Orbit ...

So the world is meant to end on May 21, 2011. Or so a certain New Yorker would have us believe: he has spent his life savings in buying space for advertizing on the NYC subway system proclaiming the end is nigh. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Leo DiCaprio is clearly out of his mind, though, dumping Bar Rafaeli -- here she is in Cannes this week.

Seriously ... how stupid can you get? Of course, she might be an utter witch ... or bewitching? Dunno.

And a British man faces a year in prison in Dubai for losing his mind too: he loudly called the Prophet Mohammed a terrorist during an argument with a Pakistani electronic salesman about Muslims in Pakistan being bloodthirsty killers and different from other Muslims in that way.  Fail. Even though he pointed at Pakistanis (which maybe even other Muslims might agree with), he erred in spreading that thought to the Prophet.

Now ... do you think that anyone would be arrested in the U.S. for saying anything about Jesus? Sure, many would like to punch the offender as being a smelly sphincter, but arrested? No, you'd have to yell something about naughty gay baby whales in Cambridge to get arrested.  Actually, come to think of it, in these days of Obama's rule the thought police are here amongst us too. Something as absurd as being arrested for calling Mohammed a terrorist might earn you a spell in Club Fed for using hate speech.

Maybe May 21, 2011 is a date we should reconsider ... perhaps that is the date that Obama proposes a raft of new insanity that really does signal the end.  Maybe I should just stay in bed that day, or take the kids to the movies. Just as real as this stuff.

Idiots in Europe

Now the wet, hand wringing Germans are questioning: "was Bin Laden's killing legal?"

No, probably not. It was probably murder. But then I have always wondered at the West's fascination with giving murdering bastards their "rights." This is not a case of someone who is accused of a murder ... this is the case of someone who exults at the murder of thousands of innocent civilians. He planned and masterminded slaughter. To the extent that he proclaims all Americans to be "guilty" and deserving of extermination, we should accept that this is someone, a lunatic, whose goal and ambition is to see this happen. Since I find that to be manifestly unacceptable, in either logic or reason, far better that he should be exterminated than a single American. So be it -- is not putting someone to death murder? State-sanctioned, but still murder.

Is war different? Not really, it is still state-sanctioned -- it may also be necessary to the tort-feasor's survival, but where one human decides to take another's life...? You really can't escape it, if it isn't chance or God ... and the result of some form of intent, it's murder.

So do I give a rat's ass? No, no I don't. You see, when you fall into the trap of being concerned about "murders" such as Bin Laden's, you are purposely skewing the great conflict in your enemy's favor to your own detriment. Bin Laden  counts on "weaklings" such as America to take that into account. He does not care an iota about murder -- human shields and civilians dying, that is all part of his role in Allah's big scheme (or so he thinks). But he knows that we care ... infidel Christians ... so let's hide in the Mosque, put the women and children out in front and build some bombs.  He knows that we won't kill innocent women and children if we can possibly avoid it. It is a standing jihadist joke and strategy. Goons like Ahmadinejad count on it too, as to tyrants, dictators and thugs around the world.

And it is America's great Achilles heel. We just don't have the guts to do what needs doing. Heck, we can't do it domestically to get our financial house in order -- "oh the poor needy ... [fill in the blank]." No matter that this entitlement or that is recent, you can't take it away, no matter how foolish: we do not have the guts.

Except ... after agonizing for two months about it, and at least 16 hours when knowledge was certain (he still had to sleep on it), Obama pulled the trigger as surely as those Navy Seals. Our President murdered Osama Bin Laden.  And that, in my humble opinion, is the finest and most courageous thing this man has EVER done. It may change him ... but probably not. He is already talking about a need to unify ... under his ideas, of course.

Usama

He's dead. Or so we are told. No photos -- yet -- and no body either. Conveniently dumped in the Arabian Sea from the carrier USS Carl Vinson.

Something is profoundly unsatisfying about this.

There he was living in a Pakistani suburb of a town founded by a British major Abbott. Abbottabad. Living a a fortified compound less than 800 meters from the Pakistani equivalent of Sandhurst, in private isolation: no cable TV, no internet (so we are told -- but that does not include satellite dishes). High walls, barbed wire and nobody at Sandhurst thought to have a peek inside.

Bullshit.

The Pakistanis for some reason were sheltering him.  And certainly nobody would have thought to look for OBL basically on a Pakistani military base ... best cover in the world.  And even if located, who is going to send troops in to get him? The Pakistanis? They already have him under the tent flap. Send a missile? Unless you can go in afterwards and make sure you nailed him, you are not going to do that -- we have always needed to have proof. And the ISI (Paki intelligence -- and no, that is NOT an oxymoron) have this need to play to the Muslim crowd, so we would not get the benefit, we'd never be sure that he succeeded.

So we have always needed to kill him in person ... or take him captive. For their own purposes, that would never do for ISI -- they need something to keep their Waziristan madrassas and the U.S.  occupied. OBL has, therefore, represented a useful distraction.  For whatever reason, ISI has supported the Taliban and home grown crazies since the start of the U.S. ... remember, it was a Pakistani group that did the Mumbai hotel shoot-out. 

So Obama -- following the Bush doctrine to the letter -- ordered a hit, by Seal Team 6. Now there's a group of people that could really rain on your parade. Now, I know that Obama went on TV with a lot of "I ordered", "I reviewed", "I developed" and other verbal diarrhea, but this was Bush ... plain and simple -- I read a report somewhere that Bush was IN THE WHITE HOUSE during the attack. I just can't give Obama credit for that ... that must be a false report. But, it is true that Obama made the order -- it has to come from him. But imagine that it gets out that he failed to order the hit because he was squeamish about "collateral damage." Good-bye 2012. This was a do or die. He's know that OBL was there since March ... but failed to order the missile hit because of the verification issue.

Ex-President Musharraf of Pakistan was all over the papers yakking on about violation of sovereignty and Pakistan's being abused by this action....  Either he was out of the loop, or they just didn't know that we knew.  Which leads us to some interesting questions: (1) how did we physically get in there to it; (2) did the Pakis know; (3) how did we keep secrecy; (4) did we alert "friends"; (5) did we nearly "pooch" it when the one chopper went down; (6) was this the ultimate black op (until the firecrackers started going off); (7) where were the Pakistani troops after a 40 minute firefight (or leave them alone, its OBL's house, we know they like their AKs). And a whole lot more.

Then there are the other questions: (a) is he dead; (b) did we find much intel; (c) are the American public stupid enough to "buy" the spin from the WH?

More tomorrow on this.