Monthly Archives: September 2007

Napoleonic analogies

Posted on September 14, 2007 | Comments Off on Napoleonic analogies

Getting Mr. Boy up in the morning for school the past few days has been tedious. Removing the covers had only limited effect. So I thought to capture his young male imagination, by telling him how bosuns of the Napoleonic-era Royal Navy did it–per the Aubrey-Maturin series. They’d come through the lower decks rousing the next watch by shouting, "Out or down!" Meaning if you didn’t get out of your hammock, they would use their knives to cut your hammock down and you’d sprawl on the deck. It got a smile, and the obvious retort from Mr. B. that he wasn’t in a hammock. But the thinking and the smile were enough to make him open his eyes. From there it was a relatively short step to getting his feet on the floor.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Scribbles

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The urge to surge

Posted on September 14, 2007 | Comments Off on The urge to surge

The full text of Bush’s speech, via Instapundit. I read it but I didn’t watch it. I still like his resolve, indeed, I’m grateful for it. But I long ago despaired of W as a communicator. Let’s hope and pray our next president is much better at it, whichever side wins. We need it, I think.

MORE: VDH on the speech: "So the country looks to Iraq and our maverick General Sherman outside Atlanta, where the battlefield, as it always does, will sort out the politics."

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Posted in The War, Troops

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The battle of the sources

Posted on September 14, 2007 | Comments Off on The battle of the sources

Anonymous ones, that is. I don’t know what to make of it when little media and big media square off with their anonymous sources, and new media picks up little media’s charges without scrutiny. Big media, of course, uses anonymous sources all the time. This time the small, conservative American Spectator magazine is claiming two unidentified sources to support its assertion that the NYTimes gave the leftist MoveOn group special treatment in its purchase of a full-page display ad calling Gen. Patraeus a "Betray Us" traitor. The newspaper denies it. The first anonymous AS source, characterized as "a MoveOn organizer," says the group got a $100,000 discount for the ad. The second unidentified source, called "a former NYTimes ad staffer," says a coalition of conservative Pro-Life groups were turned away for any ad, let alone a discounted one. The magazine also adds, without any attribution, that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were similarly turned away before the 2004 presidential election. Instapundit and other conservative blogs have picked up the Spectator’s charges without qualification, though Instapundit did insert the word "apparently" in its item about it. The conservative NYPost picks up the story, but also relies on anonymous sources. What is the truth? Your guess is as good as mine. To me, the use of anonymous sources makes it hard to sort it out, whichever media claims to have it.

MORE: However much MoveOn paid, Fred says the ad was reprehensible. Of course it was.

UPDATE: Rudy raised a big enough stink about the ad that he’s getting the same rate to run his own defending Petraeus. 

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Posted in Iraq, Scribbles, The War, Troops

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Historical Humberto

Posted on September 13, 2007 | Comments Off on Historical Humberto 
"BASED ON OPERATIONAL ESTIMATES, HUMBERTO STRENGTHENED FROM A 30 KT
DEPRESSION AT 15Z YESTERDAY TO A 75 KT HURRICANE AT 09Z THIS
MORNING...AN INCREASE OF 45 KT IN 18 HOURS.  TO PUT THIS
DEVELOPMENT IN PERSPECTIVE, NO TROPICAL CYCLONE IN THE HISTORICAL
RECORD HAS EVER REACHED THIS INTENSITY AT A FASTER RATE NEAR
LANDFALL.  IT WOULD BE NICE TO KNOW, SOMEDAY, WHY THIS HAPPENED." 
UPDATE: The Seablogger, never shy about the weather, has an idea. 

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Posted in Weather/Climate

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The blessing of the backpacks

Posted on September 13, 2007 | Comments Off on The blessing of the backpacks

"Two dozen children emerged from all over the congregation with their backpacks and brought them to the altar. One man was late as the priest asked that they raise them into the air. He literally sprinted down the aisle to get his child’s backpack into the circle."

Contemporary Christianity from Cobb.

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Posted in Scribbles

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The insurgent advantage

Posted on September 13, 2007 | Comments Off on The insurgent advantage

"It is often said that had the weeks in the hedgerows after D-Day (June to late July 1944) or the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944 to January 1945) been televised each hour on CNN or Fox—with real-time email and cell phone communications with beleaguered soldiers in the field—we would never have won either battle."

–Military historian and prolific military author Victor Davis Hanson on the new face of Western war.

MORE: Underscoring Hanson, there’s this bad news. Whatever the good Gen. Petraeus had to say, and what I saw sounded like realism to me (insurgencies, as he wrote in the Army’s new manual, take a decade or more to defeat), the Iraqis apparently aren’t impressed with the surge. Not that the campaign has ever been entirely for them, mind you. Or that I would trust a BBC poll in the first place, but it’s worth considering.

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Posted in The War, Troops

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Hurry-up hurricane

Posted on September 13, 2007 | Comments Off on Hurry-up hurricane

TS Humberto quickly spun up to a hurricane overnight and went ashore in Galveston County east of High Island at 2 a.m., dumping sixteen inches of rain, but sparing Houston and much of the upper Texas coast. By 8 a.m. today the National Weather Service still had it listed as a hurricane while it moved northeast across southwestern Louisiana. It could have been worse, said meteorologist Jeff Masters:

"Storms like Humberto give us the sobering reminder that as much as hurricane forecasting has improved in recent years, there is still much we do not understand–particularly in regards to intensity forecasting. If Humberto had had another 12-24 hours over water, it could have been a major hurricane that would have hit without enough time to evacuate those at risk."

Nevertheless, Port Arthur took a hit, with downed trees, flooding and power outages, and two tornadoes were reported near Galveston. JD, in Brazoria County, seems to have been spared, though he isn’t posting this early yet. Hurricane center does not show it, but Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi is wondering if Humberto might not curve around and get back over water…

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Posted in Weather/Climate

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