The Making Of A 9/11 Republican

Interesting op/ed by a California liberal born and bred, turned 9/11 Republican. My upbringing wasn't as liberal as hers, but I really related to this:

Thoroughly disgusted by the behavior of those on the left, I began to look elsewhere for support. To my astonishment, I found that the only voices that seemed to me to be intellectually and morally honest were on the right. Suddenly, I was listening to conservative talk-show hosts on the radio and reading conservative columnists, and they were making sense. When I actually met conservatives, I discovered that they did not at all embody the stereotypes with which I'd been inculcated as a liberal.

Although my initial agreement with voices on the right centered on the war on terrorism, I began to find myself in concurrence with other aspects of conservative political philosophy as well. Smaller government, traditional societal structures, respect and reverence for life, the importance of family, personal responsibility, national unity over identity politics and the benefits of living in a meritocracy all became important to me. In truth, it turns out I was already conservative on many of these subjects but had never been willing to admit as much.

In my case, it was less a matter of realizing how "right" I am than of realizing how "left" the left is. (via LGF)

Lebanon's PM resigns

Wow. Lebanon's pro-Syrian PM resigned before a vote of no-confidence, which he was expected to win. Perhaps it was that crowd of 200,000 that persuaded him.

It's great that the US isn't a big player in this. Protesters can't be accused of being American puppets and we can't be accused of forcing democracy on an unwilling populous.

Update: Lots more at Across the Bay.

Dirty War

Saw most of Dirty War on PBS. The after movie discussion panel was actually pretty informative, although not comforting. The Homeland Security rep. put in a plug for reauthorizing the Patriot Act, since the movie police failed to stop the terrorists partially due to poor communication between agencies. Warren Rudman emphasized that there was no way to guarantee that such an attack won't happen here. In fact, he seems pretty sure that there will be such an attack. The terrorism expert also responded to a question by saying that the main threat is from Islamic terrorism.

Essentially, the DHS guy said we have to stop it, because we can't prepare for it and Rudman said we have to prepare for it because we can't stop it.

I'll have a "big frosty glass of chill-the-hell-out."

James Lileks puts the parenting thing in perspective. Refering to the stress of organizing a class party:

Well. It’s too bad Amazon cannot overnight a sense of perspective, because there are, in truth, tougher situations to find yourself in. I’d like to reserve “hating everyone and everything and going insane” for the moment when I’m fleeing the attack helicopters that have come to wipe out my tribe.

(via Joanne Jacobs)

They wrote a book about my life

Confessions of a Slacker Mom

Newsweek has an interview with the author and an essay on the topic by Anna Quindlen. (via Ex-Donkey)

I must admit that, while my housekeeping slackerness is entirely my own choice, my child-rearing slackerness is enforced by my daughter. In her first three years, she was violently shy. Should a stranger deign to look at her or, God forbid, address her, she would scream bloody murder. She startled more than one well-meaning old lady in the supermarket. Play groups were just not going to happen. Gymboree - forget it. Church nursery - pleeese.

She's progressed a lot in the past year, but I still wouldn't want to plunk down the money for a class she may or may not participate in.

But, as a stay-at-home mom, I can relate to the need to justify one's existence. On one hand, having a special needs child provides a built in justification for staying home. Day care would have been impossibly hard on my sensitive little one. But on the other hand, there's the feeling that you should always be doing something to help her catch up or branch out. And if she hasn't caught up, well then, you must not be doing it right.

Of course, if I worked out of the home, then I'd feel people were thinking her problems stemmed from languishing in daycare.

I guess only the mother can protect herself from parenting anxiety by assuming a less defensive posture. Easier said than done, I know. But consider this: nearly half of the people in this country and most of the rest of the world think my politics are dead wrong. I couldn't care less. Someone came to my blog and called me simple-minded. Whatever. It may be annoying, but I wouldn't even dream of being wounded. Who are they? A bunch of people who are wrong, that's who!

Why is it nearly impossible to take that attitude towards parenting. I suppose it's because I am personally responsible for my kid, whereas I'm just one of millions voting for the president . Also, my kid means more to me than politics.

But I try to remember that another mother isn't trying to suggest anything about my parenting skills when she talks about little Bobby's amazing talent on the violin or whatnot. Our kids are so central to our lives that it's just natural to talk about them a lot.

Hey, maybe one of the blessings of having a challenging child is that there is no way in hell we could get everything done. My life is so far from June Cleaver's that there's no reason to even try to keep up. I have already been forced to consider my daughter's need (and my own), and jettison most non-necessities. I've already prioritized, so when someone mentions another enrichment activity they're taking the kids to, I automatically know whether that's something my daughter could handle. Usually, it's not, so there's no pressure to add it.

Whew. Blogging - better than therapy.

Suddenly Bloggers are Everywhere

Up to Date (local call-in show) just did an hour on bloggers. It was pretty basic stuff, but one line I liked, refering to the multitude of small bloggers: "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 people."

Heh, I should be so lucky.

West Hollywood to build monument to Soviet Soldiers

Okay, this is a strange :

"...West Hollywood is building a World War II memorial to honor the sacrifices of Soviet veterans like Sapozhnikov and their fallen comrades. City officials will unveil the monument May 8, a day before former Soviet countries mark the anniversary of the war's end, in a park located in the heart of the area's Russian-speaking immigrant community.

I'm just not sure it's appropriate to build a monument to the fighting forces of a foreign country, especially one that's been our enemy for much longer than the 4 years it was our ally. Why do these people think we kept 300, 000 troops in Europe during the Cold War? Who would those troops have been fighting? Yes, the same military this monument is intended to honor. And then there is this:

Surrounded by Beverly Hills and Los Angeles, West Hollywood has about 37,000 residents. Many of its 6,000 Russian-speakers began immigrating to the region in the 1970s to escape religious and political persecution.

So why not a monument to Soviet dissidents and the millions of people killed during the 70 years of communist rule?

via On the Wire, who has more on Stalin's contribution to "world peace and justice."

Mark Steyn's website is back

Here's something from his latest:

The folks that have been under the UN wing the longest - indeed, the only ones with their own permanent UN agency and semi-centenarian "refugee camps" - are the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth: the Palestinians. UN territories like Kosovo are the global equivalent of inner-city council estates with the blue helmets as local enforcers for the absentee slum landlord. By contrast, a couple of years after imperialist warmonger Bush showed up, Afghanistan and Iraq have elections, presidents and prime ministers.

Good Charlie Rose show with Bloggers

Wonkette, Glenn Reynolds, Andrew Sullivan and Joe Trippi sitting around the table talking about the influence of blogs.

Charlie asked Joe Trippi if bloggers could elect the next president, referring to the money a politician could raise online. But I suspect the blogosphere may have elected this president by destroying the image Kerry was trying to create for himself. Bush was vulnerable to the kind of candidate Kerry pretended to be.

Update: More from Jim Geraghty:

Want to know something kind of surprising?

Last night’s Charlie Rose show about blogs left me thinking more highly of all the panelists - Glenn Reynolds, Andrew Sullivan, Joe Trippi and (gasp) even Wonkette.

Me too.

Moral Confusion at UN

This Reuters story via Tim Blair:

UN peacekeepers have been banned from all sex with the local population in Congo because of widespread, continuing abuse of women and girls ...

UN regulations for soldiers usually forbid sex with anyone under 18 and forced prostitution. But often officials found there was a fine line between forced and willing sex.

Yes, women often find themselves thinking "Do I want to have sex with this guy, or am I being forced? I just can't tell."

Idiots.

Update: Michelle Malkin has more.

Sweet Justice

Seems a Minnesota white supremisist turned out to be a bit "racially impure" himself. His good friends in the movement dumped him and he lost his $1 million per year record company, charmingly named Panzerfaust. (via Right Thinking)

Update: Out of morbid curiosity I went to the Panzerfaust website which now forwards to a bunch of white supremisists who are self-certified actual white people. I'm not going to link because...ewwwww. But who would actually buy a reproduction Iron Cross or a Swastica pendant? I guess the same people who would buy an album titled Das Reich Kommt Wieder. And they know who really brought the slaves to America. I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.