And so, it’s begun.

More than 18 months after the war began in Iraq, the climactic struggle against the thugs, terrorists, Saddam bitter enders, and foreign fighters has been joined as an operation involving Iraqi and American forces seeks to take Fallujah away from the “insurgents.” (Not, of course, any terrorists. After all…there are no terrorists in Iraq. There never HAVE been terrorists in Iraq.)

Leading the way, as they have for more than 200 years, are the men and women of the United States Marine Corps.

Many of these fine young men are going to die. The terrorists are not going to give up easily. The entire islamic world is watching Fallujah and hoping that the terrorists can inflict thousands of casualties on the Americans before they die. I have no doubt that Al Jazeera will dwell long and lovingly on each and every civilian casualty, each new “outrage” by American forces against the peace loving people of Fallujah. The fact that the terrorists are using the civilian population as “human shields” will not be mentioned in the islamic press. After all, it would ruin the story line.

“We are here to defend our country,” said Ali, 28, a soldier from Nasiriyah who is in the Iraqi army’s 1st Brigade. Like many of the Iraqi soldiers interviewed here, he gave only one name. “We have to get rid of terrorism. All the world looks down on Iraq now because of the terrorists who are not Iraqi. We will make them see Iraqi men ending the terrorism in Iraq.”

Does this sound like Viet Nam to you?

These guys are serious. They are proud, nationalistic, and motivated. And while they have complaints about the quality of their weapons and equipment compared to the Americans, they see their duty and are prepared to meet the challenge. Here’s the Iraqi Commander:

“We know our enemy, even if they have developed weapons,” he said. “As Iraqi people and army, we’ll fight them with traditional weapons. We have our strategy and mentality. What made the Iraqi soldier fight the American soldiers in 1990 and last year, despite their high technology, is the same we will use in this battle.”

Does this sound like Viet Nam to you?

By all reports, our troops are ready to go. As professionals, they don’t need to be told of the importance of this battle. According to reports, they’re anxious to take the battle to the terrorists. After almost a year of ambushes on lonely roads and car bombs exploding at checkpoints, these guys seem eager to engage, despite the bloody work ahead:

“You’re rested, you’re ready, and we’re prepared,” Lt. Col. James Rainey of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division, told his staff as their mobile command center was broken down around them. “This is going to be the biggest fight any of us will do in the near future. . . . No matter what you think about the Iraqi war or the Iraqi government, this fight is 100 percent about terrorists—terrorists who want to come to your house and kill you.”

“Terrorists who want to come to your house and kill you.”...I think that just about says it all.


TITAN GIVES UP ITS SECRETS…RELUCTANTLY

Is Saturn’s moon Titan a better place to look for life than Mars?

That’s the question NASA’s Cassini space probe is seeking to answer as it made it’s second flyby of the giant moon and trained its array of instruments at the surface.

“When Cassini turned its formidable instrument array on smog-shrouded Titan, it made some very intriguing finds, the most surprising of which was the moon appears to be geologically active—the spacecraft’s instruments showed the moon has continental plates and volcanism. It also exhibits a veritable soup of hydrocarbons, including methane, ethane and benzene—some in liquefied deposits the size of very large lakes. Put this all together and it makes—what?”

What, indeed. The fact that the moon is geologically active means that there may be heat being generated at the surface. If so, and if the complex molecules have found a way to combine without the presence of water, life may have in fact developed at some point in Titan’s past.

“The question is, can life spring from hydrocarbons but not water? For that matter, can life’s soup be made from only a partial ingredients list? Finding the answer is critical, because if life is discovered on another distant world—thereby doubling the count of life’s known locales—then it becomes more likely life exists on many of the estimated 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Earth-like planets in the universe.” (Don’t you just love it when scientists use such big numbers?)

The most exciting phase of the mission will come Christmas day when the European built lander Huygens will attempt a soft landing on the moon’s surface. If successful, the lander will surely encounter the most bizarre surface ever studied. Titan’s pools of hydrocarbons (liqiud oil? probably not)and acres of frozen methane present challenges no lander has ever had to deal with. And while the lander is not designed to search for or identify life, it may answer questions that could lead to a determination if life could exist in some form on the surface.


THE MYTH OF THE “REALITY BASED COMMUNITY”

Leave it to a moonbat to consider himself a member of something called the “reality based community.”

When I first started seeing Atrios, Kos, and Eric Alterman refer to themselves as belonging to something called the “reality based community,” I just couldn’t believe the arrogance, the hubris, the out and out BALLS of people whose belief in their own superiority was so set, so unshakable as to place themselves on a different plane of “reality” than the rest of us poor slobs in the red states.

How reality based is it to believe that George Bush is the second coming of Adolph Hitler?

How reality based is it to believe that Vice President Cheney urged war in Iraq to personally enrich himself?

How reality based is it to believe that John Ashcroft wants to tear up the Constitution, repeal the Bill of Rights, and put innocent people in jail?

How reality based is it to believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary, George Bush stole the election of 2000 by “disenfranchising” millions of minority voters.

How reality based is it to believe that Diebold Corporation, the company that makes voting machines, is in cahoots with the Bush administration and helped Republicans “steal” Ohio by hacking the electronic voting machines and running up huge totals for the President?

How reality based is it to believe that we’re fighting in Iraq for oil? (If we are, we’re sure as hell not getting much now, are we?)

How reality based is it to believe that, despite every bit of evidence to the contrary, there is going to be a draft in a second Bush term?

How reality based is it to believe in so many conspiracy theories that you can’t keep track of which ones conflict with which other ones?

Lawrence Kaplan has an article in today’s New Republic that discusses this weird phenomena. In short, Kaplan points out that saying your political opponents live in a “non-reality” based community, you’re not going to win many votes:

“If this is what passes for rational discourse on the left—and for too many liberals these days, it is—then just who is it that belongs to the “reality-based community” and just who is it that suffers under the weight of what the left used to call “false consciousness”? The question merits an answer, since Wills and otherwise sensible voices on the left—such as The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, who professes himself “alarmed that so many of our fellow citizens could look the other way and not hold Bush accountable for utter incompetence in Iraq” and “amazed that a majority was not concerned about heaping a huge debt burden on our children just to give large tax breaks to the rich”—see their task as raising the level of consciousness of Americans out of step with reality. But what if their own estrangement leads not to insight, but rather to blindness and, more important, to separation from the very Americans they mean to influence?”

“Raising the level of consciousness” was very big in the 1960’s. It usually referred to some kind of drug induced “eureka” moment where one would experience a thrill when the mysteries of the universe would be revealed. (I remember my raised consciousness involved realizing that “God” spelled backwords was “dog!” Woof! Woof! Lord).

Kaplan points out that such arrogance is, in fact, anti-american. That seems about par for the course for our monkey-brained moonbats whose “reality” doesn’t include those of us who voted for George Bush.

MORE MOONBAT MADNESS

Tim Worstall has a link to a Bob Herbert piece on “the reality based community” teaching us right wing yankers about…well, reality.

“Yes, I know, hard to believe that this is a step up but at least he is only calling them ignorant, not morons.

Actually, I think he’s really on to something. Democratic Underground activists, perhaps Kos or Atrios instead, conducting teach-ins to explain to these pig-ignorant homophobes and evangelicals that their entire worldview is wrong and that their self-identification with ShrimpyMcBushChimp was all a delusion based upon their ignorance.”

Herbert makes a distinction between being called “ignorant” rather than a “moron.” I guess that’s a step up. After all, “moron” refers to someone who’s…how shall we put this…mentally challenged (oh those compassionate moonbats!) while “ignorant” is a condition that ostensibly can be improved with education (or, more aptly “re-education”...as in camps).

I cringe in awe and fear as the light of superior knowledge and intellect shines down upon me from above. Is it from God? Jesus?

No, silly…it’s Michael Moore.