Nations which are weak or craven increase their chances of being targeted when they appease the Islamists. The Islamists don't seem to be seriously targeting the US any longer because they know that we'll fight back. After 9/11 and after months of sustained operations against Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, it's now clear that the US won't retreat because of such attacks. Instead, we respond violently to them, causing huge casualties to the attackers, in men lost and organizations obliterated and even nations captured.
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The Islamists are, in their own way, making rational cost-benefit decisions. Attacking infidels is a good thing in any case, but its even better to attack infidels who are likely to capitulate than to attack those who fight back.--- Steven Denbeste. He quotes Cold Fury: "In case you never studied the psychology of bullies - which would be odd considering you call all your opponents fascists, so either you or they actually are bullies - in case you never studied them, they are weak and they only seem strong because they prey on weakness."

I'm two pounds down, but that's the only good thing. I've done some work in the nursery, and I have been keeping up the 20 minutes with God. Nothing on the round robin, no knitting, bad Jan.

Yesterday we went bowling in the morning. I started with a strike, but then was all over the place. Let's hope this gets it out of my system so we don't have it happen any more. Then we picked up my new expensive glasses, Rich's not-so-expensive medicine, and went looking for a near-by cache that we missed on Monday. When I get a phone call asking for "sailorcodger", I know I should try again!

The man reiterated the instructions on the page and told us that if we sat on the bench we could see the cache. It's actually an offset, not a multi, so we're not looking for coordinates. Okay. When we did this, there it was, under the steps in the play equipment... all I had to do was somehow recover it while the kids played all around, and once it was signed, replace it! We did that.

Then I gave Casey a choice, a puppet show at one library or the fancy park I discovered in Elk Grove. The kid chose the park, no surprise to me! I read while Casey explored every nook and cranny. I watched a little boy come by with a friend "You know that green thing I moved? That green thing? There are spiders there..." and they took one of the hatches off and poked at spiders. Well, THERE would be a bad place to hide a cache! (There's already one in this park, under a picnic table.) Then when that got boring, the same little boy picked up an angled stick and said "look! I have a gun!" Little boys are the same the world over.

On the way home, Casey said "I'm going to be adopted." "Oh? Who?" "___'s Mom." Then there was a little discussion of whether the social worker would still come around. I asked if the social worker knew... "No, I haven't told her yet." Heh. I wonder if ____'s Mom knows!

When we got home I found out the kid was in trouble at school again. Oh, argh. How is an adoption ever going to happen if the kid can't keep together?

Today I discovered there are 14 of the NCAA games on TV and radio today, but the Zags aren't one of them. Grumph. (Later we did see part of it. I looked for Vince in the audience and may have spied him.)

We saw "Starlight Express." What a spectacle! I knew it was about trains, but I didn't know it was about TOY trains! We learned that cars are very fickle. The costumes are wonderful (we took binoculars) and we got 3-D glasses for the movie bits, which are fun. The staging is magnificent. Unfortunately, the songs are not all that memorable. Still, I loved it.

Then we went caching, quelle suprise. The first one is at the site of Sacramento's first A.M.E. church, 1850. Now it's a two-story parking garage. Next we went to the new Sacramento Pumping Station (which is a lovely facility with a related park). We were too late to see the station, but I think I'll bring Casey next week. We got this one, and the micro further down the bike path, and then we went back to the car and drove close to Discovery Park. We left the car in a motel lot and walked over to the entrance, where we (yay!) bought a year's pass! Then we had to wait on the bridge till the homeless man enjoying the sunset wasn't looking to snag this cache.

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Howard Dean said on Meet the Press last week that President Bush is more sensitive to poll numbers(???) He also said Saddam was a weak old man. Well, yeah, NOW! Interesting alternate universe Dean lives in.

Beware Authority. Joanne Jacobs also talks about Less-than-Zero Tolerance.

Mark Steyn:

"When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, naturally they will like the strong horse." So said Osama bin Laden in his final video appearance two-and-a-half years ago. But even the late Osama might have been surprised to see the Spanish people, invited to choose between a strong horse and a weak horse, opt to make their general election an exercise in mass self-gelding.
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The rain in Spain falls mainly on the slain.

Kerry, Pile-of-Dung Harkin, and Daniel Noriega.

Shortest Fisking Ever.

Cheney's Speech:

A few days ago in Pennsylvania, a voter asked Sen. Kerry directly who these foreign leaders are. Sen. Kerry said, "That's none of your business." But it is our business when a candidate for president claims the political endorsement of foreign leaders. At the very least, we have a right to know what he is saying to foreign leaders that makes them so supportive of his candidacy. American voters are the ones charged with determining the outcome of this election--not unnamed foreign leaders.

Taranto corrects who voted not to honor the troops. It's still disgraceful.

"Yep, there really is a Republican smear machine. His name is John (f'in) Kerry" ---Comment at Polipundit, as is this: "As I have been warning Ben for weeks now - Kerry will be DESTROYED. I just thought we would be the ones doing it, not him."

Who knows best what's good for Iraqis, Iraqis or Zapatero? and also this.

Lileks:

People like optimism. Yes, I know, the people are a mass of sheep numbed by that lying corporate media and Clear Channel mind-control beams. But people generally like optimistic candidates. Bill Clinton managed to transmute all the pessimistic strains of 1992 into an optimistic persona, because he seemed to be a cheerful guy. I think you nominated a lemon-sucker this time. Plus, the whole �foreign-leaders-like-us-better� angle tells me you�re not getting out much these days. See all those people in the stands watching NASCAR races? Hard to believe, but they would rather the President did what they considered to be the right thing, and did it alone, than did the wrong thing with the full support of Le Monde�s editorial board, including the cartoonist.