First Reports

Posted by Lex, on April 15, 2008

We staff weenies have a saying: “The first report is always wrong. The second report is a lie to cover the first report. The third report seeks to shift the blame for the first and second reports. The fourth report asymptotically approaches the truth as a function of the time taken to generate it.”

Which is why I yawned when I read the first and second reports coming out of Basra, which the domestic news media predictably spun as a Failure of Bush’s Failed War Policy of Fail. Maybe al Maliki rushed the plan, and maybe some of his forces behaved poorly. But at the end of the day, the Iraqi Army controlled the ports so critical to Basra’s economy, ringed the city’s Sadrist neighborhoods and Mookie’s goons sued for peace. You don’t have to be perfect to win, just less imperfect than your opponent. And at the end of the day it matters who fades away, and who is left standing on the field.

Credo

"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me."

— John Paul Jones

"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature"

— George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."

— Edmund Burke

"Μολὼν λαβέ"

— Leonidas

"Blogito Ergo Sum"

— Neptunus Lex