THEY SURE DON’T MAKE PROTEST SONGS like they used to.

IN THE MAIL: Rick Atkinson’s The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944.

JAMES LILEKS ON 9/11/01:

I remember how still it was after the planes were grounded. When the airlines were grounded the jets came in one after the other over my house; then silence. Silence all day. I remember there was an election; can’t recall what it was for, but off we went to the school to vote. I pushed the stroller up the block, sleepwalking. In the evening we went to the park, as always, and pushed our daughter in the swing. She laughed; she had a grand day. She was one year old. When the sun went down she had a bath and played with yellow rubber ducks and slept sweet untroubled sleep. I sat by the TV with a laptop and watched the news until 3 AM, and then there was nothing but the sound of the lone jet overhead, patrolling the dark.

Some discussion in the comments.

JOHN TIERNEY EXPERIENCES CLIMATE CHANGE FIRSTHAND:

It was not an arduous expedition. We went to an old wooden building near the Brooklyn Bridge that is home to the Bridge Cafe, which bills itself as “New York’s Oldest Drinking Establishment.” There’s been drinking in the building since the late 18th century, when it was erected on Water Street along the shore of Lower Manhattan.

Since record-keeping began in the 19th century, the sea level in New York has been rising about a foot per century, which happens to be about the same increase estimated to occur over the next century by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The temperature has also risen as New York has been covered with asphalt and concrete, creating an “urban heat island” that’s estimated to have raised nighttime temperatures by 7 degrees Fahrenheit. The warming that has already occurred locally is on the same scale as what’s expected globally in the next century.

I wonder if there’s a bar around here where I can conduct a climage-change investigation?

MICKEY KAUS EXAMINES the case of the missing Mexicans: Could there be a housing-bubble connection?

MATTHEW HOY HAS COMPILED A LIST of members of Congress who have gotten money from MoveOn.org, and suggests calling them to ask what they think about the “Betray-us” ad. “I encourage you look them up and ask them what they think about the MoveOn.org ad and what they’re going to do about the money they’ve received. Might I suggest that returning the funds to MoveOn would be an unsatisfactory response; the money would be better spent on something like the Wounded Warrior Project.”

Meanwhile, General Petraeus has responded. Video here. Plus, a look at the new McCarthyism. “Today General Petraeus testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Its Democratic Members include Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Barack Obama, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer and Jim Webb. This would be the appropriate setting to apologize to General Petraeus for the MoveOn.org ad. Or let it stand.”

UPDATE: Further thoughts from TigerHawk: “MoveOn uses language that subverts the Army as an institution for purposes that go beyond the next vote in Congress. It not only wants us to think General Petraeus is lying today, but that any soldier who argues that Iraq is anything other than a defeat is lying. Not disagreeing, but lying. There was a time when even the Democrats understood how terrible it was to subvert the Army as an institution.”

PUBLISHED TODAY: Norman Podhoretz’s World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism.

He’s also got a piece in today’s Wall Street Journal. Free link.

DIRTY BLOG TRICKS, from the Romney Campaign. It was, of course, nearly inevitable that this would come out, which makes it stupid as well as tacky.

UPDATE: See the update, here.

THE MANHATTAN SKYLINE.

STRIKE THREE? “A bomb-sniffing dog in Ankara helped Turkish authorities stop a massive terrorist attack on the anniversary of 9/11. A van full of explosives in a parking garage would have devastated the center of the large city, and it would have served as a counterpoint to the messages released by Osama bin Laden in the past week. . . . This would make three terrorist attacks thwarted in the past week.”

For the moment, the security services seem to have the advantage. This is in part because Al Qaeda has experienced serious attrition in recent years, and in part because the surveillance seems to have gotten better. The emphasis, however, should be on the phrase “for the moment.”

THIS DOESN’T BODE WELL for Homeland Security in a future Hillary Clinton administration:

Before the announcement, new evidence surfaced that the Clinton camp had dismissed allegations about Hsu made by a Southern California businessman. In an e-mail obtained by The Times, a Clinton campaign staffer told a California Democratic Party official in June that the businessman’s concerns were unwarranted.

“I can tell you with 100 certainty that Norman Hsu is NOT involved in a ponzi scheme,” wrote Samantha Wolf, who was a campaign finance director for the Western states.”He is COMPLETELY legit.”

In fact, Hsu was a fugitive wanted on a 15-year-old bench warrant stemming from an early 1990s investment fraud case.

Oops. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal’s subscription-only “Political Diary” says that the real story is the Clinton Campaign’s continued refusal to name Hsu’s bundled contributors: “Yesterday, Team Clinton announced they were returning $850,000 to 260 donors linked to Hsu, although the Washington Post reported that they continue to refuse to identify the donors involved. . . . If the Hsu caper is an indication of how Team Clinton’s conducts oversight of its activities, I have no doubt the Federal Election Commision will eventually show interest in its activities. But, as Team Clinton well knows, by that time the 2008 election will be over.”

A NEW COURSE IN “the law of 24“ at Georgetown Law School.

AT ZOMBIETIME, a 9/11 truth march.

ALL SERVICES met or exceeded recruiting goals last month. Interestingly, the Army and Marines, where enlistment is most likely to result in Iraq combat duty, did the best. I’m not sure exactly what this means, but it seems like good news.

UPDATE: Reader Scott Casper emails that they don’t seem exactly desperate:

I’m one of those who helped the Army meet its recruiting goals last month, but only because the process for me has been so long and drawn out. I originally attempted to join in March, but being 33 years old, having three kids, a wife, and a dog (as well as two knee surgeries) delayed things for a bit while the fine folks at MEPS discussed, reviewed, discussed some more, and looked for reasons to keep me out.

Fortunately they didn’t find anything.

Having been through the process now I can honestly say that the Army (and military in general) would have no issue meeting its recruiting goals each month if they were willing to relax their standards. Expanding the Army is more difficult than simply increasing recruiting goals or letting more people in.

But they aren’t. They refuse to accept less than the best and no amount of political pressure is going to change that, because doing so would jeopardize the mission.

That said, MEPS was a little over the top holding themselves and potential recruits to arbitrary, difficult, and inconsistent standards. For example, they sent me in on a consult for my astigmatism to make sure it wasn’t Keratoconus (a rare eye disorder, that is virtually impossible to diagnosis, and only affects 50 out of 100,000 people), they lost my paperwork twice, and had me mis-entered into their systems incorrectly on several occasions.

And that was just what they did to me. Another older recruit had horror stories about being forced to go from MEPS to MEPS to get waivers (Sacramento, San Jose, and Reno), see specific people, get clearance from certain doctors, and the like, while another, a bright 18 year old was “cycled for maturity issues” (while we were waiting for our duck walk moments, he vented some noxious fumes and then chuckled about it as the inspecting doctor walked into the room…with the result he has to wait two years before he can try again).

But I made it, and last month I raised my right arm and swore to protect this country and its people from all enemies foreign and domestic. Today I leave to attend a memorial service at Fort Lewis Washington for my cousin who was killed in Afghanistan on the 28th, and from there I leave for Fort Leonard Wood and then on to Fort Bragg.

Thanks, Scott.

WORLD WAR IV, but with the wrong Rosie. Amusing illustration. Er, well, in a kind of scary way . . . .

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT, in Europe.

DO NOT SEND YOUR CHILDREN OUT ON RAILROAD TRACKS to pick coal. Good advice!

WASHINGTON POST: “Petraeus and Crocker have long complained that the Washington clock — with congressional demands that the time has come for Iraqis to take over their security and reconcile their political differences — is running far faster than the one in Baghdad. Yesterday, they tried to slow Washington down. . . . Judging by the relatively mild congressional reaction in a joint hearing of the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees, Petraeus and Crocker may well succeed this week in deflecting Democratic demands to bring the troops home sooner rather than later.”

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: Start here and scroll up to see what I was posting on that day.

9/11: THE MYTHS ARE STILL OUT THERE. But Popular Mechanics debunks them.

IT’S CHEAP AND EFFECTIVE, but many of the world’s poor die in pain because they can’t get morphine: “Narcotics incite fear: doctors fear addicting patients, and law enforcement officials fear drug crime. Often, the government elite who can afford medicine for themselves are indifferent to the sufferings of the poor.”

“GOOD TASTE! Who remembers that anymore?” Remembering Jane Wyman.

DID MOVEON get a discount for the “Betray-us” ad?

UPDATE: Related thoughts from Michael Yon: “General David Petraeus’s first day of testimony was completely accurate, and consistent with my recent experiences around Iraq. Everything he said during the public hearing on Monday was measured, cogent, and demonstrably accurate. That his reputation was attacked in an entirely inaccurate full-page advertisement in the New York Times is a smear on the reputation of the New York Times.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: “No sense of decency.”

GEE, DO YOU THINK? “Some House Democrats may have had their minds made up before General David Petraeus gave his thoughts on Iraq Monday on Capitol Hill.”

UPDATE: Heh. Plus, is the Republicans’ only hope lodged with MoveOn.org?

GLOBAL WARMING: Is geoengineering the future?