I typically try to make a post on days when something historic happens. Then, months and years later when I'm perusing archives I can remember what was happening in the world, and remember the tone under which I wrote what I wrote.

Today, two days ahead of schedule, the Bush administration surprised the world by giving up authority in Iraq to the Iraqi provisional government. Many pundits around the world said it wouldn't happen at all, including many in America. "America are imperial Zionist puppets," they said. "Bush will never give up all of that oil."

Today these people are, so far, silent. Today Iraq is rejoicing in being, for the first time in 25 years, masters of their own destinies.

Hail our true friends, the Great People of the United States of America; The Freedom giving Republic, the nation of Liberators. Never has the world known such a nation, willing to spill the blood of her children and spend the treasure of her land even for the sake of the freedom and well being of erstwhile enemies. The tree of friendship is going to grow and grow and bear fruit as sure as day follows night. And the people deep down at the bottom of their hearts, they appreciate. Make no mistake about that. The people have voted today, the pulse of the street is clear, without any hesitation I would give 90% of all Iraqis are hopeful and supportive of the new government, and this is a tacit indirect yes to the U.S. which has been the prime mover of all these events. This is what the foolish fail to understand. Why is this a different situation from that for example of a Vietnam? The answer is very simple: Because, the U.S. has achieved something very popular around here; which is the removal of the Saddam regime. Those who are really against the U.S. from amongst the Iraqis have been and remain a small minority; all other forms of resentment are simply disappointment and disgruntlement resulting from the discomfiture of the present situation and will simply disappear with progress and gradual improvement.
A Small Victory
HT: Ace of Spades HQ

In the coming days you'll hear the spin and all the reasons why this is really a bad thing, but today everyone seems hopeful.

Michael Moore, that is. There are a number of occasions, usually when he is overseas, usually in France, when he has said that he is embarrassed by his fellow Americans, because they're stupid, greedy, and fat. Talk about pot/kettle.

Take his deion of his fellow countrymen and their blind pursuit of the American Dream: "They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet... in thrall to conniving, thieving, smug pricks.

"We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing. National Geographic produced a survey which showed that 60 per cent of 18-25 year olds don't know where Great Britain is on a map. And 92 per cent of us don't own a passport."
pabaah.com

Keep that in mind when you pay to see his new science fiction movie: he thinks you are among the dumbest people on the planet. But, I'm sure he still supports our troops. Because they aren't among the dumbest people in the planet, they're just fools who were duped by a bunch of flag-rallying bullshit. Uh huh. What kind of closed minded, self hating American would actually take his insults to heart, and not question what he says?

In commemoration of his opening of his new propaganda, the following is a list of websites that use real fact to disprove Moore's made-up facts. Read them or don't, it's a free country. Michael Moore thinks you're too stupid to make informed opinions anyway. Go ahead and prove him right.

MOOREWATCH - "MOOREWATCH is dedicated to unearthing the truth behind the doublespeak and falsehood that spews from the mouth (and keyboard) of Michael Moore on a regular basis. Moore is a disingenuous danger to this country, and his assumptions and assertions should not go unchallenged. The collective expertise and research abilities of the entire Internet are more than enough to debunk most of the nonsense Moore regularly puts forth as fact, and we at MOOREWATCH hope to be the clearinghouse for this information."

Michael Moore Hates America - "Contrary to its title, Michael Moore Hates America isn’t a hatchet job on the filmmaker. It’s a journey across the nation where we meet celebrities, scholars and average folks alike, and we find out whether the American Dream is still alive! In the process, we’ll look at Michael Moore’s claims about the country, its people, and our way of life."

Moore Exposed - "Should a 320 pound man lecture us on the evils of over consumption?"

Bowling for Truth - "This website is here as a recourse to expose the distortions and dishonesty in fictitious film director Michael Moore's Oscar winning documentary, Bowling For Columbine. The point of this website IS a lot of things, but here are some that it is not: It is not to reveal a 'bias' in Moore's work. It is not to make the case for guns - I've never owned a gun, never shot a gun, and probably never even held a real gun; Guns scare me. It is not, in large part anyway, even to rebut Moore's beliefs. Rather, this site exists because Michael Moore is clever and glib and a very good film maker - but he uses his powers for evil. Michael Moore persuades his viewers by deceiving them, and this site exists for those who wish not to be fooled."

It would seem that debunking Michael Moore is a regular cottage industry. Free speech is a pretty cool thing, eh? Moore can make fictitious "documentaries" about whatever he wants, and I can say how dangerously stupid I think he is, and all without government cracking down on either of us.

Michael Moore is lucky that America isn't the shithole he wants you to believe it is. You'd never have heard of him at all if it was.

Thank goodness I live in a great society that would never allow a person to face criminal penalties for clicking a mouse button.

I've not done a linkdump in a long time, but my bookmark list is getting full of things I had half a thought of writing about, but never did. So now they're getting dumped here. Some old, some irrelevant, all crap, all the time. Par for the DTMan course..

I've been collecting these for a while, and don't remember where they came from. Just hat tip yourselves, as appropriate.

Chrenkoff is probably getting perma-linked in the left column, soon. More of the flag-rallying bullshit that I seem to like.

"Parable of the Ants" from Crusader War College. I prefer the "drain the swamp" analogy myself, but I know there are those of you out there who embrace the idea of just killing them all.

Fredrik K.R. Norman is a Norwegian living in....uhhh... Norwegia (that's a joke, for those humorless among you) with a congenial temperament. I'm not really sure how he can write so knowledgably about American affairs. Also a good candidate for perma-liking.

Merijn.org. I discovered that page recently when trying to squash the bug infestation that had invaded my WindowsXP. They've got some fixes there for some of the nasty malware out there.

Jill's Adventures in Baghdad. An army Colonel sharing her experiences in the sandbox. Like most every "from the front" webpage I've ever read, she seems to have a different view of events there than what Dan Rather tells the country every night.

7 million nematodes for sale, for those times when 6 million nematodes just wont cut it. Also have good prices on 9000 count ladybugs.

The Green Side. A webpage by a jarhead zero. Again, the view from people who are there is strangely different that what you read in the newspaper.

There we go. I've been deleting them from my favorites as I've been putting them here, and my list is nice and short again. Just the DTMan forum, and porn. The way it should be.

My grandfather was a son of a bitch to the end, and I can't stress enough what a great thing that is.

I'd planned since January to go to Orlando in June to celebrate my mother's... well, a big birthday for her, heh. Grandfather was having one of his bad spells, but it wasn't much different that any other spell he's had for the last ten years. Not to imply he was faking... old age can just suck, is all. We kept an eye on his health... we waited as long as we could to make plans, just in case... and he didn't make a decision either way... and then he died peacefully in the morning before everyone was supposed to go to Florida. Two of my sisters actually started driving the day before, and got the news in Atlanta that he had died in Toledo. I packed my car and left a day earlier than I had planned; and headed north instead of south.

Took the long way through the Appalachians from where I live to where I was going. Very scenic.

Arrived in Ohio with enough time to change and go to the last few hours of the showing. I was very pleased to see my grandfather had a smirk on his face... the old bastard knew he had disrupted everyone's Florida plans... God love him.

My grandfather had led, in my opinion, a very full life. I heard countless stories about his growing up poor during the Great Depression, my family's history of bootlegging during Prohibition (and after), of fighting the local school board and being the first kids in Toledo to wear blue jeans to school, of helping in the construction of the Inter Coastal Waterway, how he won World War II in Europe with the help of General Patton, how he captained an oil rig tender in the Gulf of Mexico, how he captained a survey vessel to map the area off the Ivory Coast for the oil companies. And it goes on and on.

This is a shot of him wearing E-7 stripes right before the Korean War. That's a long story in of itself. (My scanner is busted, and this blurry picture is the best my crappy digital camera could do.)

At his funeral the Masonic Temple had a ceremony for him. My grandfather, a former Masonic Grand Master, had not been an active Mason for fifteen years, but every year when it was time for dues to be paid there was a unanimous vote to waive his requirement and he was therefore kept as an active member.

The old timers in the local American Legion post sent him off with a 21 gun salute. One day I have to get around to taking them my DD-214 and joining the post.

A dove was released. It flew directly toward the nearest bar, which I found to be appropriate, even though I never knew him as a heavy drinker. I don't ever recall seeing him drunk, in fact. That's not to say I didn't get drunk many-a-time off the moonshine and fortified "wine" he made in his garage...

I don't know if when we die that's the end, or if there's an afterlife. If one day when I take the long walk I find myself in the next world, the first thing I'm going to ask God is, "What did you think the first time my grandfather corrected your euchre game?"

Twenty four hours after driving 750 miles to get to Toledo, I again packed the car and headed down I-75, Destination: Orlando. Mom had adjusted the dates of the house she rented, and we were still able to salvage most of that trip. Twenty four hours and one intense thunderstorm in Kentucky later, and I arrived.

Ten minutes after I arrived, I was drinking beer with the greens keeper of Tiger Wood's golf course. He said Tiger is pretty down to earth, and drops the f-bomb a lot. Funny.

Chilled out the rest of that day, and the next day we went to MGM Studios with all the nieces and nephews.

Long day. Got back to the house that night, took a dip in the pool, and got ready for the next day at...

I had my usual overwhelming desire to crush it... and I tried... but it turns out the Magic Kingdom has some powerful juju that makes everything I attempt to crush all blurry.

MGM is kind of geared toward kids, but the Magic Kingdom is geared toward kids big-time.

Got back to the house, took a dip in the pool (Marco...POLO!), and chilled out and prepared to leave the next day.

Sisters had earlier flights, so it was just me and the S.O., and Mom and her old man. Mom wanted to go see the PGA Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, so that's what we did.

The Castillo de San Marcos, built 1672-1695, served primarily as an outpost of the Spanish Empire, guarding St. Augustine, the first permanent European settlement in the continental United States, and also protecting the sea route for treasure ships returning to Spain. Although the Castillo has served a number of nations throughout its history, it has never been taken by military force. During the 18th century, the Castillo went from Spanish control to British and back to the Spanish , who remained in power in Florida until the area was purchased by the United States in 1821. Called Fort Marion at this time, The Castillo was made a National Monument in 1924 and became part of the National Park system in 1933. The park consists of the original historic Castillo fortress itself with its attendant grounds, some 25 total acres.

It was a overcast day, and drizzling rain more often than not. And it was a hot, humid drizzle. The best kind. This picture shows the bell tower in the background, and in the middle ground, the structure that looks like a pizza oven, actually is an oven... but not for pizza. It's where they heated up the cannon balls before they fired them at enemy ships; hot enough to start fires if they didn't sink them. The cannons are to the right of this picture.

Because of the crap day we didn't stay as long as we would have otherwise, so we wished mom a happy birthday one more time, and parted ways; they for the PGA H.o.F, and us for home in NC. Heading up I-95, we drove through Charleston, SC. I told the little woman to grab the camera because I was amazed at the size of the new bridge they were building...

The smaller bridge in the picture is the one we crossed, and it's a regular, huge bridge. Those new spans look massive in the picture, they were... ummm... even massiver in person. That isn't a trick of perspective. Those new spans are right next to the old bridge.

As we were crossing the bridge we saw something we didn't expect, the USS Yorktown.

That's the best pic we could get in a low profile car while crossing a bridge. We were already pushing a midnight ETA to get home, and we were rather road weary after 2500 miles in 7 days, so we decided to not stop.

T'was a long journey. The 2700 odd miles left me too weary to visit President Reagan in DC, which would have been a long day-trip, otherwise.

That's like the loser of a footrace saying, "Well, the other guy crossed the finish line first, but we expended all this energy in the race, so really we're all losers."

Just wrote a little letter. Here's a portion the article with which I took issue. The link I clicked (with dread) on the front page of cnn.com was "Saudi poll: Wide support for bin Laden."

Saudi poll: Wide support for bin Laden

By Henry Schuster
CNN
Tuesday, June 8, 2004 Posted: 8:24 PM EDT (0024 GMT)

(CNN) -- Almost half of all Saudis said in a poll conducted last year that they have a favorable view of Osama bin Laden's sermons and rhetoric, but fewer than 5 percent thought it was a good idea for bin Laden to rule the Arabian Peninsula.

The poll involved interviews with more than 15,000 Saudis and was overseen by Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi national security consultant.

It was conducted between August and November 2003, after simultaneous suicide attacks in May 2003 when 36 people were killed in Riyadh.

Obaid said he only recently decided to reveal the poll results because he felt the public needed to know about them.

"I was surprised [at the results], especially after the bombings," Obaid told CNN. The question put to Saudi citizens was "What is your opinion of Osama bin Laden's sermons and rhetoric?"

"They like what he said about what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or about America and the Zionist conspiracy. But what he does, that's where you see the huge drop," said Obaid, referring to the bombings that had already begun taking place inside Saudi Arabia at the time the poll was conducted.

He also said he would like to update the poll numbers in the wake of the recent series of terrorist attacks that have taken place in Saudi Arabia.

Forty-one percent said they favored strong and close relations with America, while only 39 percent said they had a favorable opinion of the Saudi armed forces, both results that Obaid also termed "surprising."
CNN.com

It irked me that if I had just read the headline and not the article, I would have had a pretty skewed impression of the actual poll results. So, I wrote to the author.

To: henry.schuster@cnn.com
From: gordon2 -at- dtman dot com
Subj: Your article, "Saudi poll: Wide support for bin Laden"

Wed 6/9/2004 12:32 AM

Greetings.

Allow me to open this email by saying I believe most major media sources, including CNN, to be very biased in their presentation of the news. That being said, I'll use your article as one of the reasons why.

The headline. I saw, "Saudi poll: Wide support for bin Laden." The first thing I thought was, "Great... most of them are still against us." When I got into the article, the first thing you see is "Almost half of all Saudis said in a poll conducted last year that they have a favorable view of Osama bin Laden's sermons and rhetoric." Why, pray tell, could the article not have more accurately been titled, "Saudi poll: Less than half support bin Laden." It certainly is an improvement, and maintains the same accuracy as the headline with which you ran. The only conclusion I can draw is that you have some reason for making it seem as bad as possible.

Now, let's talk about the word "support," which also appears in the headline. In the article you quote, "They like what he said about what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or about America and the Zionist conspiracy. But what he does, that's where you see the huge drop..." This constitutes support? Almost half like his ideas, but there is a "huge drop" when people are asked about his methods? This is "support," sir?

"Forty-one percent said they favored strong and close relations with America..." The title of the article could have been "Saudi poll: Wide support for America." 41% is, of course, almost half. The title of the article could have been exactly as accurate as it was made, and yet not have the negative spin.

Shame on you, sir. It's tripe like this that has the American people losing respect for journalists. The slant is obvious, and reputations are hard to repair once trust is lost.

Sincerely,
GORDON
www.dtman.com

Something came up, and I'm hitting the high road again. I have over 2000 miles of driving to do in the next 8 days. NC ---> OH ----> FL ---> NC. Yay.

Coûteaux (EDD). – (FR) Madam President, the most surprising thing about our debate is our surprise, for Israel's expansionist policy is the inevitable and predictable result of the growing imbalance in the region, the stability for which we bear much of the responsibility. Firstly that is because since 1967 most of our states, with the notable exception of France, have continued to give the State of Israel – a state that is growing increasingly self-assured and domineering – the impression that it can violate international law and UN resolutions with impunity.

In reality, here as elsewhere we have followed Washington and persist in closing our eyes to the theocratic excesses of this religious state whose governments are under the thumb of fanatical parties and minorities that are just as bad as the other groups of religious fanatics in the region. That is why we should envisage imposing sanctions on Israel.

There is, however, another serious imbalance for which we are in part responsible, namely the imbalance of forces. I have no hesitation in saying that we must consider giving the Arab side a large enough force, including a large enough nuclear force, to persuade Israel that it cannot simply do whatever it wants. That is the policy my country pursued in the 1970s when it gave Iraq a nuclear force. We have now destroyed it. So we will carry on with our policy of imbalance and what is happening today is merely the annoying but inevitable result of our collective blindness and cowardice.
Debates of the European Parliament
SITTING OF WEDNESDAY, 16 MAY 2001