Well, working like TCN (those who know, know) these days gives me little time to ponder and write deep thoughts, but things do circle the mind like so many satellites ready to crash and burn. So, I thought I'd just throw them out in nor particular order.

1) We're still winning in Iraq and the Media still doesn't get it. Got a little ways to go though. Still, everyday, it's better and better.

2) How depraved do you have to be for the left to finally get that there is evil in this world, not just ambiguous causes du jour? Al Qaida school for child suicide bombers. According to John F'n Kerry, Stephen "I used to be king of horror" King, Tom "I pretended to be a baby killing Viet Nam Vet, but I'm not and I'm not actually saying they were baby killers" Harkin, Obama's wife, et al only uneducated Americans join the military and become killing machines because they are duped by something. Promises of money, education, fake sense of patriotism, yada, yada, yada. Whatever it is, according to these folks, it isn't because they are adults capable of making their own decisions when inundated daily with plenty of opposing ideas and information nor any real sense or need to defend the nation and our ideas.

Yet, we are supposed to give some credence to an ideology and their grievances that actually does go out and brain wash poor, uneducated children to kill, with little regard for life or innocence You only have to look at that difference to understand real foolishness of such hypocrisy. Yet, some folks still don't get it.

Good and evil. Funny, how often people who eschew the difference end up supporting or committing the worst sorts of evil.

3) It still makes me p*ssed off when some moron says something like the 3000 dead on September 11 was no reason to go to war. One death is a tragedy, but 3000 is supposed to be another day in the neighborhood. Suck it up. Whatever. It's one of the few times in my life that I actually feel like putting my fist in someone's teeth.

We're supposed to be over that by now, right?

5) Michelle Obama off limits for political attack. Hmmm...well, if Obama wants her left off the list, like in the "old days" when wives and children were off limits, then he'd have to put her back in her box, off the campaign trail, doing very little accept glad handing, reading children's books, going to grand openings, etc, etc, etc, limiting her exposure and speaking to "the good little wife". Just like back in the "old days". Unfortunately, if you have your wife giving actual campaign speeches, stumping your policies, she's not off limits because, well, you made her that way. Ask Billy Bob and Hillary how that works. In fact, Obama can thank them because they set the tone and Michelle is happily following their example.

Doesn't he get it? Or, maybe he does and he's hoping to use the double standard to create an unassailable pocket of politicking. Doesn't work that way and, I expect, Obama threw down a gauntlet as well as actually alluding to the idea that he'll go after McCain's wife if he's not allowed to use Michelle that way. In the words of a certain someone that McCain wishes he could distance himself from: Bring it on!

I haven't exactly heard Cindy McCain saying anything particularly or overtly antagonistic. Obama and his cohorts will look like the dirty dogs. So, I guess I'd say, "Please, Mr. Obama, carry out your threat." As Rachel Lucas said, 5 trillion dollars if you catch Cindy McCain being an idiot.

6) A couple of days ago I was watching John Wayne in "The Horse Soldiers". Now that's a movie about war. Complete with warrior angst over the cost of war and the decisions that leaders make to order men forward into nearly impossible situations. Not because they love war, but because they hate it and figure, if they do it and do it well, the war will be over that much faster, the sacrifice of men now means less sacrifice later, etc, etc, etc. The last scene where the doctor sacrifices himself to the probability of Andersonville to take care of the wounded, knowing that John Wayne's character is going to go on and carry the fight, expecting that his stay in Andersonville might be shortened if the colonel succeeds.

That is all the while the doctor is disgusted by war yet sees his job, his duty, as trying to fix what comes after. He got it and so did John Ford.

I don't get why Hollywood doesn't get it anymore. Do they have any idea that they are becoming irrelevant to any discussion of American culture and lost a huge part of the grand entertainment? You know, the last decade, there have been few really good movies out there and those that were pretty good, hitting the proceeds out of the ball park, were about comic book heroes or based on books that actually let heroes be, well, heroic. Via Blackfive, the Lost Art of War pretty much sums it up.

In some respects, I realize this is a product of a "global market" because they can sell their garbage to a billion other people. Of course, they wouldn't just transfer their studio to any other country that wants to eat that anti-American garbage up because, well, they would quickly find themselves running afoul of censors and such. Freedom of thought, speech and association only really exists here. Plus, there are no end of investors for that BS here. However, as JD points out at Outside the Wire, and based on some things I had read in the past, the investments are done for the write off anyway. And Hollywood continues to give themselves awards for being a "loss leader". I don't know about the rest of you, but I've never actually worked for a company that gave its employees an award for losing money. Now, wouldn't that turn capitalism on its head?

7) The world turned upside down. Terrorists or terrorist suspects are claiming mental damage from their imprisonment. The European Court of Human Rights is set to hear their complaints. Now, there has got to be something utterly ridiculous about terrorists claiming mental damage when their entire modis operandi is to cause, well, mental damage. Terrorism being psychological warfare. Wonder if that weighs in anyway against their claims?

Who am I kidding? It's Europe and the "Human Rights" court. Pretty much a paradoxic irony right there.