Thursday's Potpourri

Some pretty cool and unusual plane pr0n: The MiGs of Area 51. That lil photo off to the right is a YF-110, the designation for MiG-21s operated by the USAF. Via commenter Beach Bum, at Lex’s place. Lex flew against the MiG-21 during Project Constant Peg. Worth the read, as always.

Hey Bec! Here’s something I found over at The Lileks’ place this morning you might be interested in: The Musuem of Russian Art. I thought the sample paintings were pretty cool, especially “Wet Winter.” What I wanna see, however, is a retrospective of Commie propaganda “art” from the ‘50s. You know the school: all those beefy, grim faced (or would that be stoic?), Heroes of the Soviet Union-types in various worker poses. As James says:

The theme is “Realism,” but that’s not meant in the sense of “realism,” but rather scenes from actual Russian and Soviet life, as opposed to Joe Stalin riding a tractor into the dawn. I always wish they displayed a bit more Soviet Kitsch – it has a strange power both horrifying and hilarious, dead and alive, and for some reason it doesn’t have the same lurking evil you find in official Nazi art. The evil is stillborn and inert; it’s sleeping it off.

I agree wholeheartedly. It may be kitsch, but it’s interesting kitsch!

Pelosi-Murtha-Hastings update…at Captain Ed’s:

If Murtha was an unforced error, Hastings is an embarrassing example of Pelosi's judgment. She needs the support of the Congressional Black Caucus to get elected Speaker, and they want Hastings to succeed Harman, if Harman doesn't get the chair. Pelosi can't afford to alienate them any further after she had the audacity to ask William Jefferson to resign from his committee assignments after the FBI found $90,000 in his freezer. (Jefferson won re-election, too.)

Steny Hoyer and Jane Harman have proven themselves capable party spokespeople, and have a record for independent thinking. Pelosi opposes them both strictly for personal reasons. She doesn't like Harman, feeling that her fellow Californian hasn't been partisan enough in her role on the Intel committee, and Hoyer ran against her for Minority Leader in 2001. For those personal reasons, Pelosi wants to turn to a corrupt ex-judge and a bumbling porker for party leadership positions, making a mockery of her promises of reform.

Democrats are in a bad position. They can't afford to throw Pelosi under the bus after promoting her as the first woman Speaker in American history. They can't afford to have Hastings and Murtha in leadership positions and then face the voters in 2008 who wanted reform and change. They can't afford to undermine her authority and openly campaign for the reversal of Hastings' appointment and the failure of her Murtha endorsement.

What he said.

Heckuvajob, Madame Speaker. After two years of your “leadership,” America will storm the polls. Those that are paying attention, anyway. Who’d a thunk it? Nancy Pelosi: The Republicans secret weapon. Karl Rove is an evil genius, indeed.

Wanna read some serious moonbattery? Better even than MoveOn? Equal to WorldCan’tWait? Then go check out Dennis Kucinich’s site. I watched Mr. Kucinich give his “one-minute” speech on the House floor yesterday morning (a ritual familiar to C-SPAN viewers) where he called on the House to cut off funding for the Iraq war. You can find that rant at his web site; it’s the lead item. But the bit that absolutely astonished me was this:

One of the most emotionally wrenching moments came at 10 o'clock at night as they arrived in the village of Qana, the Cana of biblical lore where Christ performed the first of his miracles, changing water into wine. One of the greatest tragedies of war befell a house in Qana where a 1,000-pound bomb exploded and collapsed the structure, crushing dozens of women and children who had sought shelter in the basement.

Kucinich and his wife went to pay respects to the dead, as a graveyard in the center of the village was lit by automobile headlights. They walked by several rows of graves, each with a picture of someone killed in the bombing. One picture was of four members of the same family. Buried were a mother and her three children. As Kucinich quietly wept, a hand reached around his shoulder to console him. It was the very man who had lost these family members, his wife and three children.

"As Kucinich quietly wept..." Damn, that's romance-novel prose. Bad romance-novel prose, at that. What a maroon. What a freakin’ maroon! You remember Qana, right? All the MSM angst over Israel’s “war crimes” and other atrocities? Yeah, that Qana. Kucinich bought all that MSM hand-wringing and a bag of chips. Ol’ Dennis is worse than a moron…he’s a tool.

A question you never asked… Shoulda mentioned this in yesterday’s Anniversary post, but didn’t. Have you ever wondered about the title of this blog? I was on the phone with an old friend one evening just before I decided to begin blogging. During the course of the conversation (after I bemoaned the fact there was no Starbucks here, restaurant choices are limited, yadda, yadda) she asked “Why do you stay there, out of all the places in the country—the world, even—you could go? Is this some sort of self-imposed exile or something?” Well, now that you mention it, yes. Yes, it is. Exile in Portales.

The baby finds its name.

Today’s Pic: All the Pennington Men (and a couple of Pennington Boys). On the decks of the USS Mason, Port Canaveral, Florida. April, 2003.