LUNCHTIME BLOG

I've got a few minutes and Blogger seems to have come back to life, so here goes a little finger-limbering.

So why am I still on Blogger, and blogspot, anyway? All the cool kids moved out of this neighborhood long ago. But I'm still here, in the blogosphere's equivalent of those old geocities addresses, putting up with the vagaries that seem to have survived Blogger's Google rescue.

I actually do have a reason for staying: I don't want to have to pay (much) for the privilege of writing my own stuff. And there may be unintended consequences down the road. I get paid to write now, I make a living at it, and I have this silly notion that one day I might get paid even more to write stuff that's closer to my heart--faith, world affairs, that sort of thing. Suppose I'm in that gig and I decide to ask for a raise. The boss sizes me up, then pulls up my URL--www.junkyardblog.com or whatever, and says "Why should I pay you more to write for me when you're obviously willing to shell out X$ a month to write for yourself, for free?" Paying more than I already do to write when I get paid to write, and would like to get paid more to write, seems counterproductive to the grand scheme to me. I know, it's idiotic. So for now, Blogger is still my home.

Big day in the news. These are the days of miracle and wonder, aren't they. Elizabeth Smart is home 9 months (!) after she was kidnapped. From the one photo I've seen she looks remarkably healthy. I've no doubt her family is overjoyed beyond words to have her back, and while she probably does have some difficult times ahead she does have the proverbial rest of her life in front of her. She's 15. May she live to be 115 and be happy every single day of it.

The New York Post tells a tale of assassination that's a real hummer--al Qaeda wanted to kill off President Clinton. If true, it shows just how clueless our enemy really is. They had no better operational friend than Bill Clinton during his eight years of malfeasance. They killed Americans when and where they pleased, and all Clinton did in response was mouth off about declaring war and send up a few cruise missiles. Empty tents and pill factories. Clinton was impotent against them. If al Qaeda really had killed him, just imagine the war that would've started. Today's peaceniks would probably have led the calls for terrorist blood.

The other New York paper has a Bill Safire piece demonstrating at least part of the reason Jacques Ch-iraq is being such a backbreaker: France has been brokering the sale of Chinese rocket propellants to Saddam's Iraq. Nice. With France, you can deal with two of America's mortal enemies for the price of one! But you must act fast, because the regime change sale will be over soon.

So when do we get the Iraq crap overwith and start bombing France already?

Here at home, how did the anti-war forces honor passing 18 months since 9-11? By setting up an anti-war web site to coordinate "Day X." That's what they're calling the date when the war in Iraq starts in earnest. They're getting organized, and like the terror groups they're enabling, the CAN can'ts have a list of demands:

CAN stands firmly opposed to the coming war against Iraq and the racist
crackdown on civil liberties here at home.

Furthermore, CAN calls for an end to the U.N. sanctions - which have led to
the deaths of millions of innocent Iraqis over the past decade - and demands
money for education, jobs, and health care ­ not war.

Ah, yes--make a socialist workers' paradise, not war! These people don't even believe in containment, much less war, to disarm Saddam. They just want more block grants to study fruit flies and have people with real jobs pony up for everyone else's health insurance. They've positioned themselves to the left of Mikhail Gorbachev--even he thinks Saddam should go. And as a dictator who resigned to make his own country liveable, he should know. Sometimes I wish I could live in Disneyland every day like these people do, but the trouble is even there Mickey would eventually say the wrong thing to Minnie and then the lawyers would step in and before you know it they've torn the Magic Kingdom asunder. The real world intrudes wherever it's welcome, and especially where it isn't.

CAN will be staging walkouts and protests and die-ins (without the real death that accompanies the average Iraqi who defies his government) and generally making nuisances of themselves. They're free to be idiots, and we're free to win the argument on the merits, win the war, establish the peace--and ignore the peaceniks at every step. Days of miracle and wonder. Shut off the TV and fire up a Maduro--it's going to get worse before it gets better.