The Opinionator

The Surge Is Not Working?

Drudge links to this story about the proposed handoff of Iraq's Anbar Province to the Iraqis. Just a year ago, Anbar was one of the deadliest places in Iraq and here we are ready to hand it back. Critics of The Surge will find just about any reason to deny General Petraeus credit for it's success. However, The Surge was more than a flooding of troops, it was a change of tactics. And it has worked beyond expectations. The commander of US Forces in Anbar had this to say,

In a telephone interview from Iraq, Marine Maj. Gen. Walter E. Gaskin, commander of the roughly 35,000 Marine and Army forces in Anbar, said levels of violence have dropped so significantly—coupled with the growth and development of Iraqi security forces in the province—that Anbar is ready to be handed back to the Iraqis.

Even the Democrat candidates for President can see that the Surge has been a success. Or they could if they were to stop pandering to the defeatist fringe of their party. Soon, even Ron Paul will have to acknowledge that it has worked.

Sir Edmund Hillary , R.I.P

Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to summit Mount Everest has passed away. He was a man of adventure, humility and charity. You can read more here. His exploits lit the imaginations of millions. May he rest in peace.

Get The Stake!

Hilary Clinton has bounced back to win in Hew Hampshire. Now we will all be treated to the latest media bandwagon hailing the "New Comeback Kid". Prior to the Primary, my thoughts were that she would lose NH and SC, win Nevada and then have a near sweep of Super Tuesday and that was when we would hear all the "Comeback Kid" piffle and the coronation would get back on track for her. Too many people have been dancing on her political grave when it was not even dug yet. Perhaps a few lessons were learned by all. Including an important one, Hilary will use the "I am a girl" card and emote on cue if it helps achieve her objective of getting elected or as part of that, avoid any tough questions. Another is that if you want to slay the political vampire, you need to use a stake and ensure the job gets done!

Blogger Down; Major Andrew Olmsted R.I.P

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Major Andrew Olmsted; husband, father, son, soldier, blogger and American.  He and Captain Thomas Casey were killed in Diyala, Iraq in an ambush of their training team. Major Olmsted left a post to be posted on his blog in the event something happened to him. Unfortunately, it did and it has been posted. Excerpt:

"I'm dead. That sucks, at least for me and my family and friends."

 Go here or here to read it and ask yourself what Michener wrote in The Bridges At Toko-Ri, "Where do we get such men?"

You can read more of his work at his blog or at the Rocky Mountain News blog.

Hat tip: Blackfive, Instapundit and Hot Air.

Hawkeye Cauci Results

It looks like it is Obama and Huckabee. You can look up the rest of the results elsewhere but one thing that confuses me is that pundits are saying that finishing second is seriously damaging to Romney. Why is that? We have known for some time that Huckabee had struck a chord with Evangelicals in Iowa and was leading. He finished second and is well positioned moving into New Hampshire. Also, Guiliani and McCain did not even play in Iowa. Does this mean they are done?

Media hype for Huckabee notwithstanding, it is a long road and we are a long way from knowing who the winner will be. Just ask Howard Dean.

Iowa Caucus, Today Is The Day

Update: Like a knucklehead, I had my dates off. Today is the Hawkeye Cauci, not yesterday when this was first published. Holiday weeks will do that to you!

In the words of the Godfather, Rush Limbaugh, today is the "Hawkeye Cauci". That means we will have a small group of people, many dependent upon the government for their economic survival, influence who moves forward in the Presidential race. I am not convinced that this is the best way to go about selecting our leaders. By the time we get to the bulk of the country, these small states and the media have already decided for us who we are going to have for selections by weeding everyone else out.

In any event, who does The Opinionator support? I have not decided yet. I do know that I cannot support Ron Paul. He needs to get back to the fringe where he belongs. I have been impressed with Mitt Romney since I lived in Massachusetts and he ran for the Senate against Ted Kennedy. Rudy did amazing things in NYC and that was before 9/11. I like Fred and John McCain is the type of foreign policy realist I support. Mike Huckabee is not on my short list  and I am an Arkansan. His foreign policy pronouncements are incredibly naive and his populist rhetoric sounds more like John Edwards than that of a Republican. Of course, any of our main candidates is better than any of their candidates and whichever one wins the nomination will have my support.

We in the Republican Party have been far too critical of our candidates. Everyone is searching for the perfect candidate and we are brutal on the perceived failings of those running. Here is a heads-up, we will not find the perfect candidate. That being said, we need to select one without beating him down to the point that he is damaged goods for the general election. More on this later. In the meantime, enjoy the spectacle.

Condolences

Two sailors were found dead in their hotel room in Ghana. This story has what little details there are at this time but the prayers and thoughts of The Opinionator clan go out to the families of the fallen sailors. Most of you do not know this but The Opinionator has a very personal attachment to the Fort McHenry (LSD 43) and her crew.  Now is not the time but I will let you know more about the reason for that attachment in the future.

The Memory Chronicles Or How I spent A Little And Got A Lot

In this post, I described my experience using MS Vista and how upgrading the memory made all the difference. For roughly $75, including tax and expedited shipping from kingston.com, I was able to order a 2GB stick of RAM and totally change my user experience. For about $30, I could have ordered 1GB instead. That is a small amount of money and the returns in productivity and usability were amazing. Adding RAM has always been the easiest way to improve a PC's performance. And if you buy it aftermarket, it is often a very inexpensive upgrade.

Having reminded myself of this fact, I took a look at my iMac. It is a first generation Intel iMac and I ordered it with 1GB of RAM. To max the system out at 2GB would have cost $400 extra when I ordered it. Even aftermarket memory was over $100 at the time and I was led to believe that you had to crack the case open to upgrade the RAM, that it was difficult to do and you ran a high risk of voiding the warranty if you made a mistake. The only option seemed to be the expensive Apple Store. Fortunately, in the nearly two years I have had the system, I never missed the additional memory. The OS X system performed briskly with 1GB and I never missed the extra memory. This holiday season, however, my son, the "Silent Opinionator, received the Madden 2008 game for the Mac.The minimum requirements for the game call for 1GB of RAM. The game played fine but occasionally I could see where a performance boost might help. So after upgrading the X61, I looked up what it would cost to upgrade the iMac. Adding 1GB would cost a mere $34 delivered from Crucial.com. I also looked into the installation process and it turns out there is nothing to it. Remove two screws and a panel, snap the memory in and replace. In less than five minutes I was done. And I am the least mechanical person you have ever met. My dad used to say that, "You could screw up a cannonball with a rubber mallet." Just think how easy it would be for you to do it yourself. The result is that system is FAST and Madden 2008 runs like it does on a game console. It is like having a new system and I had change from two $20 bills.

In summary, I spent a little over $100 and upgraded two computers and improved my user experience dramatically. I highly recommend adding RAM to all my readers!

2008 Blogging Goals

Those of you that stop by from time to time have noticed that this blog has not been terribly active recently. Much of this is due to the fact that I am busy. Also, I look at a lot of what is written out there and am not sure what I can offer that has not already been said. additionally, some of the things that I see out there on the left piss me off so much that my mental health is improved by ignoring it. I am amazed at how infantile the thinking is for so many on the left.

That said, I am setting a goal of posting something on this blog five times a week. That is pretty much once a day, taking away weekends or travel days. My posts will not just be political but will be about any number of things, including product reviews, popular culture and sports.

To help make this goal easier to achieve, I have downloaded Windows Live Writer for the Windows Vista system I use as my primary tool. Qumana is the tool of choice on the iMac. But the iMac is in the den and if I am in there blogging or reading blogs, I am not with my family. And that I far more important than blogging. With the Tablet and Live Writer, I can do both.

See you in the blogosphere!

Live Writer Test

This is a test post. I am testing Live Writer on my Lenovo Tablet running MS Vista.