only our opponents.)

Very interesting, and I wish it well. I also thank Mary Katharine Ham for featuring a post from this blog, which was quite “fruitful” for my site meter! :-)

Also, check out what Joe Biden got to say that someone like, ohhh, any Republican Senator would not be allowed to.

Kevin Aylward and the folks at Wizbang are working to get the record corrected on a John Murtha speech. Check it out…they have video and context. Once again, the press fails to cover itself in glory, while protecting one of their own.

Krauthammer: Remember this. Remember what Palestine did once it got Gaza. A must read. Give it to your kids next year when they need to bring in something on the Middle East.

Neo-Neocon is also thinking about Palestine, and its children’s crusade: Children are being actively recruited by the Palestinians into the cult of martyrdom, which encompasses both the extreme of suicide bombing and other, “milder” activities such as acting as shields for adult fighters.

What’s that song from South Pacific? “You’ve got to be taught, you’ve got to be carefully taught.” The teaching goes on.

Remember, the other day, I linked to Dick Meyer’s piece on Americans and lonliness? Well, Meyer got some interesting email on the subject and has posted a follow-up of those responses. Curiously, many people wrote that politicial polarization was playing into their isolation. I don’t buy that, and neither did Meyer who writes: So my inbox this week didn’t tell me a a whole lot about why people – looked at through a statistical high telescope – have dramatically smaller networks of true confidants than they did twenty years ago. But it did reveal some insight into the loneliness of a long distance partisan.

Yes…you can’t get a good handle on the question when the only people who answer are people who probably spend enormous amounts of time opining on forums and in email…they’ll write to anyone (even me) and their answer is always to blame the other side! :-) Still, the whole question of lonliness, voluntary isolation, however you wish to characterize it, is very interesting, and I hope Meyer keeps on looking for answers – our society could use some help figuring out how to cope.

Then again, Julie at Happy Catholic may have inadvertently given us a clue about all of this…via (of all things) the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Still think the media aren’t getting anyone killed? AJ Strata did a little research. It’s a longish post, but you’ll want to read it – if only to read Katharine Graham’s excellent quote.

By the way, Bill Clinton is telling sympathetic audiences that hey, whaddya know, now that Robert Kennedy said Bush stole Ohio, I kinda agree with him… (scroll down to the Q&A session for this…or read his whole, rambling, “I”-filled speech). He really is just a deplorable former president.

“Freedom is the oxygen of the soul” and other great quotes compiled by Siggy. Go there to see who said it.

Don’t usually care what is being written at the Huffington Post, but Mark at Decision ’08 took a look at the remarks posted there on the passing of Ken Lay. Interesting. Sad. And they never remember Bill Clinton on the golf course with Lay. Or Bill Clinton bringing Lay and many Enron execs in India. In fact, Ken Lay and Enron were birthed by George W. Bush in January of 2001 and did not exist before then.

Moving away from politics, these Dominican monastics are starting to put my Benedictine sisters to shame, with their new aspirants, postulants and novices. Don’t miss this wonderful piece on the Office of Morning Prayer. My favorite Hour is Vespers, myself. But Morning Prayer is pure praise…and it’s extraordinary.

These Carmelites aren’t doing badly, either. Be sure to check out their slide shows, which are always kinda nice.

Speaking of Religion, Siggy points out that the Democrats are finding it, and why. Here is part III which links to his first two very interesting expositions. He’s thinking deep and hard, our Siggy, is! :-)

Mr. Wong, of whom I am very fond, asked me some time back to mention the Solanus Casey Guild which works for the canonization of this very humble (and humbled) Capuchin priest who made a remarkable and lasting impact on his little neighborhood in NYC. I like Solanus very much, and am happy to do so.

Althouse has a post up on Keira Knightley’s slender body that has generated a very interesting comments section, all about women and society and what it means to be fat or thin these days.

Jim Bass has an interesting and heartening piece on treatment for macular degeneration and relates how it has affected his father.

While I was sort of rooting (if that’s the right word) for Australia, in the World Cup, I like this piece by Jim Geraghty on why soccer will never capture the US imagination as it has elsewhere.

Ali has moved to a group blog, Progressive Islam so you’ll want to adjust your blogroll.

UPDATE: This post at Blue Crab Boulevard has been accepted for publication by American Legion Magazine. The payment was sent directly to the Benjamin J. Slaven Memorial Fund. If you would like to contribute – kind of a nice thing to do, to honor a soldier you don’t even know – the address is:
Benjamin J. Slaven Memorial Fund
c/o Harman-Wright Mortuary
623 Elk Street
Beatrice, Nebraska 68310