jane @ 2 weeks

I have a day-of-birth post still coming. I'm kind of busy these days, so the blog has been neglected.

Anyway, Jane had a 2 week appointment yesterday. She's measuring 21" long (82 percentile), 8lb 15oz (72 percentile), and head circumference is 14.4" (86 percentile). She has the sweetest temperament. We can't get enough of her.

Last night I woke up a couple times to attend to her, and I was so sleepy, but it just melted my heart seeing her eyes just wide open, waiting for me to pick her up. We just love when she's awake and alert and looking around. She engages eye contact really well. She's just a doll. We couldn't be happier with her. For more pics, visit Amy's blog.

Misinformation on the 9/11/12 Attacks

I have heard a couple of people talk about this recently and just wanted to cross-reference you all with some additional opinions and facts regarding last week's attacks in the Middle East that coincided with 9/11. Some people honestly believe that those attacks arose as protests to some obscure anti-Muslim video. This article gives a dissenting voice to that story:

Since the 9/11/12 attacks on America, Muslims have been protesting over much of the world, from Tunisia to Yemen to Bangladesh, and in some cases, have been assaulting our embassies.

The ostensible reason for the protests is a video produced by someone in the United States criticizing the Prophet Muhammad. But that's obviously just a pretext, used by Islamist terrorist organizers to whip up frenzy in nations with large numbers of angry unemployed young men.

Unfortunately, some of our government officials have taken the complaints about the video seriously. Before the attack, the Cairo embassy issued a statement condemning "the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims."

When Mitt Romney condemned that statement, he was widely criticized by mainstream media. But his judgment was confirmed when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ordered the statement taken down.

Even so, White House press secretary Jay Carney said the protests were directed at the video rather than the United States -- wishful thinking. The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the FBI was sent to Los Angeles to track down the video maker. The Los Angeles Times reported that the State Department asked YouTube whether the offending video violated its terms of service.

As Fox News commentator Kirsten Powers wrote, "Our leaders shouldn't let our enemies know that when they kill our people and attack our embassies that the U.S. government will act like a battered wife making excuses for her psychotic husband."

It's also disturbing that Obama, after his brief statement deploring the Benghazi murders (and not mentioning the attack on the Cairo embassy), immediately embarked on a four-hour plane ride to campaign in Las Vegas.

 And some have mentioned that Romney walked back his initial comments about the events in the Middle East. I think that is also misguided. This story illuminates:

Yesterday, virtually the entire liberal media and some on the right as well made the story of the day not about the murder of our diplomats, not about why we did not prepare for a potential assault, not about whether President Obama’s halting policies had come home to roost, but about why Mitt Romney, after a day of silence from the White House following an atrocious apology issued in Cairo (we now know issued without authorization), spoke out when he did.

As I reported yesterday, an underling, according to the State Department, put out the apology online after it was rejected by the State Department’s Near East desk and he was told to wait. Violence ensued that day. Day turned to night in the United States and the White House was mute. So at 10 p.m. after an entire day without an adequate response, Romney put out a statement. What he said was valid then, as it remains valid in retrospect: “I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

That was not only correct, but the Near East desk at the Obama State Department essentially agreed. (The press seemed to think Romney didn’t know the timeline, but Romney advisors insist that he did. The Cairo embassy reiterated its sympathetic message after the Cairo embassy had been attacked.)

...

Yesterday, virtually the entire liberal media and some on the right as well made the story of the day not about the murder of our diplomats, not about why we did not prepare for a potential assault, not about whether President Obama’s halting policies had come home to roost, but about why Mitt Romney, after a day of silence from the White House following an atrocious apology issued in Cairo (we now know issued without authorization), spoke out when he did.

As I reported yesterday, an underling, according to the State Department, put out the apology online after it was rejected by the State Department’s Near East desk and he was told to wait. Violence ensued that day. Day turned to night in the United States and the White House was mute. So at 10 p.m. after an entire day without an adequate response, Romney put out a statement. What he said was valid then, as it remains valid in retrospect: “I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

That was not only correct, but the Near East desk at the Obama State Department essentially agreed. (The press seemed to think Romney didn’t know the timeline, but Romney advisors insist that he did. The Cairo embassy reiterated its sympathetic message after the Cairo embassy had been attacked.)

I Am An American

Amazing to think that we are more than a decade removed from the events of that fateful day, 11 years ago.

Today in one of my classes we spent some time talking about someone who died last June who would have been one of our classmates. His name is Scottie Pace, and you can read an article about him here. He received some attention in the news last year when he decided to shoot off some flares to defray some protestors who were upset about Koran's being burnt on a military base in Afghanistan. He was actually ordered to open fire if the protestors advanced, but decided to take a more muted approach to the situation. We read some correspondence of his detailing some of his thoughts during the situation.

He died in a helicopter crash this past June when he was attacked.

It's amazing to think about what some people do to serve this country, and the sacrifices that they end up making.

And those sacrifices were in a crazy way punctuated 11 years ago, but are still being made to this day.

Anyway, thanks to those who serve who make our lives so very comfortable, maybe more than we sometimes deserve.