Habeus Papam!

It's official, Cardinal Ratzinger is the new Roman Catholic Church's Pope- Benedict XVI. He's essentially a continuation, for the most part, of the leadership of John Paul II, and he's the Papal Press Secretary and Doctrinal enforcer, so he's gotten a reputation for being a traditionalist and very principled. Heck, when he was drafted into the Wehrmacht in WW2, he deserted because he didn't like the Nazis, or Hitler. And spent the rest of the war in a prison camp.

That's principle.

Oh, and the entire non-talk radio and Fox News coverage of the new Pope can be summarized like this:

ULWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGH!!!!!

Followed by headless chickens running around into things. Great unbiased job the stinking lot of you have done to day. Go research for once, will you? It's not hard.

And it's principled.

Wither China

This is a great post by Wretchard at Belmont (http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2005/04/taiwan-and-china-this-is-copy-of.html), and while it does do a great job of listing the potential pitfalls for both the US/Taiwanese side and the Chinese side in the event of a Chinese invasion attempt on Taiwan, I think it misses one key point: It focuses far too much on the Chinese acting in a rational fashion. What happens if their economy tanks? What happens if there is a major political fallout in China? How will they react to such events? Taiwan may seem like a shot in the dark that could generate wonders for them, potential pitfalls be damned. Hitler invading Russia was a stupid idea, strategically speaking, but he did it anyways. Al Quaeda attacking NYC and Washington DC was also incredibly dumb, but they did it anyways. And that doesn't even count out innovative strategies that none of us have thought of.

Still, it's a great post, and well worth a read.

All that's "left" is the whining about Iraq

Alot of mainstream media outlets and left of center commentators have been talking about how the Iraqis have been taking a while to build a government. It's been two months, and they're sorting out the messy details of forming a government, and picking the right people to head the right positions.

And they're complaining about it being two months since the elections.

Yawn.

I wish someone would thwack them upside the head......and remind them how long it took this very country to get the American Constitution. Anyone remember the boondoggle that was the Articles of Confederation? That lasted until 1789. And the Continential American Army defeated Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1780 (the treaty wasn't ratified until the following year, and the last British troops left New York in 1783).......and 9 years later, they finally had an effective government. I'm not even touching the French Revolution and THAT fallout.

It takes time to build a government. It won't take as long as it took some guys named Franklin, Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson, but the Allawis will get it done, sooner than later.

And what will the whiners have to say then, when they shift their attention to yet another topic? They thought Operation Iraqi Freedom was going to be Black Hawk Down 2.....oops.
They thought that the terrorist insurgency was going to make Iraq another Vietnam....nope.
They think that the Iraqis can't get a constitution in order (why, btw? Because they're......Arabic? Lord, think of the racial overtones of their thinking!)

Methinks they'll realize they've hit rock bottom when they start complaining about the color of the paint in Iraqi municipal buildings. Heh.