The Huckabee as VP threat

So the word’s going ’round that McCain has Huckabee at or near the top of his VP list.

O RLY?

You know, that puts me in a mind to join the “Hope & Change” zombies. I like hope. I sometimes like change. And I wouldn’t mind being able to say that I voted for the first black candidate for President. Doesn’t that give you absolute moral authority or something?

That’s like getting a superpower.

Recruiting still on track, except for Marines, who blew their goals away

I’ve been pointing out that the military has been making its recruiting goals all year. Now, after an amazing April, the MSM finally takes notice:

The Marine Corps far surpassed its recruiting goal last month and could eventually be more than a year ahead of schedule in its plan to grow the force to 202,000 members.

All military services met or exceeded their monthly recruiting goals in April, with the Marine Corps signing 142 percent of the number it was looking for, the Pentagon said.

I’m impressed that they finally admitted it, although its a grudging admission (see the end of the article).

Iran creates its own legal sinkhole

I’m thinking Iran’s latest ploy may well end up backfiring on them:

Iran’s judiciary said on Monday it would file international lawsuits against the United States and Britain, accusing them of providing financial support to those behind a blast in a mosque that killed 14 people.

Iran’s intelligence minister last week said Iran had arrested five or six members of a terrorist group with links to Britain and the United States who he said were involved in the explosion that also wounded 200 in the southern city of Shiraz.

An interesting precedent. So what happens when we countersue in international court, using the incontrovertible evidence of Iranian interference in Iraq? What about Iran’s funding of Hezbollah? What about their relationship with Al Qaeda?

Once they acknowledge the jurisdiction of the international court, it seems like Iran could quickly end up being hammered on the legal front. So I’m thinking this is good news.

Taiwan getting even more worried about China

This topic has come up here before, but now we have the Taiwanese explaining just what’s going on with the Chinese military buildup:

China is building up its military defences to deter US intervention in case of war with Taiwan, the island’s defence ministry said Monday.

Beijing is focusing on developing long-range missiles “to strike at American bases and battle carrier groups stationed in the Asia-Pacific… so as to block the United States from coming to the rescue of Taiwan should war break out in the Taiwan Strait,” the ministry said in a report released Monday.
…
The People’s Liberation Army’s budget increased 17.8 percent to 44.94 billion US dollars in 2007, official figures show, making China the third largest military spender in the world after the United States and Russia.

But Taiwan’s report said the true figure was two or three times that, and warned that China’s rapid military expansion had tipped the military balance in the Strait.

In discussions on the internet, I find that people continually downgrade the threat from China, based on its past history of having a woefully underequipped, outdated military. That, unfortunately, was old China. The new China has a lot of cash, and has been using that cash to buy weapons from Russia, as well as develop its own military-industrial complex.

Taiwan has always been able to count on our naval superiority, but China is focusing its military planning on deterring our navy from defending them. We should take note of their warnings and plan accordingly.

Take THAT Malor

The recently graduated Gabriel Malor wrote a post three months ago about Neil Young’s disappointment in the failure of his latest tour to deliver his anti-war message. In it, he argued that since he had never heard of Neil Young, Young’s ambitions were ridiculous.

I took him to task on that point, arguing in turn that the fact that he had never heard of Young did not really address how popular Young might be among older audiences. Then a bunch of yahoos jumped in, some arguing that Neil Young isn’t that well known, and some yelling at me for calling Gabriel ignorant (which I didn’t).

Well, let’s just say that I think the final verdict is in on how notable a star Neil Young really is:

Iconic singer and songwriter Neil Young has had an honor bestowed upon him that is not received by many musicians — his own spider.

An East Carolina University biologist, Jason Bond, discovered a new species of trapdoor spider and opted to call the arachnid after his favorite musician, Canadian Neil Young, naming it Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi.

Even lauraw doesn’t have her own spider named after her. Case closed.