Oscar Jr. Was Here

Friday VDH

on NRO. Excerpt:

John Kerry is probably going to lose this election, despite the "Vote for Change" rock tour, despite Air America, despite Kitty Kelley's fraud hyped on national media, despite Soros's moveon.org hit pieces, despite Fahrenheit 9-11, despite the Nobel Prizes and Cannes Film Awards, despite Rathergate and ABC Memogate, despite the European press, despite Kofi Annan's remonstrations, despite a barking Senator Harkin or Kennedy, despite the leaks of rogue CIA Beltway insiders, despite Jimmy Carter's sanctimonious lectures, despite Joe Wilson, Anonymous, and Richard Clarke — and more. You all have given your best shot, but I think you are going to lose.

Why? Because the majority of Americans does not believe you. The majority is more likely to accept George Bush's tragic view that we really are in a war for our very survival to stop those who would kill us and to alter the landscape that produced them — a terrible war that we are winning.

RTWT.

"This is big."

World Magazine Online has a very interesting article summarizing the alleged Iraqi intelligence documents obtained by CNSNews.com. Excerpt:

The papers, obtained by Cybercast News Service (CNS) and released Oct. 4, "establish irreversible evidence that there were strategic relations between the Baathist regime and Islamist groups that became al-Qaeda," [Islamic terrorism expert] Mr. Phares said after reviewing them at WORLD's request on Oct. 6. In addition, the documents link al-Zarqawi-associated groups throughout the Middle East, including al-Qaeda, on Saddam's payroll and acting under his direct authority.

...

"Saddam was personally overseeing the details" of training terrorists and assigning their missions, Mr. Phares said. "From 1993 on, Saddam Hussein connected with Sunni fundamentalists in the Arab world. He was in touch with the founding members of al-Qaeda."

The article is very much worth reading, and the underlying documents, assuming they are authentic, are interesting (to me, at least).

My First Ever Must-Read of the Day

I wish for my family and friends to read this essay by Bill Whittle. (Read Part II here.) I hope that it will help them to understand my vote. Excerpt:

We like to say that the world changed that day. What a ridiculous, self-centered thought. The world didn’t change. Our illusions about the world changed. The scales had (mostly) fallen from my eyes in the years leading up to that morning. But many, many conservatives (as I define myself) were born precisely at 9:17 am EDT, when United 175 flew past the burning North Tower – an accident? – and exploded through the second, on the morning of September the 11th, 2001.

I only wish that I could say things in such a powerful fashion. And if you read the essay, you might even laugh from time to time.

[Oscar Jr. asks his family and friends to read the essay, too.]

Hurricane Photos

For an interesting and disturbing slideshow of the damage wrought by Hurricane Jeanne, click here. Sample image: