Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for April 2007

April 30, 2007 By Fausta

Hitchens on Tenet

George Tenet was in the Clinton administration, and he was in the Bush administration. And now he’s selling his book.

But Hitchens has the skinny: A Loser’s History: George Tenet’s sniveling, self-justifying new book is a disgrace

Notice the direct quotes that make it clear who is the author of this brilliant insight. And then pause for a second. The author is almost the only man who could have known of Zacarias Moussaoui and his co-conspirators—the very man who positively knew they were among us, in flight schools, and then decided to leave them alone. In his latest effusion, he writes: “I do know one thing in my gut. Al-Qaeda is here and waiting.” Well, we all know that much by now. But Tenet is one of the few who knew it then, and not just in his “gut” but in his small brain, and who left us all under open skies.

Read it all.

From Roger L. Simon‘s comments, former intelligence officers ask for Tenet’s to return his Medal of Freedom.

Time to dismantle the CIA? Update For now, Scrappleface dismantles Tenet. Cassandra, however, says it best,

I can forgive Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, and Richard Clarke for failing to kill Osama bin Laden, for weighing the risks and benefits differently than I do, or even did. I can forgive them for not singling out one Presidential Daily Briefing entitled “Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks”, even though on his watch the World Trade Center had already been attacked, and acting to remove the threat.

What I cannot forgive is the lying and historical revisionism of Bill Clinton and his Clinton-era holdovers who contradict their own past statements in a transparent attempt to shift the blame from an administration which had EIGHT YEARS to do something about al Qaeda and numerous opportunities to kill Osama bin Laden to an incoming administration which, during a time of transition following a contested election, only had EIGHT MONTHS and, according to the head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, no opportunities to kill Osama bin Laden.

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Filed Under: books, CIA, terrorism

April 30, 2007 By Fausta

For your listening pleasure:

My podcast starts at noon EDT, in less than 1/2 hour. Update I talked about my days in Real Estate, back in the late 1980s.

And then at 1PM, Siggy will be a guest of the BBC’s World Have Your Say program. You can listen live here. Siggy fans around the world rejoice.

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Filed Under: BBC, Blog Talk Radio, podcasts, Sigmund Carl and Alfred

April 30, 2007 By Fausta

Two great posts from Friends I Haven’t Met Yet

Here are recent posts from two of the best bloggers around:
Statistics 101 from Scheiss Weekly, where Mamacita’s homework assignment to her college students was,

Topic: “The Perfect Spouse/Partner”

Each of 56 students (ages 18-64) (average age: 36) (31 women, 25 men) made a list of the top 12 attributes of the perfect spouse/partner. Here are the results, averaged, and ranked in order of importance.

Over at Eternity Road, yesterday Francis Porretto posted one of his excellent Sunday Ruminations, Intimacy, Inference, and Identity

My main point here is that each of us has an identity to himself based on incomplete knowledge or comprehension. Such a reflexive identity — the psychological term for it is “self-concept” — is composed partly of fiction far more often than not. The fiction helps us to paper over those flaws and shortcomings in ourselves we can’t bear to face.

Empirical substantiation is easily available. Virtually everyone believes himself to be above average in most of the measures that people prize. It’s so easy to evade objective assessment of oneself that nearly everyone believes himself to be more moral than average, more congenial than average, smarter than average, a better athlete than average, and (of course) a better driver than average. That’s not possible even in Lake Wobegon, but study after study indicates that it’s the way we view ourselves — consciously.

Why? Because we need to have a good opinion of ourselves if we’re going to face others, and the challenges of life, with any confidence. Apparently, a “good opinion of oneself” seems to demand the belief that others aren’t quite as good in the ways that “matter.” In other words, we deceive ourselves about our failings because in this instance, deception, by making our self-concepts palatable, improves our survival prospects. In other words, it enhances our security.

Read both – and bookmark their blogs.

Update Make that three posts from Friends I Haven’t Met Yet – St. Catherine and Manly Men

Catherine was a woman who was all that she was born to be. She advocated that in everyone and said, “If you are what you should be, you will set the world on fire,” so it makes sense that she would like manly men who had not lost their birth-gifts to fear of the world’s regard.

If you are not being what and who you were born to be, you’re going through life unfulfilled – and the world is missing whatever it was you were supposed to contribute.

————————————————————

Don’t forget to listen to today’s podcast at noon.

More blogging later.

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Filed Under: Blog Talk Radio, bloggers, blogs, Friends I Haven't Met Yet, podcasts, relationships

April 30, 2007 By Fausta

Introducing: DragonPig

Yes, it’s DragonPig, who, disguised as Pig Kent, mild-mannered pig from a great metropolitan area,

is also a fire-breathing counterJihadist,

fighting a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way!

In other pig news…

(And yes, it was hard to hold the fiery DragonPig in a way such that you can still tell what it is.)

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Filed Under: humor

April 29, 2007 By Fausta

Let the snark flow

I should be at the gym right now, but would rather stall, so there – a little Sunday morning snark:

For the first time in American history a high-ranking State Department official caroused with prostitutes. Unfortunately for him, he’s not a Democrat, and the prostitutes are not male.

Show the Dem Cong your support.

Teach your children well.

Somebody tell that woman to shut up. Her fake drawl alone would be enough give Kramer seizures.

I bet his neighbors are starting to get worried.

Israel did’t make it to Nassau Hall yesterday.

The NYT’s idea is to keep telling the Iraqis the NYT doesn’t believe they’re worth the trouble. Maybe they should hire Omar to explain it to them.

Since Fidel’s always been reluctant to speak for himself, now Evo’s telling us Fidel will be back on Tuesday, but I rather rent the video instead.

Via Pajamas Media,

Dr Sanity has the Carnival,

She also has THE POLL RESULTS THAT DON’T MAKE THE HEADLINES

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Filed Under: humor, videos

April 29, 2007 By Fausta

If you know anyone undergoing chemotherapy…

please insist that they read this article, Chemotherapy Fog Is No Longer Ignored as Illusion

Once, women complaining of a constellation of symptoms after undergoing chemotherapy – including short-term memory loss, an inability to concentrate, difficulty retrieving words, trouble with multitasking and an overarching sense that they had lost their mental edge – were often sent home with a patronizing “There, there.”

But attitudes are changing as a result of a flurry of research and new attention to the after-effects of life-saving treatment. There is now widespread acknowledgment that patients with cognitive symptoms are not imagining things, and a growing number of oncologists are rushing to offer remedies, including stimulants commonly used for attention-deficit disorder and acupuncture.

“Until recently, oncologists would discount it, trivialize it, make patients feel it was all in their heads,” said Dr. Daniel Silverman, a cancer researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies the cognitive side effects of chemotherapy. “Now there’s enough literature, even if it’s controversial, that not mentioning it as a possibility is either ignorant or an evasion of professional duty.”

Read the rest.

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Filed Under: health

April 28, 2007 By Fausta

Saturday afternoon Ray

Ray’s on TV, and here’s a YouTube for you,

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Filed Under: music, videos

April 28, 2007 By Fausta

"Off with their breasts!"

Continuing on the police action in Iran trying to force all women into BMOs, the BBC reports that the the crackdown includes young men, too:

Young men are being cautioned for wearing short sleeved shirts or for their hairstyles.

The women continue to be relentlessly harrassed.

And now comes the really misogynistic and truly bizarre part,

One shopkeeper selling evening dresses told us the moral police had ordered him to saw off the breasts of his mannequins because they were too revealing.

He said he wasn’t the only shop to receive this strange instruction.


The shopkeeper “sawed off the breasts of the mannequins on his window display and covered them with sticky tape”, at the insistence of the police, and the BBC has a video.

Makes one wonder what the Sanity Squad would say, doesn’t it?

Here are more photos on the fashion crackdown.

Meanwhile, over at Gateway Pundit… Banned In Iran… A Helpful Guide For Prisoners of the Regime

Cross-posted at MNM and DNN
Update: 1001 Nights

Update, Sunday 29 April Welcome, readers from The Corner. I agree 100% with Michael Ledeen

Yes, they really are crazy. And sick. And they’re after us. Somebody tell the secretary of state, please.

While you are here, you might want to listen to my podcasts. Please visit often.

Update, Monday 30 April: Welcome, Michelle Malkin readers. Please visit often. Michelle correctly points out,

Activists say that while world attention has focused on the West’s standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, the abuses of women’s rights have intensified, using fear of a U.S. attack as a pretext.

Digg!

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Filed Under: fashion, Iran, Islam, news, Sanity Squad

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