We all know "Air America" radio is an outlet of treason and sedition manned by America-haters whom cheer the death of every American soldier. But did you know that in order to continue operating, they are stealing money from non-profit groups dedicated to helping poor children? No, I am not making this up. From today's NY Post:
It's the kind of outrageous story that would raise the hackles of talk-show host Al Franken: A government-funded agency serving the needy lends nearly $500,000 to a shaky political radio network and is never repaid.
Except it involves Franken's own Air America.
The network issued a statement yesterday admitting its connection to The Bronx's Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Clubs, which lost nearly $10 million in city contracts last month after investigators uncovered "significant inappropriate transaction and falsified documents."
One irregularity, first reported by Michael Horowitz in The City News, a Bronx-based publication, was the $480,000 transfer to Air America.
Once the light was shined on this revolting practice, of course, "Air America" decided to pay back the funds, and for good measure -
...Air America also agreed to repay listeners who had contributed to Camp Air America, run by Gloria Wise and promoted on the network's airwaves and through its Web site.
Quite a scam; real nice to rope your listners into a racket that claims to be charitable but is actual funneling survival funds to your ownership...Of course, we need to go back a day to see why "Air America" suddenly decided to pay back these misappropriated funds. It took an editorial in the Washington Times, entitled "Robin Hood and Air America", to shame these feckless liberals, or perhaps throw the fear of legal action into their empty souls:
...The money was said to have been a "loan" from the community center to Air America, which Air America would repay with interest at some point in the future. But why the public till should be tapped to rescue a foundering news outlet was a question no one seemed to consider. Maybe Air America officers thought spending public funds on their network was a truly compelling public interest. It isn't, of course, and if the allegations are true, they reveal a misuse of tax dollars to support a partisan organization.
The Washington Times editorial takes the media to task for essentially "promoting" Air America; a complaint yours truly has made here on a number of occasions:
Most of the mainstream newspapers have ignored this story. We only found out about it through the reporting of Brian Maloney, who pieced a story together on his blog "The Radio Equalizer" which was picked up by syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin. The New York Daily News buried an item at the end of a column of news briefs. There was nothing in the New York Times, which has heaped flattering coverage on the flailing network.
Well, thankfully the world has the Washington Times and the JerseyNut to inform you! The New York Times, once again, is exposed as nothing more than a yellow journalistic rag; selecting the "news that is fit to print" based strictly on its own preconceived storylines and biases. I'll end this post with a rhetorical question from the abovementioned editorial:
Air America is struggling to find listeners, leaders and reliable funding. But should it take money from children and the ailing elderly? Al Franken and Randi Rhodes, ever the defenders of the "little guy," should explain this one.
Link to New York Post story here: http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/50983.htm
Link to Washington Times editorial here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20050728-081354-1414r.htm
Link to Radio Equalizer (not quoted above, but referenced) here: http://radioequalizer.blogspot.com/ - scroll down to see his post on the issue; I'm sure he is following it closely, it's his "specialty"...
Previous posts on Right, Wing Nut on this topic can be found here:
http://jerseynut.blogspot.com/2005/03/air-america-fck-no.html
and here http://jerseynut.blogspot.com/2005/05/air-america-encourages-assasination.html;
I'm sure there are others...
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Friday, July 29, 2005
It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.
True enough when speaking of the frothing mainstream media; but not necessarily a true statement when applied to the average American, who has learned to take this President seriously.
Anyway, what does this have to do with the fact that George W. may wind up as one of the "greenest" world leaders ever? Follow the link to Powerline http://powerlineblog.com/archives/011183.php to read about "Bush's latest master stroke" - the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate.
Gotta love this guy....
True enough when speaking of the frothing mainstream media; but not necessarily a true statement when applied to the average American, who has learned to take this President seriously.
Anyway, what does this have to do with the fact that George W. may wind up as one of the "greenest" world leaders ever? Follow the link to Powerline http://powerlineblog.com/archives/011183.php to read about "Bush's latest master stroke" - the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate.
Gotta love this guy....
If the Bush White House weren't so completely distracted by the Wilson leak investigation, perhaps the President would be able to actually get something done — besides sign CAFTA, the highway bill, and the energy bill into law; read all the improving economic figures; celebrate his still-bullet-proof Supreme Court nomination; and continue along semi-stealthily on 2006 fundraising and candidate recruitment....
And if the Democrats weren't so sure that a one-sentence party platform ("Karl Rove should be in jail.") was a sure winner, perhaps they would Notice that the Republican majority is likely to get at least some credit with voters for passing these laws...
And/but there's still the Iraq war and Social Security for the White House to deal with, but does anyone think Democrats are scoring political points galore on those?
And/but perhaps Democrats will be able to convince the country by votin' time that Washington is a corrupt, Republican-dominated cesspool of special interest greed and that the macro economic numbers mean nothing. (Just like in 2002 and 2004. . .)
From The Note: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=156238
And if the Democrats weren't so sure that a one-sentence party platform ("Karl Rove should be in jail.") was a sure winner, perhaps they would Notice that the Republican majority is likely to get at least some credit with voters for passing these laws...
And/but there's still the Iraq war and Social Security for the White House to deal with, but does anyone think Democrats are scoring political points galore on those?
And/but perhaps Democrats will be able to convince the country by votin' time that Washington is a corrupt, Republican-dominated cesspool of special interest greed and that the macro economic numbers mean nothing. (Just like in 2002 and 2004. . .)
From The Note: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=156238
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
CNN sinks deeper, deeper...
Roger Simon talks about how CNN has jumped all over the shooting of a Brazilian man running from the bobbies in London:
...One of the most significant, if not the most significant, editorial choices of any news organization is what story it selects to feature at the top of its newspaper or website. For CNN all weekend it has been the accidental shooting by London Metropolitan Police of a Brazilian those police thought was connected to the terror bombings in the underground and then later realized was not.
Regrettable as this accident is - and it is obviously tragic for the individual and his family - for CNN it has pushed the bombings themselves off their front page, as well as the subsequent bombings in Sharm el-Sheik in which many dozens were murdered (quite intentionally, not accidentally) by homicidal Islamists. Never mind that - those "goofballs" in the London police force made a mistake. That's what's important.
Unlike the actions of London police, however, CNN's decision was not an accident. It is deeply reactionary in its implications because it distracts the public from the most serious imaginable problem into the side issue of the culpability of a few working class cops and, by implication, those in charge of them, who were only trying to react in a desperate situation. When I say many in the media have become "objectively pro-fascist," this is an example of what I mean. And not as small a one as it may seem.
While I have no issue to Roger's characterization of the media as "pro-fascist"; there may be another element at play here. Is CNN simply playing to its larger, global audience reached by CNN International? Bashing the West sells well in Europe; with their ever-shrinking audience share in America, is CNN 's editorial style of "ignore the terror, blame America(Britian)" just a way to hold onto this viewing segment?
What I can't wrap my head around is that CNN knows in a fascist theological system; they would be the first to disappear. Yet they root feverishly for those whom would have them silenced. What kind of warped morality can produce that type of thinking?
Liberalism?
Link to Roger Simon's post here: http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2005/07/cnns_big_story.php
...One of the most significant, if not the most significant, editorial choices of any news organization is what story it selects to feature at the top of its newspaper or website. For CNN all weekend it has been the accidental shooting by London Metropolitan Police of a Brazilian those police thought was connected to the terror bombings in the underground and then later realized was not.
Regrettable as this accident is - and it is obviously tragic for the individual and his family - for CNN it has pushed the bombings themselves off their front page, as well as the subsequent bombings in Sharm el-Sheik in which many dozens were murdered (quite intentionally, not accidentally) by homicidal Islamists. Never mind that - those "goofballs" in the London police force made a mistake. That's what's important.
Unlike the actions of London police, however, CNN's decision was not an accident. It is deeply reactionary in its implications because it distracts the public from the most serious imaginable problem into the side issue of the culpability of a few working class cops and, by implication, those in charge of them, who were only trying to react in a desperate situation. When I say many in the media have become "objectively pro-fascist," this is an example of what I mean. And not as small a one as it may seem.
While I have no issue to Roger's characterization of the media as "pro-fascist"; there may be another element at play here. Is CNN simply playing to its larger, global audience reached by CNN International? Bashing the West sells well in Europe; with their ever-shrinking audience share in America, is CNN 's editorial style of "ignore the terror, blame America(Britian)" just a way to hold onto this viewing segment?
What I can't wrap my head around is that CNN knows in a fascist theological system; they would be the first to disappear. Yet they root feverishly for those whom would have them silenced. What kind of warped morality can produce that type of thinking?
Liberalism?
Link to Roger Simon's post here: http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2005/07/cnns_big_story.php
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Now Writing for al-Qaida...
...The New York Times! Yes, the number one terrorist mouthpiece in print (CNN ties with al-Jazerra for televised terrorist propoganda) pushes the enemy's agenda thoroughly in today's Sunday edition. Let's look at a few:
Defying U.S. Efforts, Guerrillas in Iraq Refocus and Strengthen
They just keep getting stronger.
Despite months of assurances that their forces were on the wane, the guerrillas and terrorists battling the American-backed enterprise here appear to be growing more violent, more resilient and more sophisticated than ever.
-well, I certainly see how the Times could percieve it that way; since they never run a positive story about American military victories or heroic deeds by soldiers (no such thing as an American hero to the Times, unless they are American-bashing)
If It's Civil War, Do We Know It?
The past 10 days have seen such a quickening of these killings, particularly by the insurgents, that many Iraqis are saying that the civil war has already begun.
- if one side is perpetrating mass homicides, and the other side fights back, do we then have a civil war? Or would the Times prefer a slaughter?
British Promise to Investigate Killing of Brazilian in Subway
British police officers gunned down the Brazilian man at point-blank range in front of horrified subway passengers on Friday, after apparently attracting attention because he left a building that was under surveillance and because he was wearing a heavy coat in warm weather.
-...and didn't stop after numerous requests by the police chasing him. Note how quickly the Times works to change the subject away from the attacks on London to find fault with the West.
And don't forget to keep bashing the Commander-in-Chief!
Eight Days in July
The agenda of President Bush's rushed Supreme Court nomination - to change the subject in Washington - could not have been more naked
-jeez; and I thought he nominated a Supreme Court Justice because there was a vacancy on the Court!
For Bush, Effect of Investigation of C.I.A. Leak Case Is Uncertain
...For all that, it is still not clear what the investigation into the leak of a C.I.A. operative's identity will mean for President Bush.
-so the article essentially admits this probably will amount to nothing, but it gives our friends at the Times yet another opportunity to engage in anti-Bush rhetoric and innuendo...
Bravo, New York Times! You have served your terrorist masters well; Osama must be very pleased with your service to him....
No links; I feel dirty enough as it is...
Defying U.S. Efforts, Guerrillas in Iraq Refocus and Strengthen
They just keep getting stronger.
Despite months of assurances that their forces were on the wane, the guerrillas and terrorists battling the American-backed enterprise here appear to be growing more violent, more resilient and more sophisticated than ever.
-well, I certainly see how the Times could percieve it that way; since they never run a positive story about American military victories or heroic deeds by soldiers (no such thing as an American hero to the Times, unless they are American-bashing)
If It's Civil War, Do We Know It?
The past 10 days have seen such a quickening of these killings, particularly by the insurgents, that many Iraqis are saying that the civil war has already begun.
- if one side is perpetrating mass homicides, and the other side fights back, do we then have a civil war? Or would the Times prefer a slaughter?
British Promise to Investigate Killing of Brazilian in Subway
British police officers gunned down the Brazilian man at point-blank range in front of horrified subway passengers on Friday, after apparently attracting attention because he left a building that was under surveillance and because he was wearing a heavy coat in warm weather.
-...and didn't stop after numerous requests by the police chasing him. Note how quickly the Times works to change the subject away from the attacks on London to find fault with the West.
And don't forget to keep bashing the Commander-in-Chief!
Eight Days in July
The agenda of President Bush's rushed Supreme Court nomination - to change the subject in Washington - could not have been more naked
-jeez; and I thought he nominated a Supreme Court Justice because there was a vacancy on the Court!
For Bush, Effect of Investigation of C.I.A. Leak Case Is Uncertain
...For all that, it is still not clear what the investigation into the leak of a C.I.A. operative's identity will mean for President Bush.
-so the article essentially admits this probably will amount to nothing, but it gives our friends at the Times yet another opportunity to engage in anti-Bush rhetoric and innuendo...
Bravo, New York Times! You have served your terrorist masters well; Osama must be very pleased with your service to him....
No links; I feel dirty enough as it is...
Saturday, July 23, 2005
The Right tactics for the War on Terror
Thomas Friedman makes a good suggestion that is bound to be ignored by the mainstream media: Expose the hatemongers whom spread the cult of death by "shining a spotlight" on them:
Sunlight is more important than you think. Those who spread hate do not like to be exposed, noted Yigal Carmon, the founder of Memri, which monitors the Arab-Muslim media. The hate spreaders assume that they are talking only to their own, in their own language, and can get away with murder. When their words are spotlighted, they often feel pressure to retract, defend or explain them....
"We also need to spotlight the "excuse makers," the former State Department spokesman James Rubin said. After every major terrorist incident, the excuse makers come out to tell us why imperialism, Zionism, colonialism or Iraq explains why the terrorists acted. These excuse makers are just one notch less despicable than the terrorists and also deserve to be exposed. When you live in an open society like London, where anyone with a grievance can publish an article, run for office or start a political movement, the notion that blowing up a busload of innocent civilians in response to Iraq is somehow "understandable" is outrageous. "It erases the distinction between legitimate dissent and terrorism," Mr. Rubin said, "and an open society needs to maintain a clear wall between them."
There is no political justification for 9/11, 7/7 or 7/21. As the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen put it: "These terrorists are what they do." And what they do is murder.
Finally, we also need to shine a bright light on the "truth tellers." Every week some courageous Arab or Muslim intellectual, cleric or columnist publishes an essay in his or her media calling on fellow Muslims to deal with the cancer in their midst. The truth tellers' words also need to be disseminated globally...
First off, isn't this what blogs have been doing (especially LGF) for some time already? Perhaps Freidman is urging his freinds in the liberal media to follow the blogs' lead and expose the Islamofascism movement for what it is. He's bound to be disappointed; showing that the true cause of terrorism is not past grievances against the West, nor the fault of George W. Bush ,but a fanatical desire for a world under Islamic rule does not fit into the mainstream media's playbook.
Bush = Hitler; Iraq = Vietnam, America = Evil is all they know....
Link to Friedman article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/22/opinion/22friedman.html?
Link to LGF, a blog that has been doing the media's work for years, here: http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/weblog.php
Link to MEMRI, which has been translating Muslim hate speech for years, here: http://www.memri.org/
Sunlight is more important than you think. Those who spread hate do not like to be exposed, noted Yigal Carmon, the founder of Memri, which monitors the Arab-Muslim media. The hate spreaders assume that they are talking only to their own, in their own language, and can get away with murder. When their words are spotlighted, they often feel pressure to retract, defend or explain them....
"We also need to spotlight the "excuse makers," the former State Department spokesman James Rubin said. After every major terrorist incident, the excuse makers come out to tell us why imperialism, Zionism, colonialism or Iraq explains why the terrorists acted. These excuse makers are just one notch less despicable than the terrorists and also deserve to be exposed. When you live in an open society like London, where anyone with a grievance can publish an article, run for office or start a political movement, the notion that blowing up a busload of innocent civilians in response to Iraq is somehow "understandable" is outrageous. "It erases the distinction between legitimate dissent and terrorism," Mr. Rubin said, "and an open society needs to maintain a clear wall between them."
There is no political justification for 9/11, 7/7 or 7/21. As the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen put it: "These terrorists are what they do." And what they do is murder.
Finally, we also need to shine a bright light on the "truth tellers." Every week some courageous Arab or Muslim intellectual, cleric or columnist publishes an essay in his or her media calling on fellow Muslims to deal with the cancer in their midst. The truth tellers' words also need to be disseminated globally...
First off, isn't this what blogs have been doing (especially LGF) for some time already? Perhaps Freidman is urging his freinds in the liberal media to follow the blogs' lead and expose the Islamofascism movement for what it is. He's bound to be disappointed; showing that the true cause of terrorism is not past grievances against the West, nor the fault of George W. Bush ,but a fanatical desire for a world under Islamic rule does not fit into the mainstream media's playbook.
Bush = Hitler; Iraq = Vietnam, America = Evil is all they know....
Link to Friedman article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/22/opinion/22friedman.html?
Link to LGF, a blog that has been doing the media's work for years, here: http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/weblog.php
Link to MEMRI, which has been translating Muslim hate speech for years, here: http://www.memri.org/
John Howard, the Churchill of the 21st Century
Great Words by a Great Man, in answer to a question put to him at a joint press conference with Britian's tony Blair:
.....Can I just say very directly, Paul, on the issue of the policies of my government and indeed the policies of the British and American governments on Iraq, that the first point of reference is that once a country allows its foreign policy to be determined by terrorism, it's given the game away, to use the vernacular. And no Australian government that I lead will ever have policies determined by terrorism or terrorist threats, and no self-respecting government of any political stripe in Australia would allow that to happen.
Can I remind you that the murder of 88 Australians in Bali took place before the operation in Iraq.
And I remind you that the 11th of September occurred before the operation in Iraq.
Can I also remind you that the very first occasion that bin Laden specifically referred to Australia was in the context of Australia's involvement in liberating the people of East Timor. Are people by implication suggesting we shouldn't have done that?
When a group claimed responsibility on the website for the attacks on the 7th of July, they talked about British policy not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan. Are people suggesting we shouldn't be in Afghanistan?
When Sergio de Mello was murdered in Iraq -- a brave man, a distinguished international diplomat, a person immensely respected for his work in the United Nations -- when al Qaeda gloated about that, they referred specifically to the role that de Mello had carried out in East Timor because he was the United Nations administrator in East Timor.
Now I don't know the mind of the terrorists. By definition, you can't put yourself in the mind of a successful suicide bomber. I can only look at objective facts, and the objective facts are as I've cited. The objective evidence is that Australia was a terrorist target long before the operation in Iraq. And indeed, all the evidence, as distinct from the suppositions, suggests to me that this is about hatred of a way of life, this is about the perverted use of principles of the great world religion that, at its root, preaches peace and cooperation. And I think we lose sight of the challenge we have if we allow ourselves to see these attacks in the context of particular circumstances rather than the abuse through a perverted ideology of people and their murder.
I wish these words, or those of a similar stripe, could have been spoken by George Bush; but mayhaps our President has some of the PC disease described by Michelle Malkin in the post below...
Link here: http://www.illinoisleader.com/news/newsview.asp?c=27320
.....Can I just say very directly, Paul, on the issue of the policies of my government and indeed the policies of the British and American governments on Iraq, that the first point of reference is that once a country allows its foreign policy to be determined by terrorism, it's given the game away, to use the vernacular. And no Australian government that I lead will ever have policies determined by terrorism or terrorist threats, and no self-respecting government of any political stripe in Australia would allow that to happen.
Can I remind you that the murder of 88 Australians in Bali took place before the operation in Iraq.
And I remind you that the 11th of September occurred before the operation in Iraq.
Can I also remind you that the very first occasion that bin Laden specifically referred to Australia was in the context of Australia's involvement in liberating the people of East Timor. Are people by implication suggesting we shouldn't have done that?
When a group claimed responsibility on the website for the attacks on the 7th of July, they talked about British policy not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan. Are people suggesting we shouldn't be in Afghanistan?
When Sergio de Mello was murdered in Iraq -- a brave man, a distinguished international diplomat, a person immensely respected for his work in the United Nations -- when al Qaeda gloated about that, they referred specifically to the role that de Mello had carried out in East Timor because he was the United Nations administrator in East Timor.
Now I don't know the mind of the terrorists. By definition, you can't put yourself in the mind of a successful suicide bomber. I can only look at objective facts, and the objective facts are as I've cited. The objective evidence is that Australia was a terrorist target long before the operation in Iraq. And indeed, all the evidence, as distinct from the suppositions, suggests to me that this is about hatred of a way of life, this is about the perverted use of principles of the great world religion that, at its root, preaches peace and cooperation. And I think we lose sight of the challenge we have if we allow ourselves to see these attacks in the context of particular circumstances rather than the abuse through a perverted ideology of people and their murder.
I wish these words, or those of a similar stripe, could have been spoken by George Bush; but mayhaps our President has some of the PC disease described by Michelle Malkin in the post below...
Link here: http://www.illinoisleader.com/news/newsview.asp?c=27320
Wrong tactics for the War on Terror
Has Political Correctness so infected our system that there is no hope for a healthy dose of common sense? Michelle Malkin seems to believe so; today our favorite conservative columnist makes a salient point on why racial profiling is an ABSOLUTE MUST if we are going to properly defend ourselves in this ugly war forced upon us:
* The 7/7 London terrorist bombers were young Muslim men — all but one of them of Pakistani origin
All of the 1993 landmark-bombing conspirators were Muslim men from the Middle East or Sudan.
* All of the '93 World Trade Center terrorist bomb plotters were young Middle Eastern Muslim men — five of them, illegal aliens.
* The '97 New York subway-bomb plotters were also young, Middle Eastern Muslim illegals.
* All three of the Millenium bomb plotters were young Muslim male illegal aliens from Algeria.
* Four of the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa were Middle Eastern Muslim men.
* Look, too, at the Islamist subway bomb plotters arrested last summer in a conspiracy to attack the Herald Square subway, three police stations on Staten Island, a prison, and the Verrazano Bridge. One of the men in the August 2004 plot, Shahawar Matin Siraj, was a 22-year-old illegal alien from Pakistan based in Jackson Heights. The other, James Elshafay, was a young, Jew-hating American man of Egyptian descent.
The usual civil-liberties absolutists are already complaining about the city's non-crackdown crackdown and warning of unconstitutional racial discrimination. Minority set-asides for public construction projects to ensure "diversity" in Brooklyn? No problem. Common-sense profiling to stop Islamist terrorists? Call in Amnesty International.
It bears repeating: Not all Muslims are terrorists; but virtually all terrorists are Muslim.
Link here: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/50165.htm
* The 7/7 London terrorist bombers were young Muslim men — all but one of them of Pakistani origin
All of the 1993 landmark-bombing conspirators were Muslim men from the Middle East or Sudan.
* All of the '93 World Trade Center terrorist bomb plotters were young Middle Eastern Muslim men — five of them, illegal aliens.
* The '97 New York subway-bomb plotters were also young, Middle Eastern Muslim illegals.
* All three of the Millenium bomb plotters were young Muslim male illegal aliens from Algeria.
* Four of the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa were Middle Eastern Muslim men.
* Look, too, at the Islamist subway bomb plotters arrested last summer in a conspiracy to attack the Herald Square subway, three police stations on Staten Island, a prison, and the Verrazano Bridge. One of the men in the August 2004 plot, Shahawar Matin Siraj, was a 22-year-old illegal alien from Pakistan based in Jackson Heights. The other, James Elshafay, was a young, Jew-hating American man of Egyptian descent.
The usual civil-liberties absolutists are already complaining about the city's non-crackdown crackdown and warning of unconstitutional racial discrimination. Minority set-asides for public construction projects to ensure "diversity" in Brooklyn? No problem. Common-sense profiling to stop Islamist terrorists? Call in Amnesty International.
It bears repeating: Not all Muslims are terrorists; but virtually all terrorists are Muslim.
Link here: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/50165.htm
Thursday, July 21, 2005
(Justice) John Roberts
For a great career summary, check out this piece from ted Cruz on NRO http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/cruz200507201432.asp.
Here's an excerpt from Cruz's piece, displaying why Roberts is an excellent candidate for the High Court:
At the outset, Judge Roberts is brilliant. A summa cum laude Harvard graduate, Roberts began by clerking for two giants of the bench, Judge Henry Friendly, and Chief Justice Rehnquist.
He then argued 39 cases before the Court, more than all but a handful of lawyers ever. And he has earned a reputation as a balanced, scholarly advocate.
When he stood at the podium, he was never oratorical or flashy, not given to waxing rhetorical. Instead, he was unflappable. His preparation was so extensive that — unlike many lawyers, who try to dodge tough questions from justices — he would simply stand and answer the hard questions one after the other, calmly and coolly addressing the most difficult obstacles to his case.
He didn’t always prevail; but, even in loss, his quick wit remained. As he observed to one unsuccessful client, aghast and asking why they had lost their case 9-0, he replied, “well, there are only nine justices.”
I'm sure we'll hear the baying from those moonbat liberals shortly; IowaHawk has the jump on them here http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2005/07/he_or_she_is_th.html, with the captured memo entitled "He or She Is The Wrong Man or Woman For The Court!"
Read 'em both; read it all...
Here's an excerpt from Cruz's piece, displaying why Roberts is an excellent candidate for the High Court:
At the outset, Judge Roberts is brilliant. A summa cum laude Harvard graduate, Roberts began by clerking for two giants of the bench, Judge Henry Friendly, and Chief Justice Rehnquist.
He then argued 39 cases before the Court, more than all but a handful of lawyers ever. And he has earned a reputation as a balanced, scholarly advocate.
When he stood at the podium, he was never oratorical or flashy, not given to waxing rhetorical. Instead, he was unflappable. His preparation was so extensive that — unlike many lawyers, who try to dodge tough questions from justices — he would simply stand and answer the hard questions one after the other, calmly and coolly addressing the most difficult obstacles to his case.
He didn’t always prevail; but, even in loss, his quick wit remained. As he observed to one unsuccessful client, aghast and asking why they had lost their case 9-0, he replied, “well, there are only nine justices.”
I'm sure we'll hear the baying from those moonbat liberals shortly; IowaHawk has the jump on them here http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2005/07/he_or_she_is_th.html, with the captured memo entitled "He or She Is The Wrong Man or Woman For The Court!"
Read 'em both; read it all...
Saturday, July 16, 2005
'O' Allah, make America stronger!"
Yet another liberal falsehood put to rest...that we are creating more terrorists by fighting terrorists - From the Al-Siyasah newspaper; via The Counterterrorism Blog:
"The Imam of al-Jabiriyah preached against the Americans and the Worshippers shouted 'O' Allah, make America stronger!""
The Al-Siyasah newspaper has received news that several mosques in Kuwait have begun to exhibit a new phenomenon manifested in the rejection by worshippers of extremist prayers expressed by some of the Imams during their Khutbah [friday prayer]. These prayers included invitations to fight the Americans and to become more hostile towards them. An example of this [phenomenon] was when Nabil al-Awadi, who is an Imam at one of the mosques in the southern region of Al-Surrah, began preaching against the Americans in his last Friday Khutbah. As a result, the people at prayer cut off his speech and demanded that he stop talking. Additionally, the worshippers at the mosque of Aisha Shabib in the Al-Jabiriyah neighborhood shouted, 'O' Allah, make Islam and America stronger' in response to what the Imam of that mosque had said during friday prayer about America and the current war [in Iraq]."
Example #2 of facts controvening the liberal lie of "fighting enemies makes more enemies" is evidenced in this recent Pew Research Poll (ignored by the mainstream media for reasons you'll see shortly) displaying the changing views of Muslims regarding terrorism. From Dhimmi Watch:
Nearly three-quarters of Moroccans and roughly half of those in Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia see Islamic extremism as a threat to their countries. At the same time, most Muslim publics are expressing less support for terrorism than in the past. Confidence in Osama bin Laden has declined markedly in some countries and fewer believe suicide bombings that target civilians are justified in the defense of Islam.
The polling also finds that in most majority-Muslim countries surveyed, support for suicide bombings and other acts of violence in defense of Islam has declined significantly. In Turkey, Morocco and Indonesia, 15% or fewer now say such actions are justifiable. In Pakistan, only one-in-four now take that view (25%), a sharp drop from 41% in March 2004. In Lebanon, 39% now regard acts of terrorism as often or sometimes justified, again a sharp drop from the 73% who shared that view in 2002.
Got to the link below; Dhimmi Watch dissects the pros and con of this poll (with a direct link to Pew so you may analyze for yourself). Osama bin Ladin had one thing right; that "people will follow the strong horse"...too bad OBL picked the wrong one....
Link to The Counterterrorism Blog here: http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2005/07/report_radical_.html
Dhimmi Watch link is here: http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/007166.php
"The Imam of al-Jabiriyah preached against the Americans and the Worshippers shouted 'O' Allah, make America stronger!""
The Al-Siyasah newspaper has received news that several mosques in Kuwait have begun to exhibit a new phenomenon manifested in the rejection by worshippers of extremist prayers expressed by some of the Imams during their Khutbah [friday prayer]. These prayers included invitations to fight the Americans and to become more hostile towards them. An example of this [phenomenon] was when Nabil al-Awadi, who is an Imam at one of the mosques in the southern region of Al-Surrah, began preaching against the Americans in his last Friday Khutbah. As a result, the people at prayer cut off his speech and demanded that he stop talking. Additionally, the worshippers at the mosque of Aisha Shabib in the Al-Jabiriyah neighborhood shouted, 'O' Allah, make Islam and America stronger' in response to what the Imam of that mosque had said during friday prayer about America and the current war [in Iraq]."
Example #2 of facts controvening the liberal lie of "fighting enemies makes more enemies" is evidenced in this recent Pew Research Poll (ignored by the mainstream media for reasons you'll see shortly) displaying the changing views of Muslims regarding terrorism. From Dhimmi Watch:
Nearly three-quarters of Moroccans and roughly half of those in Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia see Islamic extremism as a threat to their countries. At the same time, most Muslim publics are expressing less support for terrorism than in the past. Confidence in Osama bin Laden has declined markedly in some countries and fewer believe suicide bombings that target civilians are justified in the defense of Islam.
The polling also finds that in most majority-Muslim countries surveyed, support for suicide bombings and other acts of violence in defense of Islam has declined significantly. In Turkey, Morocco and Indonesia, 15% or fewer now say such actions are justifiable. In Pakistan, only one-in-four now take that view (25%), a sharp drop from 41% in March 2004. In Lebanon, 39% now regard acts of terrorism as often or sometimes justified, again a sharp drop from the 73% who shared that view in 2002.
Got to the link below; Dhimmi Watch dissects the pros and con of this poll (with a direct link to Pew so you may analyze for yourself). Osama bin Ladin had one thing right; that "people will follow the strong horse"...too bad OBL picked the wrong one....
Link to The Counterterrorism Blog here: http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2005/07/report_radical_.html
Dhimmi Watch link is here: http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/007166.php
Friday, July 15, 2005
A Blood Feud?
Wretchard reports an interesting take on what the war on terror really might be, as seen from Lee Harris' Tech Central column:
In a blood feud, every member of the enemy tribe is a perfectly valid target for revenge. What is important is that some of their guys must be killed -- not necessarily anyone of any standing in their community. Just kill someone on the other side, and you have done what the logic of the blood feud commands you to do.
In the blood feud there is no concept of decisive victory because there is no desire to end the blood feud. Rather the blood feud functions as a permanent "ethical" institution -- it is the way of life for those who participate in it; it is how they keep score and how they maintain their own rights and privileges. You don't feud to win, you feud to keep your enemy from winning -- and that is why the anthropologist of the Bedouin feud, Emrys Peters, has written the disturbing words: The feud is eternal.
A scary thought; but I disagree with the idea that "you don't feud to win". You don't feud to lose, either - and if we make it clear that anyone who wishes to "feud" with the United States (or the "Western Alliance") will wind up on the short end of the stick in short order, well, maybe there will be less of those who wish to pick one with us. A clash of civilizations, indeed, when our enemies realize that we do not play the feud games by the rules.
I like the concept, however, and one might say that the Isreali-Palestinian conflict has turned into a blood feud as well, with a tit-for-tat that is about to span generations. No one really wants justice for the Palestinians (except ironically the Isrealis, perhaps), or else the Saudis/Egyptians/Syrians would have taken them in long ago. Yassar Arafat understood the rules and played them well; he always pulled back from a deal at the last possible moment, denying his people numerous opportunities to live in peace, because to him the feud was eternal.
Does this bode ill for the Isreali abandonment of Gaza? Will the militants continue to fight, because the slaughters, the blood feud, is the means and the end?
Can there then ever be a true peace in the Middle East? Jordan seems to have been able to achieve one with Isreal; is that because they are the most Westernized? Is then Bush's plan to democratize the Middle East the only way for the concept of the feud to die?
Keep backing the President; for he know that which he does....
Link to Wretchard's Belmont Club post here: http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005/07/two-points-of-view.html
In a blood feud, every member of the enemy tribe is a perfectly valid target for revenge. What is important is that some of their guys must be killed -- not necessarily anyone of any standing in their community. Just kill someone on the other side, and you have done what the logic of the blood feud commands you to do.
In the blood feud there is no concept of decisive victory because there is no desire to end the blood feud. Rather the blood feud functions as a permanent "ethical" institution -- it is the way of life for those who participate in it; it is how they keep score and how they maintain their own rights and privileges. You don't feud to win, you feud to keep your enemy from winning -- and that is why the anthropologist of the Bedouin feud, Emrys Peters, has written the disturbing words: The feud is eternal.
A scary thought; but I disagree with the idea that "you don't feud to win". You don't feud to lose, either - and if we make it clear that anyone who wishes to "feud" with the United States (or the "Western Alliance") will wind up on the short end of the stick in short order, well, maybe there will be less of those who wish to pick one with us. A clash of civilizations, indeed, when our enemies realize that we do not play the feud games by the rules.
I like the concept, however, and one might say that the Isreali-Palestinian conflict has turned into a blood feud as well, with a tit-for-tat that is about to span generations. No one really wants justice for the Palestinians (except ironically the Isrealis, perhaps), or else the Saudis/Egyptians/Syrians would have taken them in long ago. Yassar Arafat understood the rules and played them well; he always pulled back from a deal at the last possible moment, denying his people numerous opportunities to live in peace, because to him the feud was eternal.
Does this bode ill for the Isreali abandonment of Gaza? Will the militants continue to fight, because the slaughters, the blood feud, is the means and the end?
Can there then ever be a true peace in the Middle East? Jordan seems to have been able to achieve one with Isreal; is that because they are the most Westernized? Is then Bush's plan to democratize the Middle East the only way for the concept of the feud to die?
Keep backing the President; for he know that which he does....
Link to Wretchard's Belmont Club post here: http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005/07/two-points-of-view.html
New York Times Lies, Lies, Lies...
...about Karl Rove's role in the Valerie Plame fiasco. Remember, when Plame's husband Joe Wilson first made his accusations regarding his trip to Niger, the Times printed a dozen stories on page one showing how the Bush administration distorted information to take us into war; and calling for a criminal investigation on who leaked his wife's name to cloumnist Robert Novak. When Joe Wilson admitted fabricating elements of the story; it appeared on page A14 in the Times. When their reporter, Judith Miller, was implicated in the "cover-up", the Times changed their story and said their was no crime after all. But now that Karl Rove's name is out there, wow, do we have a Bush-bashing story again, even if it has no basis in truth.
Today's headline:
Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer
Damning, right? Now read a few sentences in:
Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer....The previously undisclosed telephone conversation, which took place on July 8, 2003, was initiated by Mr. Novak
So Rove either lied to a grand jury,or the Times printed a headline implicating Rove when he actually had been cleared. Why let the truth get in the way of a good story, especially when you can wistfully write "But it seems certain to add substantially to the political maelstrom that has engulfed the White House this week", or "...seemed almost certain to intensify the question about whether one of Mr. Bush's closest political advisers played a role in what appeared to be an effort to undermine Mr. Wilson's ".
The truth "seems" to be buried within the distortions:
In an Op-Ed article for The New York Times on July 6, 2003, Mr. Wilson suggested that he had been sent to Niger because of Mr. Cheney's interest in the matter. But Mr. Novak told Mr. Rove he knew that Mr. Wilson had been sent at the urging of Ms. Wilson, the person who had been briefed on the matter said.
So the main source for all the allegations is a liar. Won't stop the Times, or Paul Krugman, from a leftist smear:
Mr. Rove should receive a medal from the American Political Science Association for his pioneering discoveries about modern American politics. The medal can, if necessary, be delivered to his prison cell.
Dream on, New York Times, Paul Krugman, et al.....keep casting doubts on others when your primary source is a liar and the only one in a prison cell is one of your own reporters...it "seems" as if lies and doubts are all you have left.
Links to story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/politics/15rove.html?hp&ex=1121486400&en=bac819afc84e3590&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Link to Krugman here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/opinion/15krugman.html
Today's headline:
Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer
Damning, right? Now read a few sentences in:
Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer....The previously undisclosed telephone conversation, which took place on July 8, 2003, was initiated by Mr. Novak
So Rove either lied to a grand jury,or the Times printed a headline implicating Rove when he actually had been cleared. Why let the truth get in the way of a good story, especially when you can wistfully write "But it seems certain to add substantially to the political maelstrom that has engulfed the White House this week", or "...seemed almost certain to intensify the question about whether one of Mr. Bush's closest political advisers played a role in what appeared to be an effort to undermine Mr. Wilson's ".
The truth "seems" to be buried within the distortions:
In an Op-Ed article for The New York Times on July 6, 2003, Mr. Wilson suggested that he had been sent to Niger because of Mr. Cheney's interest in the matter. But Mr. Novak told Mr. Rove he knew that Mr. Wilson had been sent at the urging of Ms. Wilson, the person who had been briefed on the matter said.
So the main source for all the allegations is a liar. Won't stop the Times, or Paul Krugman, from a leftist smear:
Mr. Rove should receive a medal from the American Political Science Association for his pioneering discoveries about modern American politics. The medal can, if necessary, be delivered to his prison cell.
Dream on, New York Times, Paul Krugman, et al.....keep casting doubts on others when your primary source is a liar and the only one in a prison cell is one of your own reporters...it "seems" as if lies and doubts are all you have left.
Links to story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/politics/15rove.html?hp&ex=1121486400&en=bac819afc84e3590&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Link to Krugman here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/opinion/15krugman.html
BBC deserves an assist...
...on the terrorist attacks in London. After all, just a few months ago, they ran a three part series entitled 'The Power of Nightmares'; which, according to the BBC website...
... explores how the idea that we are threatened by a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion.
It is a myth that has spread unquestioned through politics, the security services and the international media.
At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neo-conservatives and the radical Islamists.
Both were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world.
These two groups have changed the world but not in the way either intended.
Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful... Together they created today's nightmare vision of an organised terror network.
A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful.
Note the revolting equalization of the "neo-cons" and the terrorists; but most importantly, this three part series that ran in January proposed radical Islamic terrorism was no more than a myth to support the rise of the Republican Party....revolting at the time, virtually criminal now.
Guess they were wrong...but how much did the British lower their guards due to this piece of liberal propoganda? Had they run a series on vigilance, may some of the attacks have been stopped? How many lives has this report cost? Will the BBC look inward, and reconsider its position?
As Spongebob's boss Mr. Krabs would say, "When Scallops fly out 'o me Pants!!"
Biased BBC comments:
....Though no time to draw political blood when too much of the real stuff has been tragically split in our capital, Marc, at USS Neverdock, makes a legitimate point on behalf of all those people who might have lowered their guard as a result of the undermining of the notion of a War on Terror by some BBC journalism. 'The Power of Nightmares' assured us there was no real organised Islamic movement bent on our destruction, yet the massive organisation behind the London bombings - the syncronisation, the planning - suggest quite the opposite. It suggests the BBC's flagship programme of the last year, its main publicised recent claim to excellence, was in fact highly flawed. And as forewarned is forearmed, the BBC has in this regard, and others less well-known, certainly been unconducive to the public good. '
"The BBC had the courage to put the series out and this shows they were right"', said the maker of the film... as it showed at Cannes.
A bit early with the self congratulations, weren't you?
Link to BBC excerpts here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/3755686.stm
Biased BBC is here: http://www.biased-bbc.blogspot.com/ (scroll down to July 7th)
... explores how the idea that we are threatened by a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion.
It is a myth that has spread unquestioned through politics, the security services and the international media.
At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neo-conservatives and the radical Islamists.
Both were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world.
These two groups have changed the world but not in the way either intended.
Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful... Together they created today's nightmare vision of an organised terror network.
A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful.
Note the revolting equalization of the "neo-cons" and the terrorists; but most importantly, this three part series that ran in January proposed radical Islamic terrorism was no more than a myth to support the rise of the Republican Party....revolting at the time, virtually criminal now.
Guess they were wrong...but how much did the British lower their guards due to this piece of liberal propoganda? Had they run a series on vigilance, may some of the attacks have been stopped? How many lives has this report cost? Will the BBC look inward, and reconsider its position?
As Spongebob's boss Mr. Krabs would say, "When Scallops fly out 'o me Pants!!"
Biased BBC comments:
....Though no time to draw political blood when too much of the real stuff has been tragically split in our capital, Marc, at USS Neverdock, makes a legitimate point on behalf of all those people who might have lowered their guard as a result of the undermining of the notion of a War on Terror by some BBC journalism. 'The Power of Nightmares' assured us there was no real organised Islamic movement bent on our destruction, yet the massive organisation behind the London bombings - the syncronisation, the planning - suggest quite the opposite. It suggests the BBC's flagship programme of the last year, its main publicised recent claim to excellence, was in fact highly flawed. And as forewarned is forearmed, the BBC has in this regard, and others less well-known, certainly been unconducive to the public good. '
"The BBC had the courage to put the series out and this shows they were right"', said the maker of the film... as it showed at Cannes.
A bit early with the self congratulations, weren't you?
Link to BBC excerpts here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/3755686.stm
Biased BBC is here: http://www.biased-bbc.blogspot.com/ (scroll down to July 7th)
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Jimmy Carter, Liberal Hero!
The New York Times features Generation Y moron Sarah Vowell in the place of dumbass Dowd for the next few weeks...she writes the second "speech the President should give" column in the last two weeks; with the first being by another famous loser by the name of John Kerry. Sarah explains why the USA is an unliveable hellhole, then pines for the good old days:
Then I realized I was picturing George W. Bush giving this presidential bummer speech while wearing a cardigan sweater. Which is when it hit me. I was fantasizing about Jimmy Carter. I can stop whiling away the hours writing forlorn presidential speeches in my head and look up Carter's forlorn presidential speeches instead.
Of course, my favorite is the famous "malaise" speech of 1979 (it deals with the energy crisis - but never actually uses the word malaise). Considered by some to be the worst presidential speech in history, the address asserted that our problems are "deeper than gasoline lines." And: "This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning." Then: "There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice."
Those frank words, coming out of a presidential mouth, are shocking. It will be difficult, but think back and try to remember an America dependent on foreign oil, an America with high gasoline prices, an America consumed with crises in the Middle East. And imagine you feel there is nothing you, the average American, can do. Then your president goes on TV and instead of saying you can do something vague like "stay the course," he tells you that there is something small and practical you can do. You can carpool!
OK, so Sarah wants the return of leadership like that of Jimmy Carter, whom brought us gasoline rationing, crippling inflation, and leadership so ineffective that -
- The Soviet Union felt free to invade Afghanistan; in response, Carter created the Taliban to fight them, and really showed the Soviets when he boycotted the Moscow Olympics; hurting American athletes more than Soviet aspirations to global dominance
- The Arab world felt free to invade Isreal on the Jewish highest holy days; a war which Carter stopped only after it looked as if Isreal would win (again)
-The Iranians had no fear of overrunning the American Embassy and holding its personnel hostage for 444 days; humiliating their prisoners and America in the process while Carter scraped and bowed, and led to a quarter-century of unrelenting terrorism against America which culiminated in 9/11.
And the fact that a liberal president can cause all the above problems, go on TV, essentially blame the American people, and call for "carpooling" is a reason to fantasize??
Did I mention that Miss Sarah Vowell is a commentator on NPR? Or did you figure that one out for yourself? Miss Vowell, it should be known, just wrote a book of her own, essentially encouraging the assasination of President Bush, entitled Assasination Vacation. From the Slimes review:
...After seeing a performance of Stephen Sondheim's musical ''Assassins,'' and wanting to tamp down her own rage at the current president, she designs a zigzagging trip around the country as a self-administered tutorial on the history of Americans' violence against their own leaders. This pilgrimage to study psychotics and three of their presidential targets (Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley) is supposed to somehow cure her own political malaise.
The reviewer points out that she didn't touch upon the Kennedy assasination. Republican presidents only, Sarah?
Vicious Hatemonger, yes...NPR Commentator, yes...Times Op-Ed writer, yes....
Link to this stupidity here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/opinion/13vowell.html
"Book" review here: http://travel2.nytimes.com/mem/travel/article-page.html?res=9806E0DB1230F936A25756C0A9639C8B63
Then I realized I was picturing George W. Bush giving this presidential bummer speech while wearing a cardigan sweater. Which is when it hit me. I was fantasizing about Jimmy Carter. I can stop whiling away the hours writing forlorn presidential speeches in my head and look up Carter's forlorn presidential speeches instead.
Of course, my favorite is the famous "malaise" speech of 1979 (it deals with the energy crisis - but never actually uses the word malaise). Considered by some to be the worst presidential speech in history, the address asserted that our problems are "deeper than gasoline lines." And: "This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning." Then: "There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice."
Those frank words, coming out of a presidential mouth, are shocking. It will be difficult, but think back and try to remember an America dependent on foreign oil, an America with high gasoline prices, an America consumed with crises in the Middle East. And imagine you feel there is nothing you, the average American, can do. Then your president goes on TV and instead of saying you can do something vague like "stay the course," he tells you that there is something small and practical you can do. You can carpool!
OK, so Sarah wants the return of leadership like that of Jimmy Carter, whom brought us gasoline rationing, crippling inflation, and leadership so ineffective that -
- The Soviet Union felt free to invade Afghanistan; in response, Carter created the Taliban to fight them, and really showed the Soviets when he boycotted the Moscow Olympics; hurting American athletes more than Soviet aspirations to global dominance
- The Arab world felt free to invade Isreal on the Jewish highest holy days; a war which Carter stopped only after it looked as if Isreal would win (again)
-The Iranians had no fear of overrunning the American Embassy and holding its personnel hostage for 444 days; humiliating their prisoners and America in the process while Carter scraped and bowed, and led to a quarter-century of unrelenting terrorism against America which culiminated in 9/11.
And the fact that a liberal president can cause all the above problems, go on TV, essentially blame the American people, and call for "carpooling" is a reason to fantasize??
Did I mention that Miss Sarah Vowell is a commentator on NPR? Or did you figure that one out for yourself? Miss Vowell, it should be known, just wrote a book of her own, essentially encouraging the assasination of President Bush, entitled Assasination Vacation. From the Slimes review:
...After seeing a performance of Stephen Sondheim's musical ''Assassins,'' and wanting to tamp down her own rage at the current president, she designs a zigzagging trip around the country as a self-administered tutorial on the history of Americans' violence against their own leaders. This pilgrimage to study psychotics and three of their presidential targets (Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley) is supposed to somehow cure her own political malaise.
The reviewer points out that she didn't touch upon the Kennedy assasination. Republican presidents only, Sarah?
Vicious Hatemonger, yes...NPR Commentator, yes...Times Op-Ed writer, yes....
Link to this stupidity here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/opinion/13vowell.html
"Book" review here: http://travel2.nytimes.com/mem/travel/article-page.html?res=9806E0DB1230F936A25756C0A9639C8B63
Saturday, July 09, 2005
The Myth of the Moderate Muslim?
From Instapundit:
If there isn't a Million Muslim March this weekend, if there aren't crowds of muslims chanting and holding signs, "not in our name", then doubt as to the existence of moderate muslims will grow, and grow quickly.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong.
Don't hold your breath; the truth is coming out...
Link Here: http://instapundit.com/archives/024131.php
....and with that, I am going on a brief hiatus thru mid-next-week; to get some Jersey sun and surf, drink a few whiskeys, smoke a few stogies, and celebrate a significant birthday. When I'm back, I'll relate Congressman Rush Holt's response to my letter of last week http://jerseynut.blogspot.com/2005/06/new-jersey-congressman-rush-holt-anti.html - trust me, it was interesting....
If there isn't a Million Muslim March this weekend, if there aren't crowds of muslims chanting and holding signs, "not in our name", then doubt as to the existence of moderate muslims will grow, and grow quickly.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong.
Don't hold your breath; the truth is coming out...
Link Here: http://instapundit.com/archives/024131.php
....and with that, I am going on a brief hiatus thru mid-next-week; to get some Jersey sun and surf, drink a few whiskeys, smoke a few stogies, and celebrate a significant birthday. When I'm back, I'll relate Congressman Rush Holt's response to my letter of last week http://jerseynut.blogspot.com/2005/06/new-jersey-congressman-rush-holt-anti.html - trust me, it was interesting....
Friday, July 08, 2005
Media urges us to be good little victims!
From the Washington Post, a few quotes from opinion columns on yesterday's attack on Great Britian -
Jim Hoagland http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/07/AR2005070701899.html :
Blair's proposals were never going to solve all of Africa's problems. His greatest accomplishment at Gleneagles might have been to get people to look at Africa differently -- to put aside the hopelessness and despair -- and rekindle international engagement there.
Hope is not permitted to exist for others by the killers of London, Madrid, New York, Northern Virginia, Baghdad, Kabul and elsewhere. They traffic in despair, resignation and surrender. The G-8 leaders have said the terrorists will not prevail. It is up to those leaders to show that they mean those words.
So the solution to terrorism is to increase aid to Africa, not to fight back against it!
Here's Eugene Robinson: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/07/AR2005070701901.html
Somehow we have to wage this fight in a way that doesn't turn it into some kind of clash of civilizations. Somehow we have to fight back in a way that doesn't create more terrorists than we eliminate. If we don't, simple arithmetic becomes the enemy.
"Live your lives," our leaders say. And, of course, that's all we can do.
Don't fight back, that just makes our enemies madder...live your lives, do as you are told, don't look at the bodies in the streeets, nothing to see here....
Finally, Edward Lucas tells us what is really important: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/07/AR2005070701904.html
It is easier to say what won't happen. Fortunately, there is no sign -- so far at least -- of hostility toward Britain's 1.6 million Muslims...
Well, that's certainly a relief! And let's not be concerned about the Muslim hostility towards us, right, guv'nor?
Stinkin' dhimminis...
I think Robinson's is the most offensive - he essentially says we're all going to die, so lets just lie there and do it quietly. I think this subversive message is having less and less impact as the American people, way ahead of the media's slow learning curve, realizes we are in a shooting war, one we cannot afford to lose.
Mr. Peter Bergen gets its right, in the Times of all places, where he follows up a bit on my post from yesterday:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/08/opinion/08bergen.html
Richard C. Reid, the "shoe bomber" who tried to blow up an American Airlines jet flying between Paris and Miami in 2001, is British. So is Saajid Badat, who pled guilty in London four months ago to plotting to use a shoe bomb similar to Mr. Reid's to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight in late 2001. And Ahmed Omar Sheik, who orchestrated the 2002 kidnapping-murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, is a British citizen of Pakistani descent who graduated from the London School of Economics.
Houston, we have a problem...
UPDATE July 10th: Goodness, is it the NY times, of all places, that actually gets it? From today's front page:
Long before bombings ripped through London on Thursday, Britain had become a breeding ground for hate, fed by a militant version of Islam....
So why wasn't the mainstream media printing these stories before 7/7? Being politically correct is more important than being alive, I guess...
Link here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/international/europe/10qaeda.html?hp&ex=1121054400&en=63f4d035a1e68f74&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Jim Hoagland http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/07/AR2005070701899.html :
Blair's proposals were never going to solve all of Africa's problems. His greatest accomplishment at Gleneagles might have been to get people to look at Africa differently -- to put aside the hopelessness and despair -- and rekindle international engagement there.
Hope is not permitted to exist for others by the killers of London, Madrid, New York, Northern Virginia, Baghdad, Kabul and elsewhere. They traffic in despair, resignation and surrender. The G-8 leaders have said the terrorists will not prevail. It is up to those leaders to show that they mean those words.
So the solution to terrorism is to increase aid to Africa, not to fight back against it!
Here's Eugene Robinson: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/07/AR2005070701901.html
Somehow we have to wage this fight in a way that doesn't turn it into some kind of clash of civilizations. Somehow we have to fight back in a way that doesn't create more terrorists than we eliminate. If we don't, simple arithmetic becomes the enemy.
"Live your lives," our leaders say. And, of course, that's all we can do.
Don't fight back, that just makes our enemies madder...live your lives, do as you are told, don't look at the bodies in the streeets, nothing to see here....
Finally, Edward Lucas tells us what is really important: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/07/AR2005070701904.html
It is easier to say what won't happen. Fortunately, there is no sign -- so far at least -- of hostility toward Britain's 1.6 million Muslims...
Well, that's certainly a relief! And let's not be concerned about the Muslim hostility towards us, right, guv'nor?
Stinkin' dhimminis...
I think Robinson's is the most offensive - he essentially says we're all going to die, so lets just lie there and do it quietly. I think this subversive message is having less and less impact as the American people, way ahead of the media's slow learning curve, realizes we are in a shooting war, one we cannot afford to lose.
Mr. Peter Bergen gets its right, in the Times of all places, where he follows up a bit on my post from yesterday:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/08/opinion/08bergen.html
Richard C. Reid, the "shoe bomber" who tried to blow up an American Airlines jet flying between Paris and Miami in 2001, is British. So is Saajid Badat, who pled guilty in London four months ago to plotting to use a shoe bomb similar to Mr. Reid's to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight in late 2001. And Ahmed Omar Sheik, who orchestrated the 2002 kidnapping-murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, is a British citizen of Pakistani descent who graduated from the London School of Economics.
Houston, we have a problem...
UPDATE July 10th: Goodness, is it the NY times, of all places, that actually gets it? From today's front page:
Long before bombings ripped through London on Thursday, Britain had become a breeding ground for hate, fed by a militant version of Islam....
So why wasn't the mainstream media printing these stories before 7/7? Being politically correct is more important than being alive, I guess...
Link here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/international/europe/10qaeda.html?hp&ex=1121054400&en=63f4d035a1e68f74&ei=5094&partner=homepage
The Bombing of London
Less shock than resigned inevitability is how the world seemed to treat today's terrror bombings in London; an altogether appropriate response. For the West is at war against Islamic Fundamentalism; a war that can never end in a stalement or peace treaty, but with one side soundly defeated. While coalition soldiers battle their foe in Iraq and Afghanistan; the enemy occasionally makes sucessful forays into our territories, striking soft targets to slaughter the innocent. They know that besides civilain casualties and mass disruption of life, the media will do their propoganda job for them by broadcasting their momentary murderous glory worldwide; amplifying the effects by a magnitude. This is the world they want; can the will of the West stand up to such an implacable foe?
For my part, while al Qaeda probably played some role in today's attacks, I believe that this may be the work of not foreign terrorists, but Britian's own home-grown militants. Britian's Muslim minority has been vocally anti-Britian and anti-Semetic; aided by the liberals whom defended their views and appeased them with legal buyoffs, their cause became, to them, legitimized. Christopher Hitchens notes Britian's...
...role as a host to a large and growing Muslim minority. The first British citizens to be killed in Afghanistan were fighting for the Taliban, which is proof in itself that the Iraq war is not the original motivating force. Last year, two British Muslims pulled off a suicide attack at an Israeli beach resort. In many British cities, there are now demands for sexual segregation in schools and for separate sharia courts to try Muslim defendants. The electoral strength of Muslims is great enough to encourage pandering from all three parties: The most egregious pandering of all has come from Blair himself, who has promised legislation that would outlaw any speech that could be construed as offensive to Islam. Since most British Muslims are of Asian descent, a faint sense exists that criticism of their religion is somehow racist: In practice this weak-mindedness leads to the extension of an antiquated law on blasphemy that ought long ago to have been repealed but is now to cover the wounded feelings of Muslims as well as Christians.
To those whom believe that we can appease, settle, or make peace with these Islamic Fundamentalists, learn the lesson of Britian.
My heart goes out to Britian's victims of this enemy attack. For my part, I work practically next door to the British Consulate in New York. I saw no books of condolences to sign; no flags at half-staff, and only two paltry NYC cops sloppily standing guard (I was surprised by this lack of vigilance as this building has been attacked before; later in the day my pair of loafer cops was supplemented by a few on horseback; a little better, not much). I gave an interview to an Italian TV reporter and crew, in which I warned viewers that they'd better realize there was a war on, although I'm sure my words were in vain. I think the British people deserved more respect than their consulate personnel were offering, and more protection than the NYC police were giving. The British Embassy in New York: Another target, on another front - let us remain vigilant; for we are at war....
I'll update tomorrow.
Link to Hitchen's article here: http://slate.com/id/2122186/?GT1=6666#ContinueArticle
At the bottom, there are links to other articles, including one praising Britian's legal system for its practice of "speedy trials and fast aquittals" for terrorists (link here http://slate.com/id/2069991/).
How about this claim( http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/):
7 July 2005; 12:54 ET: Preliminary reports from a source inside the Pentagon indicate that one of the operatives involved in this morning's bombings in London was recently released from the prison at Guantanamo.
Hard to believe - but what would Dick Durbin say?
The Belmont Club is more optimistic; I hope Wretchard is right:
...most important hard fact to grasp is that this Al Qaeda strike, their first against an Anglosphere city since 9/11, has caused much less damage than that on New York. This despite the fact that Al Qaeda has had nearly four years to brood on its humiliations and losses and to plot its revenge. The reasons for this are simple: the enemy is now operating in a much more hostile environment. The accessible methods of mass destruction, such as wide body aircraft, have been secured; not perfectly, but for a defense to work it must only be sufficient to blunt the onslaught of the enemy. Increased surveillance, tighter controls on movement, etc have all played their part. The second reason the enemy is weaker is Iraq. It is widely accepted that thousands of Al Qaeda fighters, the cream of their rancid crop, is fighting to expel the American infidel from the Land Between the Rivers. A moment's reflection will show that if they are there they cannot be elsewhere -- in London, Paris, Rome or Boston -- sowing bombs on buses and trains. Furthermore, fear in formerly smug circles within Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Libya at sharing the fate of Saddam have left terrorists have fewer powerful confederates. Thirdly, allied forces are in contact with the enemy all over the world, buying intelligence with their blood, just as a SEAL team in Afghanistan did. Nothing yields as much information as the act of grappling with the enemy. Liberals often talk about the need to improve intelligence capability without admitting that you can't gather it without being in action against the enemy.
Read it all; link here: http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005/07/blessing-and-curse.html
For my part, while al Qaeda probably played some role in today's attacks, I believe that this may be the work of not foreign terrorists, but Britian's own home-grown militants. Britian's Muslim minority has been vocally anti-Britian and anti-Semetic; aided by the liberals whom defended their views and appeased them with legal buyoffs, their cause became, to them, legitimized. Christopher Hitchens notes Britian's...
...role as a host to a large and growing Muslim minority. The first British citizens to be killed in Afghanistan were fighting for the Taliban, which is proof in itself that the Iraq war is not the original motivating force. Last year, two British Muslims pulled off a suicide attack at an Israeli beach resort. In many British cities, there are now demands for sexual segregation in schools and for separate sharia courts to try Muslim defendants. The electoral strength of Muslims is great enough to encourage pandering from all three parties: The most egregious pandering of all has come from Blair himself, who has promised legislation that would outlaw any speech that could be construed as offensive to Islam. Since most British Muslims are of Asian descent, a faint sense exists that criticism of their religion is somehow racist: In practice this weak-mindedness leads to the extension of an antiquated law on blasphemy that ought long ago to have been repealed but is now to cover the wounded feelings of Muslims as well as Christians.
To those whom believe that we can appease, settle, or make peace with these Islamic Fundamentalists, learn the lesson of Britian.
My heart goes out to Britian's victims of this enemy attack. For my part, I work practically next door to the British Consulate in New York. I saw no books of condolences to sign; no flags at half-staff, and only two paltry NYC cops sloppily standing guard (I was surprised by this lack of vigilance as this building has been attacked before; later in the day my pair of loafer cops was supplemented by a few on horseback; a little better, not much). I gave an interview to an Italian TV reporter and crew, in which I warned viewers that they'd better realize there was a war on, although I'm sure my words were in vain. I think the British people deserved more respect than their consulate personnel were offering, and more protection than the NYC police were giving. The British Embassy in New York: Another target, on another front - let us remain vigilant; for we are at war....
I'll update tomorrow.
Link to Hitchen's article here: http://slate.com/id/2122186/?GT1=6666#ContinueArticle
At the bottom, there are links to other articles, including one praising Britian's legal system for its practice of "speedy trials and fast aquittals" for terrorists (link here http://slate.com/id/2069991/).
How about this claim( http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/):
7 July 2005; 12:54 ET: Preliminary reports from a source inside the Pentagon indicate that one of the operatives involved in this morning's bombings in London was recently released from the prison at Guantanamo.
Hard to believe - but what would Dick Durbin say?
The Belmont Club is more optimistic; I hope Wretchard is right:
...most important hard fact to grasp is that this Al Qaeda strike, their first against an Anglosphere city since 9/11, has caused much less damage than that on New York. This despite the fact that Al Qaeda has had nearly four years to brood on its humiliations and losses and to plot its revenge. The reasons for this are simple: the enemy is now operating in a much more hostile environment. The accessible methods of mass destruction, such as wide body aircraft, have been secured; not perfectly, but for a defense to work it must only be sufficient to blunt the onslaught of the enemy. Increased surveillance, tighter controls on movement, etc have all played their part. The second reason the enemy is weaker is Iraq. It is widely accepted that thousands of Al Qaeda fighters, the cream of their rancid crop, is fighting to expel the American infidel from the Land Between the Rivers. A moment's reflection will show that if they are there they cannot be elsewhere -- in London, Paris, Rome or Boston -- sowing bombs on buses and trains. Furthermore, fear in formerly smug circles within Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Libya at sharing the fate of Saddam have left terrorists have fewer powerful confederates. Thirdly, allied forces are in contact with the enemy all over the world, buying intelligence with their blood, just as a SEAL team in Afghanistan did. Nothing yields as much information as the act of grappling with the enemy. Liberals often talk about the need to improve intelligence capability without admitting that you can't gather it without being in action against the enemy.
Read it all; link here: http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005/07/blessing-and-curse.html
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Busted!
The Times new public editor, Byron Calame, takes his paper to task for using staged photographs, and not crediting them as such. Anything to make this country look bad goes, as far as the Times is concerned, overrrules journalistic standards. I'll quote at length, in case we lose the link at the bottom:
I believe Times readers deserve more precise and consistent explanations of the images put before them. Making the wording and explanations uniform across all sections of the paper would help ensure that readers know whether they are looking at news or at art...
Few sections deal with this issue more than The New York Times Magazine, which regularly goes beyond using standard news pictures and portraits by using montages, digital manipulation and staged photographs to grab readers' attention or capture a mood that helps buttress an article. It was an article there that brought the labeling issue into focus for me....
The "Interrogating Ourselves" cover article by the former executive editor Joseph Lelyveld in the June 12 magazine discussed the "lies, threats and highly coercive force" being used to pry information out of detainees held in military custody. What caught my attention was the full-page photograph across from the title page of the article.
It was a color photograph with a mid-torso view from the rear of a person with wrists handcuffed. Below the plastic handcuffs, a red stain ran down from one wrist across the soiled palm onto the fingers. The credit at the bottom of the facing page: "Photographs by Andres Serrano."
But there wasn't any explanation that the photograph had been staged. There was no caption. Four pages later, the same was true for the full-page staged photograph of water torture. The cover picture of a person with a sandbag hood also was identified only as a photograph by Mr. Serrano.
For those who scrutinized the photographs, there was one possible clue that they were posed. The coloring of the backdrop in each photograph was similar. And a note in small type at the bottom of the contents page identified the artist who painted the backdrop for Mr. Serrano's cover photograph.
Torture is "a provocative topic," Kathleen Ryan, the magazine's photography editor, said of her decision to hire Mr. Serrano, and "this is a provocative photographer." Mr. Serrano's artistic works include a controversial 1989 photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine and blood.
So there we have it, again - the media changing reality to fit their storyline of the Iraq war. While using one of the most offensive left-wing artist of the last generation to do it, natch...simply vomitous.
Link here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/opinion/03publiceditor.html
I believe Times readers deserve more precise and consistent explanations of the images put before them. Making the wording and explanations uniform across all sections of the paper would help ensure that readers know whether they are looking at news or at art...
Few sections deal with this issue more than The New York Times Magazine, which regularly goes beyond using standard news pictures and portraits by using montages, digital manipulation and staged photographs to grab readers' attention or capture a mood that helps buttress an article. It was an article there that brought the labeling issue into focus for me....
The "Interrogating Ourselves" cover article by the former executive editor Joseph Lelyveld in the June 12 magazine discussed the "lies, threats and highly coercive force" being used to pry information out of detainees held in military custody. What caught my attention was the full-page photograph across from the title page of the article.
It was a color photograph with a mid-torso view from the rear of a person with wrists handcuffed. Below the plastic handcuffs, a red stain ran down from one wrist across the soiled palm onto the fingers. The credit at the bottom of the facing page: "Photographs by Andres Serrano."
But there wasn't any explanation that the photograph had been staged. There was no caption. Four pages later, the same was true for the full-page staged photograph of water torture. The cover picture of a person with a sandbag hood also was identified only as a photograph by Mr. Serrano.
For those who scrutinized the photographs, there was one possible clue that they were posed. The coloring of the backdrop in each photograph was similar. And a note in small type at the bottom of the contents page identified the artist who painted the backdrop for Mr. Serrano's cover photograph.
Torture is "a provocative topic," Kathleen Ryan, the magazine's photography editor, said of her decision to hire Mr. Serrano, and "this is a provocative photographer." Mr. Serrano's artistic works include a controversial 1989 photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine and blood.
So there we have it, again - the media changing reality to fit their storyline of the Iraq war. While using one of the most offensive left-wing artist of the last generation to do it, natch...simply vomitous.
Link here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/opinion/03publiceditor.html
"Guantanamo inmates defy American guards"
What does MSNBC mean by "defy", anyway? Seems to me as if they are using it in the noble sense, the defiance of the underdog type of thing...well, here is how MSNBC describes their "defiant" friends:
The prisoners banged on their cells to protest the heat at Guantanamo Bay. They doused guards with whatever liquid was handy — from spit to urine. Sometimes they struck their jailers, one swinging a steel chair at a military police officer.
Yea, the Carribbean is tought in early summer, all right...but this story is not about their defiant animals, of course, but those terrible, terrible American MPs:
...the American MPs at times retaliated with force — punches, pepper spray and a splash of cleaning fluid in the face, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press that detail military investigations and eyewitness accounts of alleged abuse.
Good. They should be beaten, actually. What would the left's precious VietCong have done to American prisoners whom attempted this back in the day? But the media's poor Gitmo detainees certainly do know how to "defy":
Some prisoners at the U.S. base in eastern Cuba have gone on the attack, as in April 2003 when a detainee got out of his cell during a search for contraband food and knocked out a guard's tooth with a punch to the mouth and bit him before he was subdued by MPs. One soldier delivered two blows to the inmate's head with a handheld radio, the documents show.
Read the link below - that soldier was knocked down to a buck private; he should've gotten a medal...
Between the traitorous media and a soft-bellied military brass, sometimes I just don't believe we can win this war...
Link here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8435874/
The prisoners banged on their cells to protest the heat at Guantanamo Bay. They doused guards with whatever liquid was handy — from spit to urine. Sometimes they struck their jailers, one swinging a steel chair at a military police officer.
Yea, the Carribbean is tought in early summer, all right...but this story is not about their defiant animals, of course, but those terrible, terrible American MPs:
...the American MPs at times retaliated with force — punches, pepper spray and a splash of cleaning fluid in the face, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press that detail military investigations and eyewitness accounts of alleged abuse.
Good. They should be beaten, actually. What would the left's precious VietCong have done to American prisoners whom attempted this back in the day? But the media's poor Gitmo detainees certainly do know how to "defy":
Some prisoners at the U.S. base in eastern Cuba have gone on the attack, as in April 2003 when a detainee got out of his cell during a search for contraband food and knocked out a guard's tooth with a punch to the mouth and bit him before he was subdued by MPs. One soldier delivered two blows to the inmate's head with a handheld radio, the documents show.
Read the link below - that soldier was knocked down to a buck private; he should've gotten a medal...
Between the traitorous media and a soft-bellied military brass, sometimes I just don't believe we can win this war...
Link here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8435874/
Saturday, July 02, 2005
U.N needs U.S. to do its dirty work
The Belmont Club's Wretchard links to a Washington Post story on a United Nations request for those torturing, gulag-guarding, imperialist, occupying, Nazi-esque American troops to help out on one of their missions. From the WaPo story:
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan asked the United States this week to consider sending troops to Haiti to support a U.N. peacekeeping mission beset by mounting armed challenges to its authority, according to senior U.N. officials. ... He expressed hope that the United States would participate in a planned U.N. rapid reaction force, authorized by the Security Council earlier this month, that would have the firepower to intimidate armed gangs threatening the country's fragile political transition. Officials said that similar requests are being considered for other countries, including Canada and France. "We want scarier troops," one senior U.N. official said.
Annan told Rice that the Haitians "respect the U.S. military," according to a senior U.N. diplomat familiar with the closed-door meeting. Annan added that the United Nations may make a formal request for troops later, the diplomat said.
"Intimidate"? "Scarier troops"? Are we supposed to glower our enemies (or the UN's) into submission? Wretchard delivers the moral cowardice inherent in this request:
There are no suggestions by the Secretary General that the weapons carried the current Brazilian force are inoperative. So far as anyone can tell, their ordnance works just fine. So logically, what Kofi Annan really wants is someone, like the Americans, to relieve him of the onus of ordering someone to pull the trigger, though perhaps he hopes that the American reputation for 'scariness' will make that unnecessary
So we do the dirty work to make the world safe, while allowing international leaders to lambast us for using force...a perfect outcome for Koffi and crew. Only America's Iron Lady is not buying:
...{Condi} Rice provided Annan with no pledges of military support, officials said, but offered to help persuade France and Canada to contribute to the mission.
That's my girl. France and Canada, the two nations most exemplified by a policy of helplessness combined with hatred of those who stand and deliver, should be perfect for this multilateral peacekeeping mission. I wonder why Koffi isn't excited about having them on board? And why aren't these countires already there helping out militarily? Because they are:
...Unable to deliver, not because the peacekeeper's weapons are malfunctioning but because no one wants to take responsibility for using them. If America has any utility at all to transnational liberals it is as a garbage collector and checkwriter for all the dreams it peddles.
Wretchard sees where this leftist morality leads us:
...acquiescence to this cynical game of political correctness represents the greatest debasement of all. Not only is it cowardly and irresponsible, it allows polite society to evade, for however long it wishes, substantive debate on moral choices which should concern us all. A society which wants to wage war without seeming to shed blood is one which has no intention of confronting the ethical issues. Then we are blind in heart as we are in sight...
Read it all, here: http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005/06/nowhere-man-2.html
and here: http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005/06/nowhere-man.html
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan asked the United States this week to consider sending troops to Haiti to support a U.N. peacekeeping mission beset by mounting armed challenges to its authority, according to senior U.N. officials. ... He expressed hope that the United States would participate in a planned U.N. rapid reaction force, authorized by the Security Council earlier this month, that would have the firepower to intimidate armed gangs threatening the country's fragile political transition. Officials said that similar requests are being considered for other countries, including Canada and France. "We want scarier troops," one senior U.N. official said.
Annan told Rice that the Haitians "respect the U.S. military," according to a senior U.N. diplomat familiar with the closed-door meeting. Annan added that the United Nations may make a formal request for troops later, the diplomat said.
"Intimidate"? "Scarier troops"? Are we supposed to glower our enemies (or the UN's) into submission? Wretchard delivers the moral cowardice inherent in this request:
There are no suggestions by the Secretary General that the weapons carried the current Brazilian force are inoperative. So far as anyone can tell, their ordnance works just fine. So logically, what Kofi Annan really wants is someone, like the Americans, to relieve him of the onus of ordering someone to pull the trigger, though perhaps he hopes that the American reputation for 'scariness' will make that unnecessary
So we do the dirty work to make the world safe, while allowing international leaders to lambast us for using force...a perfect outcome for Koffi and crew. Only America's Iron Lady is not buying:
...{Condi} Rice provided Annan with no pledges of military support, officials said, but offered to help persuade France and Canada to contribute to the mission.
That's my girl. France and Canada, the two nations most exemplified by a policy of helplessness combined with hatred of those who stand and deliver, should be perfect for this multilateral peacekeeping mission. I wonder why Koffi isn't excited about having them on board? And why aren't these countires already there helping out militarily? Because they are:
...Unable to deliver, not because the peacekeeper's weapons are malfunctioning but because no one wants to take responsibility for using them. If America has any utility at all to transnational liberals it is as a garbage collector and checkwriter for all the dreams it peddles.
Wretchard sees where this leftist morality leads us:
...acquiescence to this cynical game of political correctness represents the greatest debasement of all. Not only is it cowardly and irresponsible, it allows polite society to evade, for however long it wishes, substantive debate on moral choices which should concern us all. A society which wants to wage war without seeming to shed blood is one which has no intention of confronting the ethical issues. Then we are blind in heart as we are in sight...
Read it all, here: http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005/06/nowhere-man-2.html
and here: http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005/06/nowhere-man.html
"Pole-ing The Electorate"...
...is what the mainstream media does when reporting poll results. From Captains Quarters, we get The Poll That No One Reported:
...Gallup announced yesterday that it had taken a snap poll after the speech given by George Bush on the war in Iraq from Fort Bragg. The poll showed some movement bolstering support for the war. In fact, it showed Bush picking up ten points on whether we are winning in Iraq (up to 54%), twelve points on keeping troops in Iraq until the situation improves as opposed to setting an exit date for their evacuation (now at 70%/25%), and seven points on whether Bush has a clear plan for handling the war in Iraq (up to 63%/35%)...
...Oddly enough, however, CNN did not report on the Gallup flash poll in its article on the speech. Neither did USA Today, which instead regurgitated the results of its previous polling while headlining its report thus -- "Speech fails to quell some viewers' unease"
..One could argue that neither CNN nor USA Today were made aware of the Gallup poll, but that might be difficult, given Gallup's description of it in their report as a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll...
So why didn't either of Gallup's partners report these results?
Amazing.
The media has its storyline: The country turns against Bush; America loses the war. And they just won't let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Link to Captian's Quarters here: http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/004855.php
...Gallup announced yesterday that it had taken a snap poll after the speech given by George Bush on the war in Iraq from Fort Bragg. The poll showed some movement bolstering support for the war. In fact, it showed Bush picking up ten points on whether we are winning in Iraq (up to 54%), twelve points on keeping troops in Iraq until the situation improves as opposed to setting an exit date for their evacuation (now at 70%/25%), and seven points on whether Bush has a clear plan for handling the war in Iraq (up to 63%/35%)...
...Oddly enough, however, CNN did not report on the Gallup flash poll in its article on the speech. Neither did USA Today, which instead regurgitated the results of its previous polling while headlining its report thus -- "Speech fails to quell some viewers' unease"
..One could argue that neither CNN nor USA Today were made aware of the Gallup poll, but that might be difficult, given Gallup's description of it in their report as a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll...
So why didn't either of Gallup's partners report these results?
Amazing.
The media has its storyline: The country turns against Bush; America loses the war. And they just won't let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Link to Captian's Quarters here: http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/004855.php
Friday, July 01, 2005
No Bias Here!
Via Little Green Footballs, exhibit A in media anti-Americanism, provided by al-Reuters, as they tell a little tale of an elderly Dutch women:
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch woman who swears by a daily helping of herring for a healthy life celebrated her 115th birthday on Wednesday as the oldest living person on record.
Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, a former needlework teacher, was born in 1890, the year Sioux Indians were massacred by the U.S. military at the Battle of Wounded Knee.
And the connection between the two is....what, exactly?
Link here:http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=16433_What_Media_Bias&only
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch woman who swears by a daily helping of herring for a healthy life celebrated her 115th birthday on Wednesday as the oldest living person on record.
Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, a former needlework teacher, was born in 1890, the year Sioux Indians were massacred by the U.S. military at the Battle of Wounded Knee.
And the connection between the two is....what, exactly?
Link here:http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=16433_What_Media_Bias&only
Editorials are still opinions, right?
Wrong! At least, that time-honored truism does not apply to the Council Of Alphas that sits on the New York Times' editorial board. Just One Minute shows how the Times editors were demanding that their opinions be taken as facts as they presented their terms for the surrender of George Bush and the Republican party:
To have the sober conversation about the war in Iraq that America badly needs, it is vital to acknowledge three facts:
The war has nothing to do with Sept. 11. Saddam Hussein was a sworn enemy of Washington, but there was no Iraq-Qaeda axis, no connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks on the United States.
...The war has not made the world, or this nation, safer from terrorism. The breeding grounds for terrorists used to be Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia; now Iraq has become one. Of all the justifications for invading Iraq that the administration juggled in the beginning, the only one that has held up over time is the desire to create a democratic nation that could help stabilize the Middle East.
...If the war is going according to plan, someone needs to rethink the plan.
As Just One... points out, any of these "facts" are easily rebutable (is that a word?).
The one that irritates me most at the moment is the last one - we defeated two nations in three years while losing less soldiers than civilians killed on 9/11 and are left battling thugs whose primary desire is causing the horriffic death of innocent women and children. Lebenaon boots Syria, and all over Eastern Europe democracy emerges from the Soviet shadow. No terrorists attacks since 9/11; while under Clinton it seemed as if American interests were getting hammered on a regular basis.
Rethink the plan? America is not safer?
And the Times insist we take their facts as gospel before we can move onto a discussion of the Iraq war?
Creating your own reality to fit your pet theories - nice gig if you can get it.
Link here: http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/06/terms_of_surren.html
To have the sober conversation about the war in Iraq that America badly needs, it is vital to acknowledge three facts:
The war has nothing to do with Sept. 11. Saddam Hussein was a sworn enemy of Washington, but there was no Iraq-Qaeda axis, no connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks on the United States.
...The war has not made the world, or this nation, safer from terrorism. The breeding grounds for terrorists used to be Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia; now Iraq has become one. Of all the justifications for invading Iraq that the administration juggled in the beginning, the only one that has held up over time is the desire to create a democratic nation that could help stabilize the Middle East.
...If the war is going according to plan, someone needs to rethink the plan.
As Just One... points out, any of these "facts" are easily rebutable (is that a word?).
The one that irritates me most at the moment is the last one - we defeated two nations in three years while losing less soldiers than civilians killed on 9/11 and are left battling thugs whose primary desire is causing the horriffic death of innocent women and children. Lebenaon boots Syria, and all over Eastern Europe democracy emerges from the Soviet shadow. No terrorists attacks since 9/11; while under Clinton it seemed as if American interests were getting hammered on a regular basis.
Rethink the plan? America is not safer?
And the Times insist we take their facts as gospel before we can move onto a discussion of the Iraq war?
Creating your own reality to fit your pet theories - nice gig if you can get it.
Link here: http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/06/terms_of_surren.html