Sunday links and stuff

Here are a few articles to read on a Sunday morning.

Betsy's Page brings the latest Victor Davis Hanson column to our attention. Today, he reminds us what our military has accomplished in Iraq.

There are a couple good football games this week.
Steelers visit Cincinnati to take on the first place Bengals. The Steelers learned their lesson last week and now realize a slightly injured Ben Roethlisberger is a whole lot better than a completely healthy Tommy Maddux. Even with Roethlisberger back take the Bengals and give the point. A cold and windy day may slow down the Bengals passing attack.

The other interesting game is the Chargers against the Eagle in Philadelphia. This game comes down to one thing. Can the Eagles stop LaDainian Tomlinson? If not, the Eagles can't win this game. For some reason the Eagles are favored in this game. I don't get it, they just don't seem that good.

The Browns, coming off a mistake filled loss to Baltimore, host the Detroit Lions. The Lions are stumbling along with the same 2 and 3 losing record the Browns boast. However, while that record rightfully leaves the Browns in last place the Lions are tied for first in the NFC North. The Lions may change quarterbacks and go with Jeff Garcia this afternoon. Yeah, the same Jeff Garcia who lost the starting job in Cleveland last year to Luke McKown. No prediction on this game. Food for thought: Both of the Browns wins this year have come against the hapless NFC North.

Chris at A Large Regular makes a good case for Brady Quinn being selected for the Heisman trophy. His throwing for 6 touchdowns and 467 yards yesterday certainly didn't hurt his case.

Mark Stein has an article about UNICEF making a movie detailing the Smurfs being destroyed in war. Their misguided intention was to demonstrate that war is toughest on children. Why would the UN make a movie now about the evils of war? Obviously as continued criticism of the U.S. led invasion of Iraq.

But this week is a week to remember that there are worse things than war that ''affect the lives of children.'' If I were Papa Smurf, I wouldn't want Baby Smurf to grow up in Saddam's Iraq. I don't mean just because we'd be the beleaguered minority of Smurfistan, to be gassed and shoveled into mass graves. Even if we were part of Saddam's own approved class living in the Smurfi Triangle, it's still a life permanently fixed between terror and resignation in which all a parent's hopes for his children are subordinate to the whims of a psycho state.

Condoleezza Rice has stated very emphatically that she has no intentions of running for elected office and I believe her. However, when I read pieces like this one in the Washington Post about her touring her home state I get the impression she is keeping her options open.

It wasn't quite Oprah's couch -- Condoleezza Rice doesn't go there -- but it was close. On Friday afternoon, as the secretary of state walked into Brunetta C. Hill Elementary School for the first time since she was a precocious sixth-grader, if you watched her eyes you could see the memories register one by one -- old classrooms, old teachers, old friends.

She sat in the school's tidy library, this hometown girl who had conquered the world, and answered questions from a selection of impossibly cute fourth- and fifth-graders, immaculate in their uniforms of white and navy blue. Rice was unstiff, unstuffy, unhurried, even unguarded. "It's not easy being secretary of state," she told one of her interrogators. "But it's fun."

Read this article about GITMO and the nature of the prisoners held there and remember it next time some moron decries how the prisoners are treated.

All soldiers and sailors working "inside the wire" have blacked out their name tags so that the detainees will not learn their identities. Before that step was taken the terrorists were threatening to tell their al-Qaida pals still at large who the guards were.

"We will look you up on the Internet," the prisoners said. "We will find you and slaughter you and your family in your homes at night. We will cut your throats like sheep. We will drink the blood of the infidel."

That is bad enough, but the terrorist prisoners throw more than words at the guards. On a daily basis, American soldiers carrying out their duties within the maximum-security camp are barraged with feces, urine, semen, and spit hurled by the detainees. Secretly fashioned weapons intended for use in attacking guards or fellow detainees are confiscated regularly.

But Sen. Dick Durbin (M-IL) is more concerned with the well being of the terrorists than our guards he compared to Nazis.

Lastly, in a post titled "Never Forget" Chris of A Large Regular reminds us that today is the 22nd anniversary of the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon.