The Imperial Hubris Of All The Anonymous People

A couple days ago I finished reading Imperial Hubris, authored by my most ubiquitous blog commenter, Anonymous.

Wikipedia has a good article that gives you a good idea of why Americans who can read should read Imperial Hubris by Anonymous.

In the Wikipedia article I learned that Anonymous is no longer Anonymous.

Anonymous is Michael Scheuer, a 22 year CIA veteran who ran the Counterterrorist Center's Osama bin Laden operation from 1996 til 1999.

If you were among the millions who winced in astonishment every time our former dunce president said things like bin Laden hates America and attacked us because he hated freedom and western modern ways, well, in a video from back in September of 2007, after the Imperial Hubris author was no longer Anonymous, Osama bin Laden said, "if you would like to get to know some of the reasons for your losing of your war against us, then read the book of Michael Scheuer in this regard."

Changing the subject from one Anonymous to another Anonymous.

My initial intention in bringing up this Anonymous subject was to mention my personal problem with Anonymous, as it pertains to blog comments.

I have 5 blogs. Combined, the 5 blogs have had well over 6,000 posts. Any one of those posts can generate a comment. I let anyone comment. The comment can be Anonymous, or make up a name, Or OpenID or log in to your Google account.

Well over half of all the blog comments are from Anonymous.

Google emails me all the comments. This amounts to a lot of comment emails every day. Some of the Anonymous comments are legit. Most are spam. Google does a good job of putting the legit Anonymous comments in the Awaiting Moderation folder.

However, if you comment as Anonymous and do not see your comment appear, that is likely not due to me reading it and rejecting it, but instead due to the fact that I do not open and read the comment emails from Anonymous. There are just too many of them.

So, if you want to make sure your comment is published, make up a name, instead of being Anonymous, if you don't want to use an identifier that identifies the commenter as you.

More than once I have had someone Anonymous get bent out of shape due to me not being able to keep track of various Anonymous people commenting on the same blog post. This can be annoying.

The First Saturday Of May Thinking About Osama Bin Laden's Home Movies

The first Saturday of May appears to have dawned with a clear blue sky. Even though the sun only recently arrived it has already heated it up out there to 67 degrees, heading to a predicted high of 88.

Tomorrow the predicted high is only 6 degrees short of the century mark.

This morning's Osama bin Laden new news is he made home movies whilst in his sanctuary compound. These are going to be released for the world's viewing pleasure.

Let's just hope none of the bin Laden home movies are of the Paris Hilton sort. That man was a prolific breeder with his multiple wives. I'm sure it got really boring in that Pakistani compound at times.

I've noticed that when Osama bin Laden returned to being the top news story that many of the news sources changed the spelling of his first name from Osama to Usama. I suspect this was done due to the first name similarity of Osama and Obama.

Poor ol' tongue-tied Rush Limbaugh has been having himself a terrible time mixing up Osama and Obama. If only Osama had been Usama from the start, pronounced, You-Som-A, there would be none of this chronic mix up with Obama.

I think I will go swimming now and try my best not to think about Osama bin Laden, Rush Limbaugh or home movies.

Under An Umbrella In A Downpour At Fosdic Lake Pondering Rush Limbaugh Heaping Praise On President Obama

You are with me under an umbrella, in a downpour, looking at Fosdic Lake in Oakland Lake Park, today around noon.

I rather enjoyed walking in the rain under an umbrella. I've not done that all that often in Texas.  Lightning striking made me a little nervous, but the rumbling thunder was slightly in the distance, so I felt slightly safe.

I have been having myself a wet day today. This morning I said I did not think I'd go swimming. And then the rain went into downpour mode, making it suddenly seem fun to go out in it in my swimming suit to go swimming in the rain.

The pool water was quite a bit warmer than the incoming rain and the temperature of the air. Was very pleasant. Except usually I do not get wet from the neck up. That was not possible today.

When the thunder started booming, as I was walking, and the rain started pouring real hard, I thought taking some video might be interesting. I just uploaded a YouTube video of today's walk in the rain.

But, before I get to that, one very strange thing happened today. I turn on my radio to WBAP/96.7, at a bit past 11, to listen to the opening of the Rush Limbaugh show. This is part of my aerobic routine, because usually I find him annoying, which raises my blood pressure. I think.

I was curious how Rush was going to spin the killing of Bin Laden and somehow make Obama a bad guy.

Well, first off, Rush had the same problem I just had. When I typed Obama, it came out Osama. Over and over again Rush made that mistake and then corrected himself, eventually saying he needed to refer to the guy as Bin Laden and end the problem. And then a few seconds later, made the mistake again.

Here's a blurb from today's Limbaugh email newsletter...

"We need to sincerely congratulate President Obama.  He has done something extremely effective -- and when he does, it needs to be pointed out.  He has continued the Bush policies of keeping a military presence in the Middle East.  He did not scrub the mission to get Osama Bin Laden."  -Rush

The above is a mild version of how effusive Rush was in his praising of Obama. I kept waiting for the sarcastic twist, that never came. Yes, Rush did get in some digs about how many times Obama used the words "I" and "me" in his message from the White House last night.

My reaction to the Osama news was odd. I think because it's been such a long time he's been the world's most wanted man. The news seemed somehow anti-climatic. I'd long gotten over the shock of 9/11. So much has happened since then. A lot of it not good. And now Bin Laden is finally dead.

I'm thinking what happened last night is just the start of a new chapter that may take us to some disturbing new places we don't really want to go.

And now my disturbing video of walking in the rain with lightning strikes...

The 2nd Day Of May Thinking About Killing Osama Bin Laden & Not Going Swimming Because Of Rain, Record Cold & Lightning

Well. This morning I finally checked the news to see a headline I've been expecting to see for almost a decade.

Osama bin Laden is dead.

I think I would have preferred captured, tried and sentenced to some miserable forced labor. But I can see there is some efficiency and expediency in shooting him in the head and dumping his body in the ocean.

Switching the subject from Truth, Justice and the American Way, we are heading to a predicted record low of 43 degrees today on this second day of May.

You can not really tell it from the view from my primary outlook on the world, but it is raining hard right now. And only 45 degrees. I'm thinking this may be a day when I decide not to go swimming in the morning.

This is being a stereotypical Western Washington winter day today here in North Texas. So far.

45 degrees, thunderstorm, with the wind chill making it feel like it is 33. Yes, this does not sound like ideal swimming conditions this morning.

Barack Hussein Obama & Osama

I was talking to one of my dullard friends this afternoon and he made the observation that has been made by millions, that similarity between our new President's last name and the last name of America's Public Enemy #1 Osama Bin Laden.

As I sort of dozed off to my own thoughts, as the dullard droned on, my thoughts went back to 2001, the days after 9/11.

If back in those days, that really do not seem all that long ago, if back then, someone had told me that George W. Bush would be President til 2009, that America would occupy both Afghanistan and Iraq in 2009, that America would help bring about the execution of Saddam Hussein, that in 2009 the new American President would be named Barack Hussein Obama and that the new President would be African-American, this would have struck me as being an unlikely scenario.

Well, I don't think many of us Americans, back in 2001, would have been able to imagine a scenario that would have us having a new President, a man few of us had heard of in 2001, last named Obama, middle named Hussein, African-American, a scenario that has the vast majority of us quite excited to have Barack Hussein Obama becoming our new President. With most of the World also on board, looking forward with positive anticipation to the New America that is about to reach out to the World in a way much different than the past 8 pitiful years.

I'm looking forward to Tuesday. I watched neither of the Bush inauguration festivities. Previous to Bush I watched every inauguration day in my living memory. Bush is the first President, in my memory, who I don't believe I watched a single news conference. I did watch his State of the Unions. In pain.