Book of Liars

In a talk at Duke University this week, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's former national security advisor, showed just how easy it is to revise history:

Brzezinski said there's no reason to think a bloodbath would necessarily follow a U.S. withdrawal.

"We expected that the U.S. leaving Vietnam would result in massive killings and genocide and so forth, and collapse of the dominoes in Southeast Asia," he said. "It didn't happen. How certain are we of the horror scenarios that have been mentioned in what will take place in Iraq?"

It.Didn't.Happen.

How is it possible that anyone, let alone the president's national security advisor, can make that statement? Even the Herald-Sun acknowledges the facts:

History does record that a bloodbath that claimed millions of lives occurred in neighboring Cambodia, the so-called "killing fields," and that millions more people left Vietnam as refugees after the two countries fell in 1975.

How did Brzezinski miss this little tidbit when it was reported on the news and in the front page of every newspaper in the world? Or do "massive killings" and genocide not count when they happen to people of different races thousands of miles away?

So how do we explain this? Is it a failing memory? A deliberate omission? Or is it a rewriting of history to fit the current liberal narrative in Iraq?

Robin Williams once said that anyone who remembered the sixties wasn't there. It appears Zbiggy took two sixties and went straight to the 90's.

Seven Answers

An interview with Michael Crichton (h/t Instapundit)

West of Hollywood

Maybe I'm just getting in touch with my feminine side, but this has become one of my favorite sites lately.

Can I Get Fries With That?

You know, I've always wanted a job that gave me one of these. Maybe I've just been working with the wrong people.

Too Low For Zero

I'm not sure which disgusts me more, reading about the death threats against Kathy Sierra or this post about the news of Tony Snow's cancer over at the Huffington Post. Let's take them one at a time, shall we?

For those of you who don't know, Kathy Sierra's Creating Passionate Users site is hand's down one of the best on the web. Her entire focus is on how we - and by extension the companies we work for - can make ourselves and our products better. Her own area of expertise is programming (she used to work for Sun) but her ideas can be applied to just about any area of marketing and her enthusiasm is infectious. I can't tell you how many times I've gone looking for a bit of inspiration and found just the ticket at her site. For her to be targeted in this manner is appalling.

As for Charles Karel Bouley, it's hard to know where to start. How in the world can anyone say that working for President Bush or Fox News is a reason for getting cancer and in the next breath say that Eizabeth Edward's cancer is just "bad things happen to good people"? It would make just as much sense if I said that her cancer came about because of her belief in husband's vision of "Two America's". Which is to say, it makes no sense at all.

Granted, the web makes it easy to do such things. I doubt seriously if Mr. Bouley would say anything like that in Tony Snow's presence, just as I don't think the anonymous hate-mongers would go after Kathy Sierra if they felt there was any possibility they would be held accountable.

People who anonymously threaten others deserve their own special roasting corner in Hell. And Charles Bouley deserves some brutal honesty of his own.

She's Alive!

...on the comics pages, at least. Needless to say, my copy is on its way to my sweaty little paws even as we speak.

This, however, is going a little far, even for me.

Only the Lonely

Scott Adams gives a whole new meaning to Passing the Buck.

Snowbound

A few weeks ago and now. Maybe Spring is coming after all.

Some Impromptu Saturday Morning Poetry

Easter is coming
The bunny's acting odd
Please to add a penny to
The old man's wad
If you haven't got a penny
A ha'penny will do
And if you know what a ha'penny is
Then you're old, too.

Time Out of Mind

Am I the only one still a little weirded out by the early time change? Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I love the extra sunlight - although I'm not a huge fan of getting up in the dark - and it definitely feels a little more springlike. Maybe it's because winter here in the Northeast has been so strange.

It didn't really get cold til mid-January (I vividly remember the second Saturday of the month being sunny and in the 60's) and since then it's felt like living in a meatlocker with someone occasionally opening the door and dumping in bags of ice-cold rocksalt. Right now outside my window I can see mounds of snow at least 3 feet high with small patches of lawn starting to peek through - a sure sign of spring. Still, I'm having a hard time remembering what month it is.

It's light enough to be March, cold enough to be January (yesterday morning the low was -5) and the snow is a sure sign of February. Is it any wonder I'm tempted to crawl back under the covers and hibernate for another couple of months?

Workin' Again

Okay, so...what'd I miss? Anything?

That's what I thought.