And we're back

For the last month I've been almost as quiet as Clarence
Thomas. No more! And no, I did not give up blogging for
Ramadan.

Let's review the month:

--My condolences
to the families of the
SEALs lost on Aug. 5. Oddly, I think I know the valley where they went down
-- I remember going to a picnic near there in the spring of 1971. We also used
to go skiing about 15 or 20 miles NE of the crash site. Even had a rope tow,
and nice views of the Koh-i-Baba range.  

--I'm not fed up with President Obama. I agree with the
observation I saw that he is less reckless than
his political opponents. I don't think he has been given sufficient credit for
that.  

--But I am fed up with Obama's
Lincoln imitation. Here he is in Iowa in mid-August: "First of all,
democracy is always a messy business in a big country like this. We're diverse,
got a lot of points of view. We kind of romanticize sometimes what democracy
used to be like. But when you listen to what the Federalists said about the
anti- Federalists and the names that Jefferson called Hamilton and back and
forth -- I mean, those guys were tough. Lincoln, they used to talk about him
almost as bad as they talk about me." Actually, they talked much worse about
Lincoln, and the country was in a much worse situation.

--Nice job wrapping
up the Libyan war. This strikes me as a victory for the Libyan rebels, for NATO
and for Obama. Turned out leading from the rear worked -- the United States
achieved its aim, yet is not on the hook for the aftermath. Let the Libyans
figure it out. Not one American died in this fight, as that is a good thing, in
many ways. Was this Suez
'56 in reverse?

--The Syrian military
may
be showing signs of splitting. It would be nice to see Assad go the way of
Qaddafi. Iran worries about this happening and advises Assad to
lighten up.

--Commentary on the
British youff riots
struck me as a mirror in which everyone blamed it on whatever they didn't like.
Col. Blimp types blamed multiculturalism. (I actually think Europe doesn't have
a multi-culture--we Americans do have one, and it works, generally. The UK and
the Euros simply have societies that generally tolerate the presence of other
minority cultures.) My favorite column blamed the
Americanization of Britain, as if we invented riots.  

-If corporations
are people, as candidate
Romney asserts, why can't they be sentenced to jail, like regular people?
Or even executed, like they do in Texas?

--And then there
was this headline of the day:

Liberia's
General Butt Naked seeks redemption

Maybe first, put on
some pants.