Mental Path to Appeasement

Tony Blankely on Appeasing Iran:

In fact, Western leaders are resigned to Iran getting the bomb. The diplomacy is understood to be as pointless as getting Hitler to honor a disarmament treaty. But "leaders" have to be seen to be doing something -- even if they know it is futile.

This defeatist attitude exists largely because with the Iraq war as bad precedent -- just as WWI was a bad precedent for another war in 1933 -- military action has been placed, as an emotional response to unpleasantness, out of the question by a weary Western elite.

That is where we are today: about four-fifths down the mental path to appeasement. As unpleasant as dealing with Iran today is, it will be incomparably nastier in a few years when they have the bomb operational. Where are the cold-eyed realists when we need them?

Hadji Girl

Little Green Footballs has the Hadji Girl video that's causing some controversy. Apparently, a Marine wrote a comical song about falling in love with a local girl only to be attacked by her family of insurgents.  A performance for fellow Marines was recorded and placed on the internet, leading to CAIR and knee-jerk liberals claiming that the Americans advocate killing civilians.  I say that you have to let our troops have a little fun without worrying about political correctness.

Troops scare illegals

Maybe it's worth trying to enforce the border after all: Troops scare would-be illegal immigrants away from border.

Rudy Goes Nuclear

Rudy Goes Nuclear discusses how Rudy Giuliani would address America's energy problems by promoting nuclear power.

Summing up U.S. energy policy since the 1970s, he was blunt: "We haven't done anything." We haven't drilled in Alaska. We haven't built oil refineries. We haven't ordered a nuclear power plant since 1978. We need to start doing these things, he said, to diversify. Energy independence, he said, is simply the "wrong paradigm," despite the idea's popularity in quarters of both the Left and the Right. Instead, in a global economy, "We have to diversify, that's our strength . . . You can be independent by being diversified."

Inconvenient Expert

An Inconvenient Expert debunks Gore's global warming horror movie.

Philadelphia "English-only" eatery faces probe

Reuter's report on the "English-only" Philadelphia
cheese steak restaurant. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that
the owner wants to conduct business in English. There's nothing
racist about using the national language. People obviously can
choose to eat elsewhere if they don't like the language -- or the
food for that matter. I imagine that this controversy will prove to
be very good for business. Next time I'm in Philadelphia, I know
where I'm going for a cheese steak sandwich. Geno's Steaks web site seems to be down right now (probably too popular), but you can find more info here.

About the author

You probably don't care, but Elliott Steele is a pseudonym. I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to figure out who the author is in real life, but I hope it doesn't matter. I intend to be a bit more blunt and controversial in my writing than I am normally in person so, in a sense, you're reading the musings of a character I have created. The ideas should be more important than the author.

With that caveat, I do think it's somewhat interesting to know a bit about a blogger's background, even if it is somewhat imaginary. I'm a middle-aged male living near the coast of North Carolina. My wife values her privacy so I'm leaving her out of this blog. Politically, I'm a Reagan Republican. I'm not particularly happy with the state of the Republican party, and I would seriously consider joining some a new conservative party if the opportunity arose. I'm a life-long Catholic, having attended Catholic grammar school and high school. I go to church regularly and I'm pretty orthodox in terms of faith, but I'm saddened by the corruption and liberalism that seems to have taken hold in the Church in America. I graduated from one of the top universities on the West Coast. Professionally, I'm a computer guy -- in particular, a Mac hacker. I wouldn't mind working for Apple some day, which will never happen if Steve Jobs reads this blog.

The Blue Pelican

I'm starting a new blog to keep track of my thoughts about the events of the day. The name of the blog, The Blue Pelican, has no particular significance other than I like the sea bird and, more importantly, the name was available on blogspot.com. If I keep at this for a while, I'll make a nice template with the appropriate graphical theme.