Cool personality test.

My results—

Wackiness: 62/100

Rationality: 50/100

Constructiveness: 60/100

Leadership: 62/100

You are a WECL—Wacky Emotional Constructive Leader. This makes you a people's advocate. You are passionate about your causes, with a good heart and good endeavors. Your personal fire is contagious, and others wish they could be as dedicated to their beliefs as you are.
Your dedication may cause you to miss the boat on life's more slight and trivial activities. You will feel no loss when skipping some inane mixer, but it can be frustrating to others to whom such things are important. While you find it difficult to see other points of view, it may be useful to act as if you do, and play along once in a while.
In any event, you have buckets of charisma and a natural skill for making people open up. Your greatest asset is an ability to make progress while keeping the peace.

Of course, I'm right on the cusp in terms of Rationality, there.

And then there was this, which sounded like a good description of my dark side—

You are an SEDL—Sober Emotional Destructive Leader. This makes you a dictator. You prefer to control situations, and lack of control makes you physically sick. You feel have responsibility for everyone's welfare, and that you will be blamed when things go wrong. Things do go wrong, and you take it harder than you should.
You rely on the validation and support of others, but you have a secret distrust for people and distaste for their habits and weaknesses that make you keep your distance from them. This makes you very difficult to be with romantically. Still, a level-headed peacemaker can keep you balanced.
Despite your fierce temper and general hot-bloodedness, you have a soft spot for animals and a surprising passion for the arts. Sometimes you would almost rather live by your wits in the wilderness somewhere, if you could bring your books and your sketchbook.
You also have a strange, undeniable sexiness to you. You may go insane.

And if it is, that might explain why I married a level-headed peacemaker.

Via the Queen of All Evil.

Posted by: Attila at 03:26 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Dean Esmay discusses the Michael Moore theory that displaying an American flag is intended to stifle public debate.

Hilariously.

Posted by: Attila at 01:20 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Dean Esmay has had it with a certain type of leftist or "liberal" who is so enamored of Michael Moore that he can say or do little wrong (or it's "well, yes, he lies. But there have been Repuplicans who've lied as well, so it's okay").

Take me off your blogroll, he writes. Remove me from your favorites list. Forget I exist.

There is something to be said for that.

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Just when you thought this story couldn't smell any more than it does . . .

BAGHDAD A U.S. marine held by an Iraqi militant group is alive and has been released, the marine's brother said Tuesday.
.
The group, Islamic Response, issued a statement on Monday saying that it had taken Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun, the marine it had earlier threatened with beheading, to a "place of safety" after he promised to abandon the American military.

On Tuesday, Corporal Hassoun's older brother, Sami Hassoun, said, "We received a sign that he is alive and he is released and everything is O.K."

"The sign is something that came directly from him, there is something that nobody else could possibly know," Sami Hassoun said in a telephone interview from Tripoli, Lebanon. "It's a certain clue. He is alive, and he is released."

What makes the brother so certain?—surely any information the terrorists have could have been extracted by subterfuge or torture. The longer this situation goes on, the more I begin to think Spoons may be right about it: the whole thing could be an elaborate deception to cover up an act of desertion. I don't want to think that, but there's something very weird going on.

Perhaps Hassoun was spared because he was a Muslim. If so, the terrorists did the smart thing. Which doesn't happen often, but on occasion they do act in their own best interest. (I want to say, in my best Charleton Heston voice, "darn the luck!" I hate it when my enemies wise up.)

Even Rusty Shackleford, who had been insisting that the Hassoun had to be dead—and made a convincing case—is wavering. It's actually possible, though, that Rusty's original idea was right, and only the timing was different than he supposed. Rusty's thought was that Islamic Response had captured Hassoun, killed him, and then realized what a public relations disaster that would be in the Muslim world. They buried the body, and announced that Hassoun had been moved "to a safe place." I wonder whether the scumbags kidnapped him and then figured out that it wouldn't be bright to decapitate a Muslim.

Of course, now one Muslim family knows what it feels like to go through the uncertainty of having their child kidnapped by extremists. I wonder if this will create more sympathy for Western values among the often too-silent "moderates." It's definitely a Western-values family to begin with, of course: otherwise Hassoun wouldn't have joined the Corps in the first place.

One supposes that more will be revealed.

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Christophe rhapsodizes about the United States Postal Service.

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Oh, man. Now we have haiku in honor of Kerry's pick of Edwards as running mate:

For John Edwards

"I think your hair is
perfect! We are so going
to nail the chick vote."

I don't think it gets better than this.

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I still think Biden or Gephardt would have been a better choice, but this does make sense. Certainly it could help a little in the South. The two big, obvious downsides: 1) Edwards' background as a trial lawyer, and 2) his inexperience, alongside the fact that his experience is also as a Senator. We now have two senators going up against a successful Commander in Chief whose VP is actually a participant in the government (rather than the classic type who sits around waiting for the President to die). They will have an uphill slog.

And when all's said and done, this election is still about Bush: pick him, or pick someone else.

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. . . presents us with another juicy exchange, this time on the implications of Google's latest venture and the extra storage space Yahoo is suddenly coughing up for its customers.

Thomas Hazlett, writing in the Financial Times, discusses the cutthroat competition in the top tier of software companies:

The massive antitrust case launched against Microsoft on May 18 1998 ended last week with a whimper. A federal appeals court has endorsed a settlement reached between the software company and the US Department of Justice. Six years of legal dispute, including a government victory on some important charges, have ended. Microsoft, yet in one piece, continues to dominate market share with Internet Explorer (having vanquished its browser rival, Netscape), with its Windows PC operating system (even as Linux continues to generate buzz and Apple refuses to die) and with its now standard office software programs Word (word processing), Excel (spread sheets) and Power Point (3 million MBAs can’t be wrong). Robert Bork, representing anti-Microsoft interests challenging the settlement in court, was disgusted with the result: “It appears on first reading that Microsoft has been cleared to continue its campaign of predation…”

So this is where Google comes in. Despite the fact that Microsoft and Yahoo are both moving aggressively to attack this space, Google’s search engine has performed brilliantly. Without the leverage of incumbency, the outsider has offered consumers value. Consumers have flocked to the innovative application; Wall Street now rushes to fund expansion. While in the cross-hairs of Microsoft’s “campaign of predation”, Google has developed a business plan that will soon be capitalised at something like $25 billion.

Make no mistake: Google strives to dominate. It aims to offer technology so compelling that rivals do not just lose market share, they lose the market. The incentive to seize and occupy a position of monopoly is what drove Microsoft frantically to develop highly functional browserware, distributing it to millions of Windows users free of charge so as to fend off the tempestuous Netscape. It is what fuelled GoogleÂ’s invention of a superior search engine, and it is what now drives it to offer a spectacularly more generous e-mail service. This is the productive violence of creative destruction, and its awesome power is only faintly hinted at by inbox notices announcing memory windfalls of 12,400 per cent.

To which James replies:

But what about the little guy? Sure, he now gets 10 megs of free e-mail instead of the 2 he was getting a few weeks ago, but those who can afford to buy the premium service got bumped to 2 gigs from 100 megs, making the gap between rich and poor all the greater. The poor schmoes who think they were given an extra 98 megs of space are actually getting shafted out of 1.9 gigs of storage by the monopolistic corporate Man, intent on keeping the little man down.

The need for a Nader presidency has never been clearer.

Vintage.

I love Hazlett's "productive violence of creative destruction."

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John of Arrggh! passes along this news about where our hard-earned private contributions went. I love the idea of a sewing center wherein women make goods that then get sold to pay for women's education in Iraq.

And, of course, our dollars also refurbished the television station that publicized the sewing center.

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The Command Post has the latest. It's starting to look like this young man might be alive, though there were pictures of him being physically threatened, so the situation is uncertain.

What is particularly interesting is the fact that all these different groups are each releasing statements to the effect that they know where he is (he's been released, he's been moved to a safe place, etc.). They don't seem to be uniting to fight the Judean People's Front . . . for which I'm glad.

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. . . Independence Day until everyone goes back to work on the 6th, so I hope Michele leaves her July 4th colors—and fireworks—on display through the end of the day today.

Be sure to read her Independence Day post, which is about her journey in reestablishing an intense connection to the United States she was born in. She also discusses our obligations as Americans to those in other countries wherein people don't enjoy any of the freedoms we take for granted. Like Iraq used to be. Like Iran is now.

Our freedom is inextricably tied with the freedom of others. We must help all those who want to face the tyrants as our founding fathers did. In order to truly be secure in our freedom, we must make sure that others are also free. And we must, as a tribute to our forefathers who fought and died so we can live like this, help those who struggle to have what we have. If that means just showing support to anyone in any country that is willing to fight for basic human rights, we must do that.

I know you are probably wondering why I've chosen to take this American holiday and spend the time talking about Iran, but I see the two as sum parts of whole. Of course, I will do the usual celebrating today, with the requisite barbecue, fireworks, beer and baseball. But I will not take my freedom for granted and I will not forget that there are others who strive to have a day like this each year, a day to raise their glasses to liberty.

Read the whole thing. And support Iran in the days leading up to July 9th, as significant a day for the Iranian people now as it was for my mother 42 years ago.

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Kerry went to the Midwest, posing as a Heartland Kind of Guy. Hilarity ensued.

Here's a picture of Kerry looking away from his target, but keeping his finger on the trigger of the scattergun someone loaned him:

This second image is featured in the current Outside the Beltway caption contest; be sure to go over and spell out some of the 1,000 words that picture conveys to you.

Posted by: Attila at 01:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Laurence Simon discusses the various ways the Fourth of July is celebrated around the world, by disparate peoples united only in their ambivalence about . . . us. Little old us. The tone is ironic, the format is alphabetical, and the Ukraine finally gets some damned recognition:

Ukranians still set their sights on America. The land of the free, the home of the brave, and the target zone for nuclear destruction. The remaining Soviet missiles they own rarely waver from their original settings, and for a few hundred thousand they'd be happy to sell one of them to you.

"You want fireworks?" offer the Ukranians. "We'll give you fireworks."

Pour a drink—a stiff one—and read the whole thing.

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One Eric M. Johnson, a reservist writing in the New York Post, shows us the smoking gun on the Washington Post coverage in Iraq.

Via Dean Esmay.

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. . . that my weather pixie girl has fireworks in the background. Particularly since the real-life Weather Pixie people are English. Right thoughful of them, remembering the Fourth's significance . . . especially considering the national trauma this day is interlinked with, from their POV.

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. . . is still deranged, and I mean that in a good way.

Now he's offering up his interview of Senator Robert Byrd's Grand Kleagle hood. Money quote—

me: "...Can I just tell you, though, that you are the whitest piece of fabric I've ever seen! Christ, you're white as a Kerry dinner party, y'know?"

hood:

me: " -- like the guest list at a Barry Manilow concert, is how white you are. I mean, you are one white hood, hood."

Posted by: Attila at 02:30 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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On September 11, 2001 al Qaeda awakened the United States of America, and life hasn't been the same for them since then.

Yesterday their brothers in Islamic extremism awakened the United State Marine Corps, and their own lives will likewise be taking a dramatic turn for the worse.

There are some entities you just don't want to fuck with.

Happy Fourth of July.

(Hat tip: Joe Gandelman, posting at Dean Esmay's site. Be sure to read Joe's roundup on the young Marine's beheading.)

UPDATE: Well, the supposed execution may or may not have happened after all: the group in question—Army of Ansar Al-Sunna— says the claim of a beheading wasn't true, and didn't come from their Official Terrorist Scum Website. The Lebanon government says "not so fast; the young man is definitely dead according to our sources."

(Via James.)

Stay tuned.

Posted by: Attila at 01:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I dropped by Jeff's place today to find that he's been on some kind of bender over the last two days—marked by moments of lucidity and moments when the whatever-it-is he's on kicks into high gear. (I think I know what the "whatever" is, but I'm not telling.)

Happy trails. At least he can spell when he's got some whatever in his system, which is more than I can say about me vis a vis Ambien.

But this is what I like: a quotation on his sidebar (they appear to rotate)—

"Jeff Goldstein is simply the best at whatever it is he's doing."
—
Mike Hendrix, Cold Fury

That pretty much sums it up.

Posted by: Attila at 03:32 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Anonymous (the author of Imperial Hubris) gives us this:

In order to make the decisions and allocate the resources needed to ensure U.S. security, Americans must understand the world as it is, not as we want — or worse yet, hope — it will be.

I have long experience analyzing and attacking Bin Laden and Islamists. I believe they are a growing threat to the United States — there is no greater threat — and that we are being defeated not because the evidence of the threat is unavailable but because we refuse to accept it at face value and without Americanizing the data. This must change, or our way of life will be unrecognizably altered.

To which James Joyner replies:

In war—and Anonymous and I agree that we’re in one—there are only two routes to victory: You can defeat the enemy’s hostile ability (by killing enough of his troops and/or destroying his resources) or overcome his hostile will (his desire to keep fighting). It seems to me that, given the asymmetric nature of the struggle, overcoming the enemy’s hostile ability is unachievable. Victory can come, therefore, only by overcoming his hostile will. And the only way that can happen is to wipe Wahhabism from the face of the earth.

After that, I'm perfectly fine with all getting together to sing Kum Ba Ya.

Grab that link to James' pad, and read the entire exchange.

Posted by: Attila at 03:12 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 No one has done more to support the status quo, and therefore Wahabism, in Saudi Arabia than George W. Bush and his family.

Posted by: Adam at July 08, 2004 09:45 PM (tfidl)

2 A. This country has been far too supportive of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for too long, and that reaches back across both Democratic and Republican administrations. The reasons: 1) KSA is in a strategically important location; 2) it has lots of oil reserves, upon which our economy depends; 3) we have traditionally pursued a policy of "we don't have friends, we have interests" when it comes to the Middle East [with the exception of Israel, which we support for historical reasons]. B. KSA itself has pursued a weird policy with respect to Muslim extremists: they've fed the beast in order to keep it at bay. Lately, however, the House of Saud is in a position wherein it will have to start taking the extremists more seriously. It'll be interesting to see how they change in the next year or so. In the meantime, I'd like to see us conserve energy a bit more, develop alternative energy sources, and--yes--start drilling in ANWR.

Posted by: Attila Girl at July 09, 2004 11:10 PM (LcVoH)

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