It’s Friday (everywhere but the West Coast)…
“The great democratic crusade undertaken by this administration is going far better than most observers will admit. That’s the good news. The bad news is a development more troubling than most observers recognize: signs of the emergence, for the first time since the fall of the Soviet empire, of an anti-American bloc anchored by Great Powers.”
Now go read the rest of Krauthammer. (WaPo reg. required)
You be the judge…
UPDATE: In Norway, a salute to Satan.
In uncharacteristic fashion, Peggy Noonan pans Bush’s inauguration speech. OK, she doesn’t just pan it – she freakin trashes it.
“Whoever picked the music for the inaugural ceremony itself–modern megachurch hymns, music that sounds like what they’d use for the quiet middle section of a Pixar animated film–was . . . lame.”
“The inaugural address itself was startling. It left me with a bad feeling, and reluctant dislike.”
“A short and self-conscious preamble led quickly to the meat of the speech: the president’s evolving thoughts on freedom in the world. Those thoughts seemed marked by deep moral seriousness and no moral modesty.”
“No one will remember what the president said about domestic policy, which was the subject of the last third of the text. This may prove to have been a miscalculation.”
“President Bush sided strongly with the moralists, which was not a surprise. But he did it in a way that left this Bush supporter yearning for something she does not normally yearn for, and that is: nuance.” (uh oh, she said the Kerry word -ed.)
“reality-based community, a dumb phrase.”
“The president’s speech seemed rather heavenish. It was a God-drenched speech. This president, who has been accused of giving too much attention to religious imagery and religious thought, has not let the criticism enter him. God was invoked relentlessly.”
“Ending tyranny in the world? Well that’s an ambition, and if you’re going to have an ambition it might as well be a big one. But this declaration, which is not wrong by any means, seemed to me to land somewhere between dreamy and disturbing. Tyranny is a very bad thing and quite wicked, but one doesn’t expect we’re going to eradicate it any time soon.”
“One wonders if they shouldn’t ease up, calm down, breathe deep, get more securely grounded. The most moving speeches summon us to the cause of what is actually possible. Perfection in the life of man on earth is not.”
By this time she ran out of column space – but you have a sense that she wanted to keep going. Cripes Peggy – are we upset because we weren’t asked to write W’s speech? You think you’ve got dibs on him since you wrote for Pappy? Are you tired of the fame that comes from coining the phrase, “A Thousand Points of Light”?
Lots of people agree, she should have stayed home.
Feeeeeeel the love.
MORE: Michelle Malkin has a sore loser roundup.
Bush takes oath of office.
I checked my stats on N.Z. Bear’s Ecosystem for the first time in a long time tonight, and something is seriously screwed up. Supposedly, I’m an Adorable Little Rodent, with a whopping 295 daily visits. But, according to my Site Meter stats, and the backup Stat Counter, I’m averaging 3,123 unique visits every day. Wassupwitdat?
OK, this is gross.
Asking for bottled water or a canned drink aboard an airliner might be the safest way to fly. Coliform bacteria are showing up in more airliners than last summer when the government first took steps toward requiring sanitation improvements.
Coliform bacteria, usually harmless, indicate that harmful organisms could be present. EPA said Wednesday it found coliform bacteria in 17 percent of the airliners it randomly tested in November and December, an increase from the 13 percent reported in the first round of tests in August and September.
Among 169 randomly tested airliners, most of the 29 that tested positive for coliform bacteria had them in lavatory faucets, but some also had them in galley water taps.
While most people I travel with skip the airplane water, how many of us pass on the ice? Guess where that’s coming from? Uh huh…
Heh.
While driving into work this morning, I was listening to National Public Radio. Call me a glutton for punishment! I listen mostly for the news stories, but it’s impossible for me to miss the blatant liberal bias. Listen to any story with a political angle, and you’ll hear interviews with 4 Democrats and a sound bite from a Republican (mainly for shock value). Well, this morning while I was gazing on the road in front of me, I heard a commentary from John Ridley entitled, “In Second Term, Electorate Needs to Do Heavy Lifting.”
Ridley asks the public to buck up and support the president’s agenda, even when it hurts. He says the American public wrote the president a check when they awarded him with a second term, and now have to let him cash it.
Indeed. I love logic. Give it a listen.
Via Scotsman.com:
A NEW statue of the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin is to be erected in Moscow, returning his once-ubiquitous image to the streets after an absence of four decades, a top city official said yesterday.
Since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000, a number of Soviet symbols – including the national anthem and an army flag – have been restored to use, reflecting widespread nostalgia for the communist era.
Is it me or is Putin slowly but surely bringing back the hammer and sickle? Call me paranoid, but all signs point toward the return of old Russia. The question is, what are we doing about it?