Stop the World and Let Off All the Fools...

It's unfortunate that myths about Iraq continually need to be debunked, but when you are up against the Enemies Within who are unmoored from the Reality Bouy, have absolutely no shame and recognize no boundaries to the things they're willing to do to in order to bring others into their World of Delusion; it's necessary.

Ray Bradbury, the Poet

I enjoyed reading Ray Bradbury immensely in my younger days. I did not know he was a poet, too.

America
By RAY BRADBURY

We are the dream that other people dream.
The land where other people land
When late at night
They think on flight
And, flying, here arrive
Where we fools dumbly thrive ourselves.

Refuse to see
We be what all the world would like to be.
Because we hive within this scheme
The obvious dream is blind to us.
We do not mind the miracle we are,
So stop our mouths with curses.
While all the world rehearses
Coming here to stay.
We busily make plans to go away.

How dumb! newcomers cry, arrived from Chad.
You're mad! Iraqis shout,
We'd sell our souls if we could be you.
How come you cannot see the way we see you?
You tread a freedom forest as you please.
But, damn! you miss the forest for the trees.
Ten thousand wanderers a week
Engulf your shore,
You wonder what their shouting's for,
And why so glad?

Run warm those souls: America is bad?
Sit down, stare in their faces, see!
You be the hoped-for thing a hopeless world would be.
In tides of immigrants that this year flow
You still remain the beckoning hearth they'd know.
In midnight beds with blueprint, plan and scheme
You are the dream that other people dream.

I thought it was deplorable when Michael Moore appropriated and tweaked--without consent--the title of Mr. Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 as a means to his self-serving ends. In his plea to Mr. Moore to find another title for his movie, Mr. Bradbury said his personal politics were of no matter regarding his objection. He was simply upset that Mr. Moore did not ask permission.

This poem illustrates to me that Mr. Bradbury and Mr. Moore's politics couldn't be further from eachother, thankfully.

Sierra Springtime

The first mate--skilled at spotting ducks, beavers and floating sticks when he's not napping

What I love about Springtime in the Sierra: sunshine, blue skies, light afternoon breezes, long days, mild nights, corn snow, and no crowds.
My wife, BAXTER and I launched the kayak this weekend on Lake Tahoe and did a big paddle to King's Beach and back for a picnic on Saturday. A nice headwind on the return ensured a better than expected workout!
Sunday we went for a morning paddle when the WHOLE lake was like a sheet of glass. We paddled past Tahoe City and found a couple of nice hidden beaches. Then we came back and took a jacuzzi, made a picnic lunch, loaded up the skis and went up to Tahoe Meadows. At the trailhead ( elev. 8,300 ft) there's about 6 feet of base snow remaining. That's pretty extraordinary for this time of year! I had a good laugh as I was brushing the sand off my feet to put on my ski touring boots. Where else, but Lake Tahoe?
It was hot and sunny, so we donned shorts and t-shirts and did a great tour out and around some peak I don't know the name of. We found a hot rock with a spectacular view of the entire lake, hopped around like lizards, had our lunch and a nap. Bliss--it was a very special day! Don't get too many of those in a lifetime. We'll be back up over Memorial Day, except this time, in addition to the skis and the kayak which are already up there--I'm taking my mountain bike so we can hit some of the lower elevation trails.

That's MY kinda triathlon!

Dictator's Dividend

Max Boot nails it in the LA Times today:

Of the top 14 oil exporters, only one is a well-established liberal democracy — Norway. Two others have recently made a transition to democracy — Mexico and Nigeria. Iraq is trying to follow in their footsteps. That's it. Every other major oil exporter is a dictatorship — and the run-up in oil prices has been a tremendous boon to them.
My associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, Ian Cornwall, calculates that if oil averages $71 a barrel this year, 10 autocracies stand to make about $500 billion more than in 2003, when oil was at $27. This windfall helps to squelch liberal forces and entrench noxious dictators in such oil producers as Russia (which stands to make $115 billion more this year than in 2003) and Venezuela ($36 billion). Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez can buy off their publics with generous subsidies and ignore Western pressure while sabotaging democratic developments from Central America to Central Asia.
The "dictatorship dividend" also subsidizes Sudan's ethnic cleansing (it stands to earn $4.7 billion more this year than in 2003), Iran's development of nuclear weapons ($45 billion) and Saudi Arabia's proselytization for Wahhabi fundamentalism ($149 billion). Even in such close American allies as Kuwait ($35 billion) and the United Arab Emirates ($36 billion), odds are that some of the extra lucre will find its way into the pockets of terrorists.

As Instapundit correctly points out; practicalities aside:

Of course, if we seized the Saudi and Iranian oil fields and ran the pumps full speed, oil prices would plummet, dictators would be broke, and poor nations would benefit from cheap energy. But we'd be called imperialist oppressors, then.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Oh, and May the 4th be with you...

Left at Albuquerque, wherever that is...

Can you find Iraq on a map?

After more than three years of combat and nearly 2,400 U.S. military deaths in Iraq, nearly two-thirds of Americans aged 18 to 24 still cannot find Iraq on a map, a study released Tuesday showed.

I suppose I can forgive an 18 year old for being less than skilled at world geography. Afterall, you're supposed to be stupid when you're 18. I also must consider that a certain number of high school students may have had somebody like Jay Bennish as one of their teachers; somebody who would rather teach leftist dogma than actual relevant course content. Surely he's not the only one out there.
I do find it unforgivable that anybody that's about 23 or 24--that would encompass a large number of college graduates--would fall into that 2/3rds category of ignorance. I shouldn't be surprised though. The great thing about the multicultural movement that has taken hold within our education system is that it does not require you to know anything about other cultures. It only requires that you to feel good about other cultures.
It certainly does not require that you know where they originate, let alone be able to point it out on a map.