Uh-oh! An agenda-driven, lobby-funded, anti-gun report has just come out, and you know the media has to jump on it like an un-neutered puppy onto a plush toy...from Arms and the Law:
Yesterday the antigun Violence Policy Center (as in Joyce Foundation is its main income, $400,000 a year) issued a press release focusing on black homicide rates. Chuckle--it's a study of how to pick and choose statistics to get the desired result . Example: the states with the lowest black homicide rates are gunnie South Dakota and Montana. DC is omitted, probably because it would have an astronomical rate -- despite its handgun ban. And its lead target is Pennsylvania, with the study proclaiming it has the highest black homicide rate in the country.
Other oddities I noticed within the report:
Wyoming ranks 19th highest for black homicide rates, despite having only one black fatality in all of 2004.
Vermont ranks even higher, at 12th, with also a mere single black fatality
Idaho ranks 15th, with two black handgun deaths. For shame! And speaking of which...
This insane skewing of statistics to produce a desired result does not deter insane editorials in newspapers like the Philadelphia Inquirer:
...shamefully, Pennsylvania leads the nation in the number of black victims; in 2004, the most recent year statistics are available, Pennsylvania reported 398 homicides with black victims, a rate of 29.5 per 100,000, one-and-a-half times the national rate among black victims, and six times the national rate of all homicides.
Over half- 65 percent - came from Philadelphia. Firearms were the cause of deaths of nearly 90 percent of these.
We can almost hear the sermons that will be delivered from pulpits on this subject come Sunday, especially those in black churches:
Why are young blacks killing each other? (Most of these homicides are intra-racial.)
How dare the blacks look inward! The Philly Inquirer reminds them not to blame themselves for black-on-black violence, but to blame "The Man" instead:
...guns occupy a unique position: They're a problem that can be fixed more quickly, by passing better laws.
Then again, "quick" is no piece of cake when it comes to Congress, either, who is responsible for the outrageously lax gun laws now on the books. Actually, we call to task not only Congress but the National Rifle Association, which breaks into hives at the prospect of any criminal not able to get his hands on as many guns as he wants, whenever he wants them, in the name of Liberty.
"Liberty" for the comman man? Perish the thought!
But who (or what) is actually killing the black men of the Eastern Inner Cities?
I'll help you out; based on something I posted a few weeks back...you see, the federal government is to blame, but not the way the simpletons at the Inquirer think. It is not about lax gun control laws – see those pesky stats above on Montana and South Dakota.
But maybe...just maybe...it has something to do with the fact that the New Jersey Turnpike has now become the major gun-running road on the East Coast, if not the whole damn country. And the police legally cannot do anything to stop it:
Weapons seizures plummet on Turnpike
Uproar on racial profiling spurred State Police shift
Cops and politicians call Interstate 95 the "Iron Pipeline" because it is a popular route for criminals smuggling firearms from the South into Newark and other Northeastern cities where gun violence abounds. A big link in that pipeline is the New Jersey Turnpike, where the State Police used to seize scores of guns every year.
But they don't anymore.
Gun arrests and gun seizures have plummeted on the Turnpike in the last decade, according to data provided by the State Police in response to a request under the Open Public Records Act...
The decline comes at a time when homicides and shootings are on the rise in Newark, the state's largest city, where cops are taking record numbers of firearms off the streets. When those illegal guns are traced to their original sale, the most common source states turn out to be along the I-95 corridor in the South
For many years, troopers made a priority of pulling over Turnpike motorists and searching their cars in hopes of catching drug traffickers and gun runners. That effort was abandoned in 1999, after a state investigation found troopers were stopping drivers based on their skin color, a civil rights abuse known as racial profiling. Under pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice, the State Police were put under the oversight of federal monitors and forced to change its patrol tactics....
Now Turnpike cops cannot pull over black motorists for fear of persecution by the PC thugs in Congress.
The gun-runners know it, and flaunt it.
And black folk die in droves, especially in Philadelphia, and Newark.
Incidentally, the Turnpike goes right through these cities.
The liberal left is killing blacks with their misguided policies. It’s not “lax gun laws”, it's the handcuffing of the officers that are charged with interdicting illegal weapons - that is the problem here.
Any chance of getting Congress to fix it? Unlikely; seems like they cannot wait to apply this broken writ to National Security as well....
UPDATE 2/1: More Philadelphia stupidity exposed at Blonde Sagacity:
Mayor John Street suggested that the war in Iraq was the cause of the city's gun violence increased.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Wednesday is Haiku day!
President Carter
Still throwing stones at Israel
His intifada.
Thick fog lifts
unfortunately, I am where
I thought I was
Airport lounge
a Muslim man prays toward
the emergency exit
Actually, what we are seeing here are examples of senryū - they tend to be about human foibles while haiku tend to be about nature, and senryū are often cynical or darkly humorous while haiku are more serious...anyway:
The NRA speaks:
They will come for us;
Our rifles like Yellow Stars.
Vote from the rooftops!
All of a sudden
Urge to buy a fifty cal
Grows much more stronger
Mine:
New York Times spreads lies,
Wants to end the war in Iraq.
Alas! It will backfire...
Nancy Pelosi
Thinks she knows best for us all.
Her reign will be short.
John Kerry in Iran,
Bashes his forlorn countrymen.
Just like Jim Carter.
Well, OK, mine kinda suck....
Still throwing stones at Israel
His intifada.
Thick fog lifts
unfortunately, I am where
I thought I was
Airport lounge
a Muslim man prays toward
the emergency exit
Actually, what we are seeing here are examples of senryū - they tend to be about human foibles while haiku tend to be about nature, and senryū are often cynical or darkly humorous while haiku are more serious...anyway:
The NRA speaks:
They will come for us;
Our rifles like Yellow Stars.
Vote from the rooftops!
All of a sudden
Urge to buy a fifty cal
Grows much more stronger
Mine:
New York Times spreads lies,
Wants to end the war in Iraq.
Alas! It will backfire...
Nancy Pelosi
Thinks she knows best for us all.
Her reign will be short.
John Kerry in Iran,
Bashes his forlorn countrymen.
Just like Jim Carter.
Well, OK, mine kinda suck....
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Tuesday Morality Play
I've been re-reading the great Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, a 1167-page epic on the morality of unfettered capitalism, and the immorality of those who feed off of it while contributing nothing to the process. That's simplifying, of course, and the Randites would likely have my head for it (as would Rand herself). But be that as it may; that's not my point...
Rand has a brilliant definition of morality snuggled in on page 177 of my edition; I'd like to share it. She was a fierce atheist, and it is always interesting to see how a "nonbeliever" defines such things, as so many assume that religion can be the only basis for a moral grounding. Religion certainly can be a good place to start (especially Judeo-Christianity!), but it is not the exclusive provider of such, as Rand will prove...
So! here we are, In Atlas Shrugged - Primary protaginist Dagny Taggert sits in a skid row diner, dressed for a business conference she had fled when she discovered its true purpose, and the nature of its participants. Sipping at a cup of coffee, she bandies with the lifeless drifters around her:
"Spirit?" said the old bum. "There's no spirit involved in manufacturing....it doesn't take any morality to turn out a ten-ton truck on an assembly line."
"What is morality?" she {Taggert} asked.
"Judgement to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price. But where does one find it?"
On an assembly line!!, Rand would say, where only a ruthless desire to create the best ten-ton truck possible will allow the company, and its employees, to survive.
Nevertheless - I just love Rand's definition.
How many who proudly wear their self-embossed label of "morality" see a truth but have not the courage to act upon it?
How often have we seen someone who obviously recognizes a good, sound idea, but are afraid to support it, knowing and fearing the backlash they would face?
How many persons have abandoned a position, one that they claimed to hold dearly, because they could not fight off the pressure to flip; or, as Rand would say, bacause they lacked the integrity to stand by the good at any price?
How many leaders today cannot distinguish right from wrong, have no vision even to see the truth, but only act upon what is personally expediant for them at the moment?
Rand's definition of morality transcends all religious ones for me - it is easy to say, "Hey, I never killed a man, so I must be a good person". It is harder, so much harder, to live by Ayn Rand's simple one-sentence definition of a "code of life". It is a challenge to face the world and not back down to fear, fate, or the fickle finger of popular opinion.
Perhaps now, in these perilous times, we need a leader that can take Rand's sacred oath, and stand by an idea - the good- and see it through, no matter what the personal consequences. It takes more than religious grounding to make a man moral; it takes an understanding of, and an attempt to live life by, Rand's exacting code...a man that lives by Rand's morality, and is not broken by it, is one that can carry the world...
Rand has a brilliant definition of morality snuggled in on page 177 of my edition; I'd like to share it. She was a fierce atheist, and it is always interesting to see how a "nonbeliever" defines such things, as so many assume that religion can be the only basis for a moral grounding. Religion certainly can be a good place to start (especially Judeo-Christianity!), but it is not the exclusive provider of such, as Rand will prove...
So! here we are, In Atlas Shrugged - Primary protaginist Dagny Taggert sits in a skid row diner, dressed for a business conference she had fled when she discovered its true purpose, and the nature of its participants. Sipping at a cup of coffee, she bandies with the lifeless drifters around her:
"Spirit?" said the old bum. "There's no spirit involved in manufacturing....it doesn't take any morality to turn out a ten-ton truck on an assembly line."
"What is morality?" she {Taggert} asked.
"Judgement to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price. But where does one find it?"
On an assembly line!!, Rand would say, where only a ruthless desire to create the best ten-ton truck possible will allow the company, and its employees, to survive.
Nevertheless - I just love Rand's definition.
How many who proudly wear their self-embossed label of "morality" see a truth but have not the courage to act upon it?
How often have we seen someone who obviously recognizes a good, sound idea, but are afraid to support it, knowing and fearing the backlash they would face?
How many persons have abandoned a position, one that they claimed to hold dearly, because they could not fight off the pressure to flip; or, as Rand would say, bacause they lacked the integrity to stand by the good at any price?
How many leaders today cannot distinguish right from wrong, have no vision even to see the truth, but only act upon what is personally expediant for them at the moment?
Rand's definition of morality transcends all religious ones for me - it is easy to say, "Hey, I never killed a man, so I must be a good person". It is harder, so much harder, to live by Ayn Rand's simple one-sentence definition of a "code of life". It is a challenge to face the world and not back down to fear, fate, or the fickle finger of popular opinion.
Perhaps now, in these perilous times, we need a leader that can take Rand's sacred oath, and stand by an idea - the good- and see it through, no matter what the personal consequences. It takes more than religious grounding to make a man moral; it takes an understanding of, and an attempt to live life by, Rand's exacting code...a man that lives by Rand's morality, and is not broken by it, is one that can carry the world...
Monday, January 29, 2007
Only in New Jersey, Part 74:
Is the following an example of corrupt stupidity? Or stupid corruption? Or neither; does it just shine a light on the mind-boggling quality of leadership within the state of New Jersey? From an editorial in Sunday's Asbury Park Press; this story is pretty hard to believe:
We're not sure which is more pathetic: a small-town New Jersey mayor begging the Kuwaiti government for a handout or the mayor, now deposed, threatening to send a dead fish to a Press reporter nosing around the story. If you don't know the symbolism behind that threat, pick up a copy of "The Godfather."
Former Lake Como Mayor Lawrence G. Chiaravallo, who was defeated at the polls in November after an eight-year reign, sent a series of letters to the Kuwaiti government starting in 2001 asking whether they would be willing to pony up $750,000 for a new borough hall.
Chiaravallo apparently felt the Kuwaitis owed the U.S., and by extension Lake Como, formerly called South Belmar, a debt of gratitude... Chiaravallo, a former drug company salesman, made his pitch to the Kuwaitis only after his entreaties to Oprah Winfrey and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation fell on deaf ears.
The Kuwaiti ambassador actually agreed to meet with Chiaravallo in Washington last summer — likely to get him off his back. By that time, the new borough hall had been built. But Chiaravallo presented a new $3.7 million wish list for a new police building, a new firehouse and a ladder truck. C hiaravallo swears the ambassador didn't throw him out on his ear, and suggests that if he had won re-election, the Kuwaitis might have written out a check.
When the story of Chiaravallo's secret dealings with the Kuwaitis first broke in the Press last month, the newly elected mayor, Michael B. Ryan, said he was "appalled" Chiaravallo would be negotiating with a foreign country to build a police headquarters. He has since modified his views. Last week, he again said he was appalled — but apparently not enough to reject charity from the Kuwaitis if their generosity could be used instead to build a new firehouse or pay down debt....
Meet the new boss; same as the old boss. I wonder, if the Kuwaitis had agreed to pay for the Mayor's wishlist, if he would have done something for them in return if asked - very little is given these days with no strings attached, especially when coming from an Emir's checkbook...
And for futher giggles, read the first comment after the editorial:
What did he do to merit such scorn but look to save the taxpayers of Lake Como, some of their hard earned dollars! He thought outside the box and arrived at almost a great solution to the problem of having a municipal building that was built in the 1950's...
...you scorn the man for intelligent creative thinking! You all deserve what you have gotten! You are incapable of saying thank you, Larry for looking out for our interests! Well-done, Mr. Mayor!!!
Well, even in insanity there is a grain of philosophy...we all do "deserve what you have gotten", by allowing a culture of corruption, deceit, and stupidity to become so ingrained and consequence-free that we simply vote out one lot of criminals and replace them with a different variation on the same theme.
We're not sure which is more pathetic: a small-town New Jersey mayor begging the Kuwaiti government for a handout or the mayor, now deposed, threatening to send a dead fish to a Press reporter nosing around the story. If you don't know the symbolism behind that threat, pick up a copy of "The Godfather."
Former Lake Como Mayor Lawrence G. Chiaravallo, who was defeated at the polls in November after an eight-year reign, sent a series of letters to the Kuwaiti government starting in 2001 asking whether they would be willing to pony up $750,000 for a new borough hall.
Chiaravallo apparently felt the Kuwaitis owed the U.S., and by extension Lake Como, formerly called South Belmar, a debt of gratitude... Chiaravallo, a former drug company salesman, made his pitch to the Kuwaitis only after his entreaties to Oprah Winfrey and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation fell on deaf ears.
The Kuwaiti ambassador actually agreed to meet with Chiaravallo in Washington last summer — likely to get him off his back. By that time, the new borough hall had been built. But Chiaravallo presented a new $3.7 million wish list for a new police building, a new firehouse and a ladder truck. C hiaravallo swears the ambassador didn't throw him out on his ear, and suggests that if he had won re-election, the Kuwaitis might have written out a check.
When the story of Chiaravallo's secret dealings with the Kuwaitis first broke in the Press last month, the newly elected mayor, Michael B. Ryan, said he was "appalled" Chiaravallo would be negotiating with a foreign country to build a police headquarters. He has since modified his views. Last week, he again said he was appalled — but apparently not enough to reject charity from the Kuwaitis if their generosity could be used instead to build a new firehouse or pay down debt....
Meet the new boss; same as the old boss. I wonder, if the Kuwaitis had agreed to pay for the Mayor's wishlist, if he would have done something for them in return if asked - very little is given these days with no strings attached, especially when coming from an Emir's checkbook...
And for futher giggles, read the first comment after the editorial:
What did he do to merit such scorn but look to save the taxpayers of Lake Como, some of their hard earned dollars! He thought outside the box and arrived at almost a great solution to the problem of having a municipal building that was built in the 1950's...
...you scorn the man for intelligent creative thinking! You all deserve what you have gotten! You are incapable of saying thank you, Larry for looking out for our interests! Well-done, Mr. Mayor!!!
Well, even in insanity there is a grain of philosophy...we all do "deserve what you have gotten", by allowing a culture of corruption, deceit, and stupidity to become so ingrained and consequence-free that we simply vote out one lot of criminals and replace them with a different variation on the same theme.
Let's keep digging, folks...you know you haven't hit the bottom in Jersey until the ooze starts seeping up between your toes...
Sunday, January 28, 2007
I'll take my truth with a twist of lie, thank you
Big win for American and Iraqi soldiers today, rooting out a large squad of insurgents and terrorists in Najaf, right?
Right?
Well, the New York Times tells the story like this:
...at least 250 people were killed near the city of Najaf on Sunday in what appeared to be one of Iraq’s deadliest battles in years, Iraqi officials said.
For 15 hours, Iraqi forces backed by American helicopters and tanks battled hundreds of gunmen hiding in a date palm orchard near the village of Zarqaa, about 120 miles south of Baghdad, by a river and a large grain silo that is surrounded by orchards, the officials said.
Col. Ali Numaas, a spokesman for the Iraqi security forces in Najaf, said that the fighting stopped just after 10 p.m. and that most of those killed were militants.
This is about as good as winning warfare gets, right?
So why the hell does the Times use the following headline:
U.S. Helicopter Is Shot Down in Iraq Battle
If a 250-2 kill ratio is considered unacceptable, than I think the bar has been raised just a little too high...
Or else the Times is hoping people stop reading after the headline, so they can continue to decry the "bad news coming daily out of Iraq"...
Update January 30th: Gateway Pundit has a follow up on this disgusting behavior....
Right?
Well, the New York Times tells the story like this:
...at least 250 people were killed near the city of Najaf on Sunday in what appeared to be one of Iraq’s deadliest battles in years, Iraqi officials said.
For 15 hours, Iraqi forces backed by American helicopters and tanks battled hundreds of gunmen hiding in a date palm orchard near the village of Zarqaa, about 120 miles south of Baghdad, by a river and a large grain silo that is surrounded by orchards, the officials said.
Col. Ali Numaas, a spokesman for the Iraqi security forces in Najaf, said that the fighting stopped just after 10 p.m. and that most of those killed were militants.
This is about as good as winning warfare gets, right?
So why the hell does the Times use the following headline:
U.S. Helicopter Is Shot Down in Iraq Battle
If a 250-2 kill ratio is considered unacceptable, than I think the bar has been raised just a little too high...
Or else the Times is hoping people stop reading after the headline, so they can continue to decry the "bad news coming daily out of Iraq"...
Update January 30th: Gateway Pundit has a follow up on this disgusting behavior....
C.S. Lewis Speaks Truth from the Grave...
...and we ought to take heed. Lewis, author of the "Chronicles of Narnia" series (and best friend of "Lord of the Rings" creator J.R.R Tolkien), knew the dangers of nanny-state-ism some sixty years back:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busy-bodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
Think Europe, think New Jersey, think Hillary Clinton and our San Fran Nanny, Nancy Pelosi....will Lewis' tyranny come to America? Lord knows they are trying, all for our own good, of course, with the media informing us we are nothing short of cave-dwelling Neanderthals (or, God help you, no better than a Bush-voting neocon!) should you dare to think independently, and choose otherwise...
Link via Pejman at his Chequer-Board...
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busy-bodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
Think Europe, think New Jersey, think Hillary Clinton and our San Fran Nanny, Nancy Pelosi....will Lewis' tyranny come to America? Lord knows they are trying, all for our own good, of course, with the media informing us we are nothing short of cave-dwelling Neanderthals (or, God help you, no better than a Bush-voting neocon!) should you dare to think independently, and choose otherwise...
Link via Pejman at his Chequer-Board...
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Saturday Night Teases...
...aw heck, you can go home with them if you want; I won't tell anyone....
Well, the Danes get it, even if no one else does - via the Gates of Vienna:
When democracy let the optimists succeed in classifying the pessimists as xenophobes and Islamophobes, it embarked upon a catastrophic course. And the media who have aided to maintain the illusion bear a particular part of the blame...
Er, it seems like the Swedes can learn a thing or two from Macbeth's kin - this report from the Brussels Journal:
I keep hearing claims that Muslims are the Jews of today, but from my point of view, it looks as if Jews of today are, well, Jews. Jews are suffering attacks across much of Western Europe at rates worse than at any time since the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s, and again, this is largely caused by Muslims.
And from the "Whoops, I did it..." department:
JOHN KERRY does it again. Like Jimmy Carter, he'll never forgive America for rejecting him, and he'll console himself with the approval of America's enemies...
Brittney Spears-Federline weeps...lots of good links and commentary at Instapundit (link above).
Just a headline this time:
"U.S. Kids are Fat and Lazy.”
From Germany, no less....isn't that what Herr Goebbels used to propogate back in the '40's, while trying to discredit the US Army? No, wait - maybe I'm thinking of John Kerry ?
Need a drink yet? They're still serving at the Parkway Rest Stop, where Jim tells us how it is:
If there is a cork in the bottle, it’s a “good one”.
And some philosophy from Homer J. (warning! link not work-safe!):
Just squeeze your rage into a bitter little ball and release it at an appropriate time.
Like that day I hit that referee with a whiskey bottle. 'Member that?
-- Homer Simpson
Shocker! Guess who really, really likes Jimmy Dhimmi Carter's book? Hint: They really, really hate the Jews too! Just like Jimmy!
Carter tells his stories well, presenting them in a delightfully conversational manner...
Yeah, and Hitler gave great speeches, too....
Final tease of the night, and it is just that...from New Jersey, of course:
I killed a hooker.
That's right. Shot her right in the chest, picked up the wad of cash she dropped and was back asleep within my apartment in a few minutes dreaming of Heidi Klum.
Did I feel bad? Not at all, because I needed the money....
Iraq, and the Political Poseurs....
Two different columns in today's Washington Post illustrate the deeply flawed leadership we have in America today. The idea of using a war (or a natural catastrophe, like Katrina) as an opportunity for political posturing and point-scoring was once considered unthinkable, but the Democrat's sheer hatred of George W. Bush allowed them to break down all barriers in their bloodlust to, if not bring him down, at least make him bleed. And if the nation bleeds with him? Well, collateral damage is OK in politics, reasons the Left, just not in warfare...
David Broder gets the stage first:
When Lt. Gen. David Petraeus went before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week in open session, its members understandably had many questions for the new commander of American forces in Iraq.....
....A few of the questions were naive, self-serving or tangents.....
With one exception. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York used her time to make a speech about Iraq policy and did not ask a single question of the man who will be leading the military campaign.
She began by blaming the Iraq crisis on a "Congress [that] was supine under the Republican majority, failing to conduct oversight and demanding accountability, and because the president and his team, particularly the former secretary of defense, refused to adapt to the changing circumstances on the ground."
From that partisan opening, Clinton went on to decry "the failures of the Iraqis to step up and take responsibility for their own future."
Apparently, General Petraeus had a mere four word reply to Hillary's endless harraunge. She followed up with...no futher questions.
Appalling enough that this woman, who dreams of becoming America's commander-in-chief, is playing presidential politics while the most important military officer in the United States waits patiently before her. But doesn't she have the responsibility, as a sitting Senator on this prestigous committee, to ask questions of the General regarding policy, tactics, rules of engagement, and results? Or is it understood that her duty to her constituents in New York has been discharged now that she is running for president?
She can learn from John McCain, who ran out of time before he ran out of questions...Broder has an explanation for her bizarre behavior, one which I find completely plausable:
...Clinton is reverting to the mode of her ill-fated 1993-94 health-care initiative, when she gave members of Congress and other interested folks the impression that she thought she had all the answers -- so please just do as I say.
Well, lemme tell you something...Hillary ain't getting nominated. Do you know one red state that will go blue for Hillary? Yeah, me neither. And if she's so smart, how come she didn't know her husband was rogering the interns?
More on shameful wartime politics from Robert Kagen:
It's quite a juxtaposition. In Iraq, American soldiers are finally beginning the hard job of establishing a measure of peace, security and order in critical sections of Baghdad -- the essential prerequisite for the lasting political solution everyone claims to want.
Back in Washington, however, Democratic and Republican members of Congress are looking for a different kind of political solution: the solution to their problems in presidential primaries and elections almost two years off.
The most popular resolutions simply oppose the troop increase without offering much useful guidance on what to do instead ...
...supposedly braver critics demand a cutoff of funds for the war and the start of a withdrawal within months. But they're not honest either, since they refuse to answer the most obvious and necessary questions: What do they propose the United States do when, as a result of withdrawal, Iraq explodes and ethnic cleansing on a truly horrific scale begins? What do they propose our response should be when the entire region becomes a war zone, when al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations establish bases in Iraq from which to attack neighboring states as well as the United States?
Those who call for an "end to the war" don't want to talk about the fact that the war in Iraq and in the region will not end but will only grow more dangerous.
Of course, most of the discussion of Iraq isn't about Iraq at all. The war has become a political abstraction, a means of positioning oneself at home.
To the extent that people think about Iraq, many seem to believe it is a problem that can be made to go away...
But that's the same position the Democrats have taken since September 12th, 2001...standing in the rubble of the Pentagon and World Trade Center, they declare: Nothing to see here folks, just move it along! It's just a criminal problem, a quality-of life nuisance! Avert your eyes, it will all go away, so we can talk about the really important issues, like government-based heathcare, oil company profits, and greenhouse gas emmissions....
This posturing by the Democrats is the worst example of leadership failure since Emperor Nero saw the flames, and took to his fiddle....
David Broder gets the stage first:
When Lt. Gen. David Petraeus went before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week in open session, its members understandably had many questions for the new commander of American forces in Iraq.....
....A few of the questions were naive, self-serving or tangents.....
With one exception. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York used her time to make a speech about Iraq policy and did not ask a single question of the man who will be leading the military campaign.
She began by blaming the Iraq crisis on a "Congress [that] was supine under the Republican majority, failing to conduct oversight and demanding accountability, and because the president and his team, particularly the former secretary of defense, refused to adapt to the changing circumstances on the ground."
From that partisan opening, Clinton went on to decry "the failures of the Iraqis to step up and take responsibility for their own future."
Apparently, General Petraeus had a mere four word reply to Hillary's endless harraunge. She followed up with...no futher questions.
Appalling enough that this woman, who dreams of becoming America's commander-in-chief, is playing presidential politics while the most important military officer in the United States waits patiently before her. But doesn't she have the responsibility, as a sitting Senator on this prestigous committee, to ask questions of the General regarding policy, tactics, rules of engagement, and results? Or is it understood that her duty to her constituents in New York has been discharged now that she is running for president?
She can learn from John McCain, who ran out of time before he ran out of questions...Broder has an explanation for her bizarre behavior, one which I find completely plausable:
...Clinton is reverting to the mode of her ill-fated 1993-94 health-care initiative, when she gave members of Congress and other interested folks the impression that she thought she had all the answers -- so please just do as I say.
Well, lemme tell you something...Hillary ain't getting nominated. Do you know one red state that will go blue for Hillary? Yeah, me neither. And if she's so smart, how come she didn't know her husband was rogering the interns?
More on shameful wartime politics from Robert Kagen:
It's quite a juxtaposition. In Iraq, American soldiers are finally beginning the hard job of establishing a measure of peace, security and order in critical sections of Baghdad -- the essential prerequisite for the lasting political solution everyone claims to want.
Back in Washington, however, Democratic and Republican members of Congress are looking for a different kind of political solution: the solution to their problems in presidential primaries and elections almost two years off.
The most popular resolutions simply oppose the troop increase without offering much useful guidance on what to do instead ...
...supposedly braver critics demand a cutoff of funds for the war and the start of a withdrawal within months. But they're not honest either, since they refuse to answer the most obvious and necessary questions: What do they propose the United States do when, as a result of withdrawal, Iraq explodes and ethnic cleansing on a truly horrific scale begins? What do they propose our response should be when the entire region becomes a war zone, when al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations establish bases in Iraq from which to attack neighboring states as well as the United States?
Those who call for an "end to the war" don't want to talk about the fact that the war in Iraq and in the region will not end but will only grow more dangerous.
Of course, most of the discussion of Iraq isn't about Iraq at all. The war has become a political abstraction, a means of positioning oneself at home.
To the extent that people think about Iraq, many seem to believe it is a problem that can be made to go away...
But that's the same position the Democrats have taken since September 12th, 2001...standing in the rubble of the Pentagon and World Trade Center, they declare: Nothing to see here folks, just move it along! It's just a criminal problem, a quality-of life nuisance! Avert your eyes, it will all go away, so we can talk about the really important issues, like government-based heathcare, oil company profits, and greenhouse gas emmissions....
This posturing by the Democrats is the worst example of leadership failure since Emperor Nero saw the flames, and took to his fiddle....
Blasting the BBC
It's been a while since I've taken a potshot at the BBC, but long overdue. Terrifying that this anti-American, pro-jihad, British taxpayer-financed service is the #1 provider of English-speaking news worldwide.
This little ditty is picked up from Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's official news service. Entitled "How America's Conflict with Iran Will Begin..." , skip the pointless jibberish and click below the photo of the USS Stennis carrier group on the upper right, where a link to a BBC video exists (or try this direct link here).
The video starts out with an anti-aircraft missle of some type being fired off into the sky, while a barely restrained British voice intones,
"Iran is no longer defenseless...today Russia announced that it had supplied Iran with a complete air-defense system..."
Excuse me, old chap, but can you control your freakin' rooting for the motherfriggin' antichrist? Not that an antiquated USSR "air defense" system is shaking any boots in the Pentagon, mind you....watch the video, our jolly good ally gleefully implies that the United States will soon be wrapped up in another Cold War, perhaps one it connot win? Er, jackrod, remember how the first one turned out? We're listening to iPods, they're rummaging for food....
And from the always-reliable Biased BBC website, we get more video mockery, this time slamming a new American-developed "heat ra"y that will disperse rioters and disrupt enemy military operations without killing people. Laughable, according to the know -it-alls at the Beeb - from the transcript, with commentary from Biased's Andrew:
Meet the latest addition to the Pentagon's list of weapons and euphemisms (Great suggestive use of 'euphemisms' there), the Active Denial System. It looks like a satellite dish, it works like a microwave oven, and what it actively denies you is the desire to stay in front of it. Watch them...
Cut to two soldiers reacting to the machine's heat ray, followed by an old sci-fi still (really old) spinning annoyingly (very annoyingly) on to screen, complete with a silly sound effect (very silly).
It feels like a blast from an oven, it sounds like a blast from the past (kerching, never spotted that follow up coming!). Not science fiction (even though I'm trying to suggest otherwise), but science fact according to the military (does that sound sceptical enough about the military?). ...
Go to Biased BBC to see the whole thing.
Nice reporting on what is somewhat a liberal achievment, a more "humane" way to fight war (or control civil strife, which is something the Brits better get ready for).
But if you can't build it - then tear it down.
Hey - no wonder the BBC has such empathy for the Islamists....
This little ditty is picked up from Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's official news service. Entitled "How America's Conflict with Iran Will Begin..." , skip the pointless jibberish and click below the photo of the USS Stennis carrier group on the upper right, where a link to a BBC video exists (or try this direct link here).
The video starts out with an anti-aircraft missle of some type being fired off into the sky, while a barely restrained British voice intones,
"Iran is no longer defenseless...today Russia announced that it had supplied Iran with a complete air-defense system..."
Excuse me, old chap, but can you control your freakin' rooting for the motherfriggin' antichrist? Not that an antiquated USSR "air defense" system is shaking any boots in the Pentagon, mind you....watch the video, our jolly good ally gleefully implies that the United States will soon be wrapped up in another Cold War, perhaps one it connot win? Er, jackrod, remember how the first one turned out? We're listening to iPods, they're rummaging for food....
And from the always-reliable Biased BBC website, we get more video mockery, this time slamming a new American-developed "heat ra"y that will disperse rioters and disrupt enemy military operations without killing people. Laughable, according to the know -it-alls at the Beeb - from the transcript, with commentary from Biased's Andrew:
Meet the latest addition to the Pentagon's list of weapons and euphemisms (Great suggestive use of 'euphemisms' there), the Active Denial System. It looks like a satellite dish, it works like a microwave oven, and what it actively denies you is the desire to stay in front of it. Watch them...
Cut to two soldiers reacting to the machine's heat ray, followed by an old sci-fi still (really old) spinning annoyingly (very annoyingly) on to screen, complete with a silly sound effect (very silly).
It feels like a blast from an oven, it sounds like a blast from the past (kerching, never spotted that follow up coming!). Not science fiction (even though I'm trying to suggest otherwise), but science fact according to the military (does that sound sceptical enough about the military?). ...
Go to Biased BBC to see the whole thing.
Nice reporting on what is somewhat a liberal achievment, a more "humane" way to fight war (or control civil strife, which is something the Brits better get ready for).
But if you can't build it - then tear it down.
Hey - no wonder the BBC has such empathy for the Islamists....
Friday, January 26, 2007
Rules of Engagement - In Two Parts...
How in hell can you win a war with rules of engagement like these? From the Coalition of the Swilling:
(1) You must feel a direct threat to you or your team.
(2) You must clearly see a threat.
(3) That threat must be identified.
(4) The team leader must concur that there is an identified threat.
(5) The team leader must feel that the situation is one of life or death.
(6) There must be minimal or no collateral risk.
(7) Only then can the team leader clear the engagement.
These ROEs might sound fine to academics gathering at some esoteric seminar on how to avoid civilian casualties in a war zone. But they do absolutely nothing to protect our combat troops who have to respond in an instant to a life or death situation.
Who the hell cleared these ROE's? Shame on the Commander-in-Chief for putting such an unneccesary burden on our young soldiers. Maybe there is something to having a President who has some combat experience under his belt....
Rules of Engagement, Part II - A Tale of a Lesson Learned:
A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the courses had a professor who was a member of the ACLU and an avowed atheist.
One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, "God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you exactly 15 minutes."
The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop.
Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, "Here I am God. I'm still waiting."
It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him, knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold. The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The other students were shocked and stunned and sat there looking on in silence. The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, "What the hell is the matter with you? Why did you do that?"
The Marine calmly replied, "God was too busy today protecting America's troops who are protecting your right to say stupid things and act like an idiot. So, He sent me."
(1) You must feel a direct threat to you or your team.
(2) You must clearly see a threat.
(3) That threat must be identified.
(4) The team leader must concur that there is an identified threat.
(5) The team leader must feel that the situation is one of life or death.
(6) There must be minimal or no collateral risk.
(7) Only then can the team leader clear the engagement.
These ROEs might sound fine to academics gathering at some esoteric seminar on how to avoid civilian casualties in a war zone. But they do absolutely nothing to protect our combat troops who have to respond in an instant to a life or death situation.
Who the hell cleared these ROE's? Shame on the Commander-in-Chief for putting such an unneccesary burden on our young soldiers. Maybe there is something to having a President who has some combat experience under his belt....
Rules of Engagement, Part II - A Tale of a Lesson Learned:
A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the courses had a professor who was a member of the ACLU and an avowed atheist.
One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, "God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you exactly 15 minutes."
The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop.
Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, "Here I am God. I'm still waiting."
It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him, knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold. The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The other students were shocked and stunned and sat there looking on in silence. The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, "What the hell is the matter with you? Why did you do that?"
The Marine calmly replied, "God was too busy today protecting America's troops who are protecting your right to say stupid things and act like an idiot. So, He sent me."
Long Past Time
From the trembling quislings at The Washington Post:
President Bush has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian agents active inside Iraq, The Washington Post reported on Friday, citing government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the plan.
What the hell have we been waiting for? Especially based on this information:
....for three years, the Iranians have operated an embedding program there, offering operational training, intelligence and weaponry to several Shiite militias connected to the Iraqi government, to the insurgency and to the violence against Sunni factions . Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the CIA, told the Senate recently that the amount of Iranian-supplied materiel used against U.S. troops in Iraq "has been quite striking."
Wonder how many American soldiers have unnecessarily died because we've been playing patty-cake with a regime that has been at war with us since 1979?
Of course, we must have some fear and doubt:
The wide-ranging plan has several influential skeptics in the intelligence community, at the State Department and at the Defense Department who said that they worry it could push the growing conflict between Tehran and Washington into the center of a chaotic Iraq war.
....if Iran responds with escalation, it has the means to put U.S. citizens and national interests at greater risk in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Yes, and the military engagement of Japan after their attack on Pearl Harbor increased the amount of kamikazee attacks worldwide...should we have hid under our blankets instead? How many times does Iran get to kick our shins before we decide to break their nose?
And listen to this little list of charges against Iran, from America's top foreign service office at State, a department normally acting as the home base of political appeasers, Arabists, and other assorted bootlickers:
R. Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, said in an interview in late October that the United States knows that Iran "is providing support to Hezbollah and Hamas and supporting insurgent groups in Iraq that have posed a problem for our military forces." He added: "In addition to the nuclear issue, Iran's support for terrorism is high up on our agenda."
Let's go get 'em, boys.
Oh, and Harry Reid? Go f*ck yourself.
President Bush has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian agents active inside Iraq, The Washington Post reported on Friday, citing government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the plan.
What the hell have we been waiting for? Especially based on this information:
....for three years, the Iranians have operated an embedding program there, offering operational training, intelligence and weaponry to several Shiite militias connected to the Iraqi government, to the insurgency and to the violence against Sunni factions . Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the CIA, told the Senate recently that the amount of Iranian-supplied materiel used against U.S. troops in Iraq "has been quite striking."
Wonder how many American soldiers have unnecessarily died because we've been playing patty-cake with a regime that has been at war with us since 1979?
Of course, we must have some fear and doubt:
The wide-ranging plan has several influential skeptics in the intelligence community, at the State Department and at the Defense Department who said that they worry it could push the growing conflict between Tehran and Washington into the center of a chaotic Iraq war.
....if Iran responds with escalation, it has the means to put U.S. citizens and national interests at greater risk in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Yes, and the military engagement of Japan after their attack on Pearl Harbor increased the amount of kamikazee attacks worldwide...should we have hid under our blankets instead? How many times does Iran get to kick our shins before we decide to break their nose?
And listen to this little list of charges against Iran, from America's top foreign service office at State, a department normally acting as the home base of political appeasers, Arabists, and other assorted bootlickers:
R. Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, said in an interview in late October that the United States knows that Iran "is providing support to Hezbollah and Hamas and supporting insurgent groups in Iraq that have posed a problem for our military forces." He added: "In addition to the nuclear issue, Iran's support for terrorism is high up on our agenda."
Let's go get 'em, boys.
Oh, and Harry Reid? Go f*ck yourself.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Gazing in Fjordman's Mirror
From the legendary blogger Fjordman at The Gates of Vienna...how much of the liberal posturing we see today is stictly vanity; a beauty contest in a unlit room?
....not all those who undermine Western civilization through support for Multiculturalism and mass immigration do so out of a hidden political agenda. Some do it out of plain stupidity and vanity. “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s most open-minded of them all?” It’s a beauty contest for bored, Western intellectuals who use immigrants as a mirror to reflect their own inflated egos, a sport where they can nurse their vanity in the mistaken belief that denigrating your own cultural heritage is a sign of goodness and lack of prejudice.
I suspect that part of the craziness on display now stems from feelings of guilt because of affluence. I hear so many of these open border activists talk about “solidarity,” but in reality it’s all about me, me, me. They don’t show much solidarity with their own children and grandchildren who are going to inherit the Balkanized nightmare they leave behind. It’s all about making them feel good about themselves right now, without regard for future consequences of their actions. So their “solidarity” is really an extreme form of egotism and holier-than-thou self-exaltation. Besides, many of them have lived sheltered lives for so long that they honestly don’t understand that something bad can ever happen to them. They’ve never had to fight for their freedom or their prosperity, which had been ensured by others.
These two paragraphs have clarified a lot for me. Why are liberal causes trumpeted loudest by the celebrity class? Not because they believe in them, or have any intention of making the sacrifices they demand of others - but because it allows a moral veneer to cover their grossly materialistic, over-the-top lifestyles. They who scream of understanding and sympathy for the downtrodden are the first to fire a minimum-wage production assistant for delivering a cold grilled cheese sandwich. They'll lecture me about driving a SUV, while flying in private jets that consume a year's worth of my fuel in one round-trip. But they escape the hypocrisy of their actions by claiming virtue via their deluded reflection in Fjordman's mirror, and with the kudos received in their left-wing echo chamber for their public loathing of their own homeland.
[For a Class A example of this type of self-absorbed celebrity stupidity, see this video of a clueless Rosie O'Donnell shrieking about the need for the impeachment of George Bush. No logical discourse here, just celebrity vanity masking itself as rightous indignation. It must make her feel so much better about herself while she's rolling around in the back of her limousine with her lesbian lover, on the way to a $300- lunch....]
We'll see this phenomenon crystalize even further with the possible presidential run of Barak Obama - will Americans be told they must vote for Obama, in order to prove their bona-fides as "open-minded Americans" ? Conversely, will any whom oppose him, or declare their desire to vote against him, be labeled as no more than simple-minded redneck racists?
Anyway - the next time these Hollywood hacks stand up and begin to lecture you on everything they've decided this country (and you personally) are doing wrong, take a moment to think about where their loathing is really directed at, and what they are really trying to accomplish with it.
Do not let the vanity-starved left victimize - or criminalize - you, so that they can feel better about themselves....
....not all those who undermine Western civilization through support for Multiculturalism and mass immigration do so out of a hidden political agenda. Some do it out of plain stupidity and vanity. “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s most open-minded of them all?” It’s a beauty contest for bored, Western intellectuals who use immigrants as a mirror to reflect their own inflated egos, a sport where they can nurse their vanity in the mistaken belief that denigrating your own cultural heritage is a sign of goodness and lack of prejudice.
I suspect that part of the craziness on display now stems from feelings of guilt because of affluence. I hear so many of these open border activists talk about “solidarity,” but in reality it’s all about me, me, me. They don’t show much solidarity with their own children and grandchildren who are going to inherit the Balkanized nightmare they leave behind. It’s all about making them feel good about themselves right now, without regard for future consequences of their actions. So their “solidarity” is really an extreme form of egotism and holier-than-thou self-exaltation. Besides, many of them have lived sheltered lives for so long that they honestly don’t understand that something bad can ever happen to them. They’ve never had to fight for their freedom or their prosperity, which had been ensured by others.
These two paragraphs have clarified a lot for me. Why are liberal causes trumpeted loudest by the celebrity class? Not because they believe in them, or have any intention of making the sacrifices they demand of others - but because it allows a moral veneer to cover their grossly materialistic, over-the-top lifestyles. They who scream of understanding and sympathy for the downtrodden are the first to fire a minimum-wage production assistant for delivering a cold grilled cheese sandwich. They'll lecture me about driving a SUV, while flying in private jets that consume a year's worth of my fuel in one round-trip. But they escape the hypocrisy of their actions by claiming virtue via their deluded reflection in Fjordman's mirror, and with the kudos received in their left-wing echo chamber for their public loathing of their own homeland.
[For a Class A example of this type of self-absorbed celebrity stupidity, see this video of a clueless Rosie O'Donnell shrieking about the need for the impeachment of George Bush. No logical discourse here, just celebrity vanity masking itself as rightous indignation. It must make her feel so much better about herself while she's rolling around in the back of her limousine with her lesbian lover, on the way to a $300- lunch....]
We'll see this phenomenon crystalize even further with the possible presidential run of Barak Obama - will Americans be told they must vote for Obama, in order to prove their bona-fides as "open-minded Americans" ? Conversely, will any whom oppose him, or declare their desire to vote against him, be labeled as no more than simple-minded redneck racists?
Anyway - the next time these Hollywood hacks stand up and begin to lecture you on everything they've decided this country (and you personally) are doing wrong, take a moment to think about where their loathing is really directed at, and what they are really trying to accomplish with it.
Do not let the vanity-starved left victimize - or criminalize - you, so that they can feel better about themselves....
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Re-Learning Old Lessons
America is under attack by Arab terrorists. The President wants to fight, but Congress, believing that fighting terrorists would embitter Muslims forever against America, votes to capitulate.
Life in the Year of our Lord 2007? Er, no, the late 1780's....
The meeting in London was doomed from the outset. The Arab strongman's envoy held all the cards - three craft had already been hijacked, their passengers and crew held hostage in an inhospitable and almost unreachable land. The American ambassador knew the ransom demand would be high, but even he could not have imagined just how exorbitant it would be. To meet it would require one-tenth of America's annual budget.
Lest the adventurous Yanks dare to contemplate a military attack to rescue their captured comrades, Abd al-Rahman al-Ajar provided a most unpleasant revelation: the Koran declares that any nation that does not bow to the authority of the Muslims is sinful, and it is the right and duty of Muslims to make war upon it and take prisoner any of its people they may find. Further, any Muslim slain in battle against such an enemy would be promised a place in Paradise.
"We ought not to fight them at all unless we determine to fight them forever," the furious but helpless ambassador relayed to his government. Congress would authorize no such fight, however, and voted instead to pay the ransom.
And that is how America first capitulated to Arab terrorism, some 220 years ago.....
Back when we actually had great Americans, they saw the truth, and spoke to it - from the J-Post:
As Virginia politician (and also eventual president) James Madison reasons during negotiations over the Constitution, "Weakness will invite insults. The best way to avoid danger is to be in capacity to withstand it."
Oooooh, Mr. Madison, Nancy Pelosi would have your head for such belligerent talk! Where's your sense of multiculturalism and multilateralism?
And speaking of which:
Before he revised it in the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key's "Star-Bangled Banner" - which would become the American national anthem - described "turbaned heads bowed" to the "brow of the brave."
Back to the future, to the convoluted world of 2007 - so it turns out that we've fought this war before, and we've won it before...but have we become so brainwashed by our PC culture that we cannot even contemplate a strategy for victory previously employed by some of the greatest minds ever to grace this continent?
History repeats itself - the Barbary Pirates have returned to the shores of Tripoli, the new Hitlers openly speak of another Holocaust, Europe is again smoldering with dark hatreds, both ancient and new, and what do we, the 'enlightened" 21st century citizens, do about it?
Why, absolutely nothing.
We refuse to even face it; even admit it is really happening; we prefer to bury our head in the sand and hope if we sing FA-LA-LA-LA loud enough and often enough, it will all go away and we'll wake up in a world of peace and love, all achieved by UN mandate....
Nice progress we are making.
Life in the Year of our Lord 2007? Er, no, the late 1780's....
The meeting in London was doomed from the outset. The Arab strongman's envoy held all the cards - three craft had already been hijacked, their passengers and crew held hostage in an inhospitable and almost unreachable land. The American ambassador knew the ransom demand would be high, but even he could not have imagined just how exorbitant it would be. To meet it would require one-tenth of America's annual budget.
Lest the adventurous Yanks dare to contemplate a military attack to rescue their captured comrades, Abd al-Rahman al-Ajar provided a most unpleasant revelation: the Koran declares that any nation that does not bow to the authority of the Muslims is sinful, and it is the right and duty of Muslims to make war upon it and take prisoner any of its people they may find. Further, any Muslim slain in battle against such an enemy would be promised a place in Paradise.
"We ought not to fight them at all unless we determine to fight them forever," the furious but helpless ambassador relayed to his government. Congress would authorize no such fight, however, and voted instead to pay the ransom.
And that is how America first capitulated to Arab terrorism, some 220 years ago.....
Back when we actually had great Americans, they saw the truth, and spoke to it - from the J-Post:
As Virginia politician (and also eventual president) James Madison reasons during negotiations over the Constitution, "Weakness will invite insults. The best way to avoid danger is to be in capacity to withstand it."
Oooooh, Mr. Madison, Nancy Pelosi would have your head for such belligerent talk! Where's your sense of multiculturalism and multilateralism?
And speaking of which:
Before he revised it in the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key's "Star-Bangled Banner" - which would become the American national anthem - described "turbaned heads bowed" to the "brow of the brave."
Back to the future, to the convoluted world of 2007 - so it turns out that we've fought this war before, and we've won it before...but have we become so brainwashed by our PC culture that we cannot even contemplate a strategy for victory previously employed by some of the greatest minds ever to grace this continent?
History repeats itself - the Barbary Pirates have returned to the shores of Tripoli, the new Hitlers openly speak of another Holocaust, Europe is again smoldering with dark hatreds, both ancient and new, and what do we, the 'enlightened" 21st century citizens, do about it?
Why, absolutely nothing.
We refuse to even face it; even admit it is really happening; we prefer to bury our head in the sand and hope if we sing FA-LA-LA-LA loud enough and often enough, it will all go away and we'll wake up in a world of peace and love, all achieved by UN mandate....
Nice progress we are making.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Oscar Documentaries - Only the Far-Left Need Apply!
Love those Oscar nominations - a parade of liberal causes, each more worthy than the next!
My Country, My Country
Can a foreign military force bring Western-style democracy to the Muslim world? For U.S. military and diplomatic planners in Iraq, the answer to both questions has been a resolute "yes." For Iraqis, these contradictions have led to tragic consequences as political uncertainty and mounting violence continue to dominate daily life more than three years after the U.S. invasion.
Iraq in Fragments – seems to be allegedly evenhanded (because American evil is always equal to the evils that terrorists do); although when Michael Moore gives it a positive review, there is always room for concern…
Deliver us From Evil - from a synopsis:
Moving from one parish to another in Northern California during the 1970s, Father Oliver O'Grady quickly won each congregation's trust and respect. Unbeknownst to them, O'Grady was a dangerously active pedophile that Church hierarchy, aware of his predilection, had harbored for over 30 years, allowing him to abuse countless children. Juxtaposing an extended, deeply unsettling interview with O'Grady himself with the tragic stories of his victims, filmmaker Amy Berg bravely exposes the deep corruption of the Catholic Church and the troubled mind of the man they sheltered
A gruesome tale, to be sure, but an easy pick as an Oscar nominee, since Catholic-bashing is all the rage and we all know that, oh, say, Muslims have never committed any wrongs that were condoned by their religion…..
Jesus Camp – this one may be the worst of all – a commentor at IMDB says:
This movie is the "Mein Kampf" of the Neoconservative party. You simply cannot afford to ignore it.
….and it appears that ABC News buys into the partisan hype as well:
Speaking in tongues, weeping for salvation, praying for an end to abortion and worshipping a picture of President Bush — these are some of the activities at Pastor Becky Fischer's Bible camp in North Dakota, "Kids on Fire," subject of the provocative new documentary, "Jesus Camp."
Over the past decade and a half, enrollment at Christian colleges is up 70 percent. Sales of Christian music are up 300 percent. Tens of thousands of youth pastors have been trained.
Young people are targeted through Christian music festivals, skateboard competitions and rodeos...
Of course, in Muslim nations, this happens all the time, except their camps are full of anti-semetic and anti-Western hatred; and they actually follow through on the racist indoctrination they are given and slaughter innocents worldwide. But hey, why make a movie about an inconvenient truth when you can throw your stones at the meeker Christians, whom incidentally have not gone on a crusade in close to a thousand years? (But if you listened to the mdia, you would think it happened yesterday...)
And speaking of An Inconvenient Truth…nominated, and expected to win, as per my post here.
Sigh…
My Country, My Country
Can a foreign military force bring Western-style democracy to the Muslim world? For U.S. military and diplomatic planners in Iraq, the answer to both questions has been a resolute "yes." For Iraqis, these contradictions have led to tragic consequences as political uncertainty and mounting violence continue to dominate daily life more than three years after the U.S. invasion.
Iraq in Fragments – seems to be allegedly evenhanded (because American evil is always equal to the evils that terrorists do); although when Michael Moore gives it a positive review, there is always room for concern…
Deliver us From Evil - from a synopsis:
Moving from one parish to another in Northern California during the 1970s, Father Oliver O'Grady quickly won each congregation's trust and respect. Unbeknownst to them, O'Grady was a dangerously active pedophile that Church hierarchy, aware of his predilection, had harbored for over 30 years, allowing him to abuse countless children. Juxtaposing an extended, deeply unsettling interview with O'Grady himself with the tragic stories of his victims, filmmaker Amy Berg bravely exposes the deep corruption of the Catholic Church and the troubled mind of the man they sheltered
A gruesome tale, to be sure, but an easy pick as an Oscar nominee, since Catholic-bashing is all the rage and we all know that, oh, say, Muslims have never committed any wrongs that were condoned by their religion…..
Jesus Camp – this one may be the worst of all – a commentor at IMDB says:
This movie is the "Mein Kampf" of the Neoconservative party. You simply cannot afford to ignore it.
….and it appears that ABC News buys into the partisan hype as well:
Speaking in tongues, weeping for salvation, praying for an end to abortion and worshipping a picture of President Bush — these are some of the activities at Pastor Becky Fischer's Bible camp in North Dakota, "Kids on Fire," subject of the provocative new documentary, "Jesus Camp."
Over the past decade and a half, enrollment at Christian colleges is up 70 percent. Sales of Christian music are up 300 percent. Tens of thousands of youth pastors have been trained.
Young people are targeted through Christian music festivals, skateboard competitions and rodeos...
Of course, in Muslim nations, this happens all the time, except their camps are full of anti-semetic and anti-Western hatred; and they actually follow through on the racist indoctrination they are given and slaughter innocents worldwide. But hey, why make a movie about an inconvenient truth when you can throw your stones at the meeker Christians, whom incidentally have not gone on a crusade in close to a thousand years? (But if you listened to the mdia, you would think it happened yesterday...)
And speaking of An Inconvenient Truth…nominated, and expected to win, as per my post here.
Sigh…
Corzine Feels the Heat from Right, Wing Nut!
...and vows to veto legislation (discussed here, at bottom) aimed at allowing New Jersey schools to leave Memorial Day and Veteran's Day out of their curriculum:
Declaring it was important to ensure "our kids understand the sacrifices people have made," Gov. Jon S. Corzine today vowed to veto parts of a bill that would abolish requirements New Jersey schools teach about Veterans Day and Memorial Day.Corzine said he will conditionally veto the bill that unanimously passed the Legislature in December.
Bill sponsor Sen. John Adler, D-Camden, and a bill supporter, the New Jersey School Boards Association, have said the bill wasn't meant to slight veterans, but to give schools more flexibility to decide holiday celebrations and curriculum.
Uh huh - that's why the only holidays specified were Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, and Commodore Barry Day (local Jersey hero), as well as the two mentioned above. No agenda there, right, Mr. Adler?
Well, I guess the pressure from this blog (yeah, right!) finally got to Corzine - good job, folks!
And I promise to lay off of New Jersey for a few days...I love it here, you know - it's just the godawful government that makes me crazy...
Declaring it was important to ensure "our kids understand the sacrifices people have made," Gov. Jon S. Corzine today vowed to veto parts of a bill that would abolish requirements New Jersey schools teach about Veterans Day and Memorial Day.Corzine said he will conditionally veto the bill that unanimously passed the Legislature in December.
Bill sponsor Sen. John Adler, D-Camden, and a bill supporter, the New Jersey School Boards Association, have said the bill wasn't meant to slight veterans, but to give schools more flexibility to decide holiday celebrations and curriculum.
Uh huh - that's why the only holidays specified were Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, and Commodore Barry Day (local Jersey hero), as well as the two mentioned above. No agenda there, right, Mr. Adler?
Well, I guess the pressure from this blog (yeah, right!) finally got to Corzine - good job, folks!
And I promise to lay off of New Jersey for a few days...I love it here, you know - it's just the godawful government that makes me crazy...
Monday, January 22, 2007
Yet Another Stench Emitting From The Swamps of New Jersey...
...this time, courtesy of Governor Jon Corzine, another Jersey Democrat who blasted all accounts of his financial malfeasence as "campaign mudslinging", then continued dancing down his dirty road once safely re-elected:
Gov. Corzine came to Trenton promising ethics reform. Sounded good, but then he hired a lobbyist to write two major speeches. Behold the crumbling Corzine credibility.
Lobbyist Eric Shuffler worked for former U.S. Sen. Bob Torricelli and former Gov. Jim McGreevey, both of whom left office in disgrace. Shuffler also lobbies for Geico insurance, which wanted its lizard mascot on billboards at the George Washington Bridge.
Earth to Corzine: You can't reform ethics until you recognize a conflict of interest.
Corzine has a speech writer and a communications staff. Still, he had his pals at the Democratic Party pay Shuffler $10,000 for a major speech last summer....
The Asbury Park Press digs deeper:
While Shuffler, who doesn't live in New Jersey, was writing Corzine's speeches, another Shuffler employer, Geico, was working on a sweetheart pact to put its billboards on George Washington Bridge tollbooths.
Senate President Dick Codey called for a probe of the Geico deal, saying it was the worst since Native Americans sold Manhattan for beads.
The bridge is controlled by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which backed off the Geico plan after Codey's remarks...
Now hear come the explanations - I mean, excuses...I mean, lies...
Everyone involved in this wants you to know there is absolutely, positively no connection.
Corzine's staff on a lobbyist writing Corzine speeches: "It's all above board."
Shuffler on the billboard deal: "I learned about it when I read it in the paper."
The Port Authority on . . . well, we're not sure what it's talking about: " Anyone has a right to their own opinion, but any objective journalistic story does not have a right to its own facts."
And here's the key point that these filthy two-bit scam artists cannot even grasp - similar to that made yesterday by Mike Kelly of the Hackensack Record:
Even if Corzine's speeches had something new and inter-esting, there is no acceptable excuse for paying a lobbyist to write them. It is a conflict of interest and a tad hypocritical if it occurs simultaneously with lip service to ethics reform.
More than a tad, I would say - between Menendez tearing it up at secret donor-funded parties, and Governor Corzine putting lobbyists buddies (with close ties to "Torch" Torricelli and Funboy Jim McGreevy, no less) on the payroll as speechwriters, is it any wonder the residents of New Jersey get less than a zero return on their highest-in-the-nation taxes?
But c'mon, folks! Keep voting those dirty Democrats in! We haven't hit rock bottom yet! We are still somewhat solvent (albeit barely); the party's not over until the till is emptied!
Gov. Corzine came to Trenton promising ethics reform. Sounded good, but then he hired a lobbyist to write two major speeches. Behold the crumbling Corzine credibility.
Lobbyist Eric Shuffler worked for former U.S. Sen. Bob Torricelli and former Gov. Jim McGreevey, both of whom left office in disgrace. Shuffler also lobbies for Geico insurance, which wanted its lizard mascot on billboards at the George Washington Bridge.
Earth to Corzine: You can't reform ethics until you recognize a conflict of interest.
Corzine has a speech writer and a communications staff. Still, he had his pals at the Democratic Party pay Shuffler $10,000 for a major speech last summer....
The Asbury Park Press digs deeper:
While Shuffler, who doesn't live in New Jersey, was writing Corzine's speeches, another Shuffler employer, Geico, was working on a sweetheart pact to put its billboards on George Washington Bridge tollbooths.
Senate President Dick Codey called for a probe of the Geico deal, saying it was the worst since Native Americans sold Manhattan for beads.
The bridge is controlled by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which backed off the Geico plan after Codey's remarks...
Now hear come the explanations - I mean, excuses...I mean, lies...
Everyone involved in this wants you to know there is absolutely, positively no connection.
Corzine's staff on a lobbyist writing Corzine speeches: "It's all above board."
Shuffler on the billboard deal: "I learned about it when I read it in the paper."
The Port Authority on . . . well, we're not sure what it's talking about: " Anyone has a right to their own opinion, but any objective journalistic story does not have a right to its own facts."
And here's the key point that these filthy two-bit scam artists cannot even grasp - similar to that made yesterday by Mike Kelly of the Hackensack Record:
Even if Corzine's speeches had something new and inter-esting, there is no acceptable excuse for paying a lobbyist to write them. It is a conflict of interest and a tad hypocritical if it occurs simultaneously with lip service to ethics reform.
More than a tad, I would say - between Menendez tearing it up at secret donor-funded parties, and Governor Corzine putting lobbyists buddies (with close ties to "Torch" Torricelli and Funboy Jim McGreevy, no less) on the payroll as speechwriters, is it any wonder the residents of New Jersey get less than a zero return on their highest-in-the-nation taxes?
But c'mon, folks! Keep voting those dirty Democrats in! We haven't hit rock bottom yet! We are still somewhat solvent (albeit barely); the party's not over until the till is emptied!
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Menendez Continues to Befoul New Jersey! Or: Bob Menendez's Bachelor Party!
Hey, fellow Jerseyites - if you want to get rid of the smell, sometimes you gotta take out the trash. So when you vote to re-elect slimey scum like Robert Menendez to the Senate, don't be surprised when your state is permeated by the stench of polical corruption, and the accompanying dysfunction and disrespect that inevitably comes along with it.
Today's New York Post editorial concludes with the following:
Something doesn't pass the smell test here.
New Jersey and slime.
Perfect together.
I would say we deserve better, but based on this state's choices, we probably don't. So what is Robert Menendez up to now? Why, breaking every campaign promise, and reuniting himself with the disgraced associates and lobbyists he pretended to distance himself from during the fall campaign. We'll let the Post take us through it:
The Senate on Thursday passed a new crackdown that regulates the relationship between legislators and lobbyists. Just four days before that, The Record of Hackensack reported that Menendez, after being sworn in for a full term this month, was the guest of honor at a secret private party - funded by corporate and other donors at $5,000 each - hosted by a fledgling lobbyist named Michael Hutton.
Hutton, who recently opened his own firm, happens to be Menendez's former chief of staff.
Most of those footing the bill were Hutton's clients - including a foundation run by Hackensack University Medical Center, which by law is barred from political activity. Except that everyone involved insists - with a straight face - that "this was not a political event."
Among the guests at the party were two less-than-savory people with whom the senator very publicly cut ties during last year's Senate campaign.
One was Donald Scarinci - who stepped aside as a top adviser after a tape recording surfaced on which he was heard demanding that a government doctor hire another physician as a favor to Menendez.
Another was Joseph Simunovich, chairman of the state Turnpike Authority - who quit as Menendez's finance director in the wake of an ethics probe into alleged favors provided to a turnpike contractor. [more on his misdeeds here - ed.]
Apparently, Menendez, Scarinci and Simunovich no longer feel they have to keep their distance from each other.
....if Michael Hutton's corporate-funded private party for his old boss was entirely on the up and up, why was it kept so carefully hidden from public view - to the point of being kept off of Menendez's schedule?
I'll answer the Post's rhetorical question - Menedez played the whole electorate for suckers this fall, calling all the corruption charges against him "dirty campaigning", then, when safely ensconsed back in office by the very suckers - er, voters - he lied to, he continued his corrupt practices, knowing that he is virtually untouchable in a Senate where one seat change could swing the balance of power.
And kudos to the small-town Record, reporting stories where the big media fears to tread. Mike Kelly reports:
SADLY, this is how politics works. Ten days ago, Robert Menendez was sworn in as a U.S. Senator. It was a joyful day, chock full of pomp, parties, and at least one promise by Menendez “to dedicate myself to standing up for New Jersey and building a better America for each and every one of us.”
But one party, at the swanky 701 Pennsylvania Restaurant in Washington, D.C., was kept secret from each and every one of us, except 175 close friends of Bob Menendez.
The party was hosted by a lobbyist.
And Kelly reminds us of how stupid we are supposed to act:
Whenever a lobbyist throws a party on behalf of any politician, voters have a right to wonder why. Lobbyists, after all, are in the business of currying favors...
Most important, why would any self-respecting elected official go along with this sort of questionable activity? Why invite suspicion?
Surely Menendez knows that the Senate, responding to recent scandals involving lobbyists, is weighing tough new ethics rules that would likely ban such parties.
“Maybe he thought of it as a last fling, his version of a bachelor party before the new rules,” one Senate staffer suggested.
Robert L. Torre, the foundation’s executive director, conceded that non-profit firms are barred from political activity. But this was not a political event, he said.
“It was hosted by a third party,” Torre said.
That third party is Michael Hutton, the lobbyist.
In case you wondered.
So here is what we are expected to believe:
The secret party was nothing special. The corporations who paid for it expect no favors – they simply want to show how much they love and admire Bob Menendez.
As for Menendez, he wants us all to know that he is completely above reproach even though he did not disclose that a lobbyist set up a reception for him. As his spokesman noted: “The Senator attends events all the time around Washington, sponsored by a wide range of groups, and it has no impact on him at all.”
Fine. Maybe people really believe that.
Or maybe Menendez is laughing all the way to the bank with his ill-gotten gains, counting on New Jersey residents to be stupid enough to believe these parties thrown on his behalf by high-end donors have "no impact on him" whatsoever.
But based on the fact that this lying, cheating, sleazy clown was re-elected by the people of this state, maybe he has good reason to laugh....
Today's New York Post editorial concludes with the following:
Something doesn't pass the smell test here.
New Jersey and slime.
Perfect together.
I would say we deserve better, but based on this state's choices, we probably don't. So what is Robert Menendez up to now? Why, breaking every campaign promise, and reuniting himself with the disgraced associates and lobbyists he pretended to distance himself from during the fall campaign. We'll let the Post take us through it:
The Senate on Thursday passed a new crackdown that regulates the relationship between legislators and lobbyists. Just four days before that, The Record of Hackensack reported that Menendez, after being sworn in for a full term this month, was the guest of honor at a secret private party - funded by corporate and other donors at $5,000 each - hosted by a fledgling lobbyist named Michael Hutton.
Hutton, who recently opened his own firm, happens to be Menendez's former chief of staff.
Most of those footing the bill were Hutton's clients - including a foundation run by Hackensack University Medical Center, which by law is barred from political activity. Except that everyone involved insists - with a straight face - that "this was not a political event."
Among the guests at the party were two less-than-savory people with whom the senator very publicly cut ties during last year's Senate campaign.
One was Donald Scarinci - who stepped aside as a top adviser after a tape recording surfaced on which he was heard demanding that a government doctor hire another physician as a favor to Menendez.
Another was Joseph Simunovich, chairman of the state Turnpike Authority - who quit as Menendez's finance director in the wake of an ethics probe into alleged favors provided to a turnpike contractor. [more on his misdeeds here - ed.]
Apparently, Menendez, Scarinci and Simunovich no longer feel they have to keep their distance from each other.
....if Michael Hutton's corporate-funded private party for his old boss was entirely on the up and up, why was it kept so carefully hidden from public view - to the point of being kept off of Menendez's schedule?
I'll answer the Post's rhetorical question - Menedez played the whole electorate for suckers this fall, calling all the corruption charges against him "dirty campaigning", then, when safely ensconsed back in office by the very suckers - er, voters - he lied to, he continued his corrupt practices, knowing that he is virtually untouchable in a Senate where one seat change could swing the balance of power.
And kudos to the small-town Record, reporting stories where the big media fears to tread. Mike Kelly reports:
SADLY, this is how politics works. Ten days ago, Robert Menendez was sworn in as a U.S. Senator. It was a joyful day, chock full of pomp, parties, and at least one promise by Menendez “to dedicate myself to standing up for New Jersey and building a better America for each and every one of us.”
But one party, at the swanky 701 Pennsylvania Restaurant in Washington, D.C., was kept secret from each and every one of us, except 175 close friends of Bob Menendez.
The party was hosted by a lobbyist.
And Kelly reminds us of how stupid we are supposed to act:
Whenever a lobbyist throws a party on behalf of any politician, voters have a right to wonder why. Lobbyists, after all, are in the business of currying favors...
Most important, why would any self-respecting elected official go along with this sort of questionable activity? Why invite suspicion?
Surely Menendez knows that the Senate, responding to recent scandals involving lobbyists, is weighing tough new ethics rules that would likely ban such parties.
“Maybe he thought of it as a last fling, his version of a bachelor party before the new rules,” one Senate staffer suggested.
Robert L. Torre, the foundation’s executive director, conceded that non-profit firms are barred from political activity. But this was not a political event, he said.
“It was hosted by a third party,” Torre said.
That third party is Michael Hutton, the lobbyist.
In case you wondered.
So here is what we are expected to believe:
The secret party was nothing special. The corporations who paid for it expect no favors – they simply want to show how much they love and admire Bob Menendez.
As for Menendez, he wants us all to know that he is completely above reproach even though he did not disclose that a lobbyist set up a reception for him. As his spokesman noted: “The Senator attends events all the time around Washington, sponsored by a wide range of groups, and it has no impact on him at all.”
Fine. Maybe people really believe that.
Or maybe Menendez is laughing all the way to the bank with his ill-gotten gains, counting on New Jersey residents to be stupid enough to believe these parties thrown on his behalf by high-end donors have "no impact on him" whatsoever.
But based on the fact that this lying, cheating, sleazy clown was re-elected by the people of this state, maybe he has good reason to laugh....
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Not On His Plantation
Resident Washington Post left-wing hatemonger Eugene Robinson writes his usual column of bile and bilge today, entitled "A Reality-Based State of the Union". (And if you want to read more about the psychosis of those who where that label as a badge of honor, see here). I'll just take one line out, 'cause it illustrates all:
But the state of the union is not all bad, my fellow Americans. When the president gives his speech, one of those two seats behind him will be occupied by a woman, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi -- a first, and an undeniable sign of progress. The two leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination are a woman and a black man -- more progress.
Hey jackrod, what about Condoleezza Rice? You know, former professor of political science, Stanford University Provost, member of the boards of directors for the Chevron Corporation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, the International Advisory Council of J.P. Morgan and the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors?
Ever hear of her? She's a woman - a black woman! And a uniquely qualified one, based on her credentials - unlike the black presidential candidate you fail to name, Mr. Barak Obama - who has all of two years of Senate experience, and the female candidate you fear to mention, Hillary Clinton -who has all of six years of Senate experience.
If race and gender is all that matter to you-and you make it clear that is all you are considering in your march towards "progress" - than why not support an emminently qualified black woman like Condi Rice, as opposed to supporting the policy of tokenism?
Oh, yeah...I forgot....Condi is not on your plantation, so her gender, race, and myriad of amazing accomplishments fail to even exist. It doesn't matter how far a minority rises, if they hold a different set of political philosophies than racist Robinson, their triumphs count for nothing.
Great favor you are doing for the black people, Eugene....
But the state of the union is not all bad, my fellow Americans. When the president gives his speech, one of those two seats behind him will be occupied by a woman, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi -- a first, and an undeniable sign of progress. The two leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination are a woman and a black man -- more progress.
Hey jackrod, what about Condoleezza Rice? You know, former professor of political science, Stanford University Provost, member of the boards of directors for the Chevron Corporation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, the International Advisory Council of J.P. Morgan and the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors?
Ever hear of her? She's a woman - a black woman! And a uniquely qualified one, based on her credentials - unlike the black presidential candidate you fail to name, Mr. Barak Obama - who has all of two years of Senate experience, and the female candidate you fear to mention, Hillary Clinton -who has all of six years of Senate experience.
If race and gender is all that matter to you-and you make it clear that is all you are considering in your march towards "progress" - than why not support an emminently qualified black woman like Condi Rice, as opposed to supporting the policy of tokenism?
Oh, yeah...I forgot....Condi is not on your plantation, so her gender, race, and myriad of amazing accomplishments fail to even exist. It doesn't matter how far a minority rises, if they hold a different set of political philosophies than racist Robinson, their triumphs count for nothing.
Great favor you are doing for the black people, Eugene....
Friday, January 19, 2007
Good-bye, Weather Channel...
Hey, I was into the Weather Channel way before being into the Weather Channel was cool (which lasted all of 15 minutes, if I recollect). Being a bit of a weather aficianado, and it being before the current historical era where I essentially have an internet connection hard-wired into my brain, I was a religious watcher of this buried cable gem.
"Local Weather on the 8's", with its basic graphics, soft jazz, and uncluttered format was the focus; the remainder of the hours was filled up with well-spoken, plain-looking, well-informed meteorologists whom knew they were talking to the few who "got it", who understood, who cared - about stuff like millibars of atmospheric pressure and rapidly approaching frontal systems, anyway.
I found it to be an excellent nitetime companion - the repetitiveness and gentle tone soothed me to sleep and was a gentle nightlight should I need to arise in the middle of the night to fulfill nature's demands. Very few understood my love -nay, my passion - for this soft-spoken, drab-looking oddity usually placed at the highest end of the cable channel tier, but that was OK. It was between us, and maybe a selected handful of others who cared like I did...
But two things turned my attentions elsewhere - the aforementioned internet, with its instant delivery of weather, live conditions, and up-to-the-minute radar, and my switch to satellite, which eliminated the local weather reports from the Weather Channel. I still paid my old love some mind, but as "The Channel" began to clutter itself with ridiculous disaster specials, on-the-scene prima donna reporting, and over-the-top dramatic coverage, I left her for good for my new hearthrob, instant internet weather gratification.
So it was with much remorse that I read the following story; it kind of hit me the way seeing an ex-girlfriend's mug shot sprawled on the front page would: First comes shock, then sadness, and finally an I-saw-it-coming tut-tut.
From the most excellent blog It Comes In Pints?:
The Weather Channel's most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming. This latest call to silence skeptics follows a year (2006) in which skeptics were compared to "Holocaust Deniers" and Nuremberg-style war crimes trials were advocated by several climate alarmists
The Weather Channel's (TWC) Heidi Cullen, who hosts the weekly global warming program "The Climate Code," [ see what I meant about their specials?-ed.] is advocating that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) revoke their "Seal of Approval" for any television weatherman who expresses skepticism that human activity is creating a climate catastrophe.
Scott Pelley, CBS News 60 Minutes correspondent, compared skeptics of global warming to "Holocaust deniers" and former Vice President turned foreign lobbyist Al Gore has repeatedly referred to skeptics as "global warming deniers."
Nice to know that The Weather Channel and CBS would liken me to the darkest of evils because I believe in the continuation of the scientific process regarding "global warming". But it goes even further - the enviornmental left is so deranged, they literally would have the likes of me hung for putting "global warming" within quotation marks. And these folk are given starring roles on The Weather Channel:
In addition, Cullen's December 17, 2006 episode of "The Climate Code" TV show, featured a columnist who openly called for Nuremberg-style Trials for climate skeptics. Cullen featured Grist Magazine's Dave Roberts as an eco-expert opining on energy issues, with no mention of his public call to institute what amounts to the death penalty for scientists who express skepticism about global warming.
Clink on the Pints? link to get more reference information on the above, but remember you do so at your own peril. And if you wish to find your weather elsewhere, I am a bit biased in favor of Intellicast, with its wealth of comprehensive weather information as well as lots of local radar views. Weather Underground is a big favorite as well, with lots of cool ancillary links (like astronomy!).
Just as long as you stay off the ad-cluttered Weather.com site - remember, if you don't believe in The Doctrine According to The Weather Channel, you are unwelcome there (and may be held legally liable for war crimes).
So it is good-bye, my love...and this time, for the last time. So sad to see what you have become; the beautiful girl with all the potential in the world, now just another crack whore on the intellectual skid row....
UPDATE: More good stuff here, and here. And HolyCoast asks:
You'd think that it would be possible to provide daily and short range forecasts over cable TV without resorting to political grandstanding.
Then he explains some reasons why, of course, that his simple proposition is untenable today...
Spook86 lays it out:
But her call to "de-certify" broadcast meteorologists who don't agree with the global warming
orthodoxy is nothing more than scientific McCarthyism...
And Cullen tries to brush it all of as "spin" here.
Oh, this is all too yummy.... I hate piling on the ex, but boy, did she ask for it...
"Local Weather on the 8's", with its basic graphics, soft jazz, and uncluttered format was the focus; the remainder of the hours was filled up with well-spoken, plain-looking, well-informed meteorologists whom knew they were talking to the few who "got it", who understood, who cared - about stuff like millibars of atmospheric pressure and rapidly approaching frontal systems, anyway.
I found it to be an excellent nitetime companion - the repetitiveness and gentle tone soothed me to sleep and was a gentle nightlight should I need to arise in the middle of the night to fulfill nature's demands. Very few understood my love -nay, my passion - for this soft-spoken, drab-looking oddity usually placed at the highest end of the cable channel tier, but that was OK. It was between us, and maybe a selected handful of others who cared like I did...
But two things turned my attentions elsewhere - the aforementioned internet, with its instant delivery of weather, live conditions, and up-to-the-minute radar, and my switch to satellite, which eliminated the local weather reports from the Weather Channel. I still paid my old love some mind, but as "The Channel" began to clutter itself with ridiculous disaster specials, on-the-scene prima donna reporting, and over-the-top dramatic coverage, I left her for good for my new hearthrob, instant internet weather gratification.
So it was with much remorse that I read the following story; it kind of hit me the way seeing an ex-girlfriend's mug shot sprawled on the front page would: First comes shock, then sadness, and finally an I-saw-it-coming tut-tut.
From the most excellent blog It Comes In Pints?:
The Weather Channel's most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming. This latest call to silence skeptics follows a year (2006) in which skeptics were compared to "Holocaust Deniers" and Nuremberg-style war crimes trials were advocated by several climate alarmists
The Weather Channel's (TWC) Heidi Cullen, who hosts the weekly global warming program "The Climate Code," [ see what I meant about their specials?-ed.] is advocating that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) revoke their "Seal of Approval" for any television weatherman who expresses skepticism that human activity is creating a climate catastrophe.
Scott Pelley, CBS News 60 Minutes correspondent, compared skeptics of global warming to "Holocaust deniers" and former Vice President turned foreign lobbyist Al Gore has repeatedly referred to skeptics as "global warming deniers."
Nice to know that The Weather Channel and CBS would liken me to the darkest of evils because I believe in the continuation of the scientific process regarding "global warming". But it goes even further - the enviornmental left is so deranged, they literally would have the likes of me hung for putting "global warming" within quotation marks. And these folk are given starring roles on The Weather Channel:
In addition, Cullen's December 17, 2006 episode of "The Climate Code" TV show, featured a columnist who openly called for Nuremberg-style Trials for climate skeptics. Cullen featured Grist Magazine's Dave Roberts as an eco-expert opining on energy issues, with no mention of his public call to institute what amounts to the death penalty for scientists who express skepticism about global warming.
Clink on the Pints? link to get more reference information on the above, but remember you do so at your own peril. And if you wish to find your weather elsewhere, I am a bit biased in favor of Intellicast, with its wealth of comprehensive weather information as well as lots of local radar views. Weather Underground is a big favorite as well, with lots of cool ancillary links (like astronomy!).
Just as long as you stay off the ad-cluttered Weather.com site - remember, if you don't believe in The Doctrine According to The Weather Channel, you are unwelcome there (and may be held legally liable for war crimes).
So it is good-bye, my love...and this time, for the last time. So sad to see what you have become; the beautiful girl with all the potential in the world, now just another crack whore on the intellectual skid row....
UPDATE: More good stuff here, and here. And HolyCoast asks:
You'd think that it would be possible to provide daily and short range forecasts over cable TV without resorting to political grandstanding.
Then he explains some reasons why, of course, that his simple proposition is untenable today...
Spook86 lays it out:
But her call to "de-certify" broadcast meteorologists who don't agree with the global warming
orthodoxy is nothing more than scientific McCarthyism...
And Cullen tries to brush it all of as "spin" here.
Oh, this is all too yummy.... I hate piling on the ex, but boy, did she ask for it...
Thursday, January 18, 2007
About That "100 Hours"...
From the donkey-lovers at the AP:
House Democrats crossed the finish line Thursday in their race to pass a six-bill agenda in the first 100 hours of the new Congress — getting there 13 hours ahead of schedule.
"We have delivered on our promise," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at a news conference prematurely hailing her party's accomplishment more than two hours before the actual final vote on an energy bill capping the agenda.
Pelosi's "game" clock showed only 42 and 15 minutes of the 100 hours had elapsed when the roll call ended on the energy bill, which would reimpose $15 billion in fees, royalties and taxes on the oil industry.
Republicans complained the bills were hammered through after Democrats reneged on a campaign promise to let the opposition offer amendments and help shape legislation...
CAN YOU IMAGINE THE UPROAR... if the Republicans had slammed through a partisan agenda allowing no commentary, input, or amendments to the legislation after promising the opposition their side would get a hearing? The New York Times and Washington Post would be FROTHING with rage at this blunt wielding of newfound power. But because these acts are being performed by the Democrats, they not only get a pass, they get kudos as well....
Love the part about weakening the oil companies in a time of war and international crisis...don't ever let it be said that thoughtfulness and common sense got in the way of the Democrat's hard-left agenda. No time for debate, no talk allowed of the consequences of these new writs, just jam those babies down the people's throat! After all, the new Democratic majority is an American mandate for liberal prescriptions for what ails us, wasn't it?
Next up: socialized medicine and enviornmental Nazism!
Stay tuned....
House Democrats crossed the finish line Thursday in their race to pass a six-bill agenda in the first 100 hours of the new Congress — getting there 13 hours ahead of schedule.
"We have delivered on our promise," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at a news conference prematurely hailing her party's accomplishment more than two hours before the actual final vote on an energy bill capping the agenda.
Pelosi's "game" clock showed only 42 and 15 minutes of the 100 hours had elapsed when the roll call ended on the energy bill, which would reimpose $15 billion in fees, royalties and taxes on the oil industry.
Republicans complained the bills were hammered through after Democrats reneged on a campaign promise to let the opposition offer amendments and help shape legislation...
CAN YOU IMAGINE THE UPROAR... if the Republicans had slammed through a partisan agenda allowing no commentary, input, or amendments to the legislation after promising the opposition their side would get a hearing? The New York Times and Washington Post would be FROTHING with rage at this blunt wielding of newfound power. But because these acts are being performed by the Democrats, they not only get a pass, they get kudos as well....
Love the part about weakening the oil companies in a time of war and international crisis...don't ever let it be said that thoughtfulness and common sense got in the way of the Democrat's hard-left agenda. No time for debate, no talk allowed of the consequences of these new writs, just jam those babies down the people's throat! After all, the new Democratic majority is an American mandate for liberal prescriptions for what ails us, wasn't it?
Next up: socialized medicine and enviornmental Nazism!
Stay tuned....
A Quick "Sanity" Quiz!
The balm of the liberal left, after the stunning (to them) reelection of George W. Bush, was to tell themselves that they were all part of some oppressed "reality-based community", insinuating that conservatives, of course, were off somewhere else. Wikipedia defines the phrase as follows:
...the phrase "proud member of the reality-based community," was first used to suggest the blogger's opinions are based more on observation than faith, assumption, or ideology and that others who disagree are unrealistic...
Where am I going with this? Stay with me... Fausta leads us to an article in Psychology Today, which informs us that "9/11 Republicans" are not acting with any sort of common sense or what they would define as rational thinking:
We tend to believe our political views have evolved by a process of rational thought, as we consider arguments, weigh evidence, and draw conclusions. But the truth is more complicated...
Among the most potent motivators, it turns out, is fear. How the United States should confront the threat of terrorism remains a subject of endless political debate. But Americans' response to threats of attack is now more clear-cut than ever. The fear of death alone is surprisingly effective in shaping our political decisions—more powerful, often, than thought itself.
And we are not simply quivering children scared of our Freudian shadows; oh no...gosh darn it, liberals (especially men) are just so much more...sophisticated than their Cro-Magnum Conservative cousins:
Liberals have more books, and their books cover a greater variety of topics. And that's just a start. Multiple studies find that liberals are more optimistic. Conservatives are more likely to be religious. Liberals are more likely to like classical music and jazz, conservatives, country music. Liberals are more likely to enjoy abstract art. Conservative men are more likely than liberal men to prefer conventional forms of entertainment like TV and talk radio. Liberal men like romantic comedies more than conservative men. Liberal women are more likely than conservative women to enjoy books, poetry, writing in a diary, acting, and playing musical instruments.
I find all this quite difficult to believe, as most of the East Coast liberals that I am forced to deal with daily spout political generalizations and hackneyed expressions with an assurity and defiance that would be impressive, if it was even remotely thought-through or sustainable by facts.
But does enjoying poetry and crying during Sanda Bullock flicks make you a better person, or specifically a more sane one?
Dr. Sanity takes this sh*t apart:
....there is indeed some serious psychological pathology at work here, and it depends on which side of that question corresponds to objective reality. Which side is engaging in gross self-deception; and which side is denying and distorting reality and truth? Which side is constructing complicated conspiracy theories to shore up their view of the world and is refusing to process any information that contradicts that view?
How does a rational person decide which part of that question is true? Are we or are we not threatened by Islamic fascism?
How you answer that question will, of course, determine which political ideology you accuse of engaging in psychological pathology
Now, how's about a quick quiz - the good doctor gives a number of Roarsch-type questions that should be asked, I'll just sample a few:
Did Islamic fascists plan and execute the mass murder of 9/11 ; or, was it a conspiracy of the Bush Administration and the US government (and/or the Jews)?
Have Islamic fascists declared war on the U.S. and the West; or, are their statements--made on a daily basis-- simply mere rhetoric and in reality pose little or no threat to our national security?
Are we involved in a global war against Islamic fascism that is being waged right now (in Europe, the Middle East, Russia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Indonesia, the Phillipines etc.) against the fanatic religionists of Islam; or is this "war" a psychotic figment of neocons' imaginations?
Take the test, you don't need an answer guide to figure out your final score, although Dr. Sanity gives you a hint:
...I can't promise that everything will be okay--bad things do happen in the real world; innocents do suffer and evil does exist--but, you do have a choice: you can choose to face life with honor, integrity and dignity--fighting when necessary for those things that give meaning to human life; and standing up for that which is good; or, you can whine and whimper, cower and run from the unpleasantness of the real world--and just let yourself be a deer in the headlights waiting for that final crash to end the paralysis and self-deception.
Must be like Neo emerging from the Matrix to discover the disturbing truth about reality....
...the phrase "proud member of the reality-based community," was first used to suggest the blogger's opinions are based more on observation than faith, assumption, or ideology and that others who disagree are unrealistic...
Where am I going with this? Stay with me... Fausta leads us to an article in Psychology Today, which informs us that "9/11 Republicans" are not acting with any sort of common sense or what they would define as rational thinking:
We tend to believe our political views have evolved by a process of rational thought, as we consider arguments, weigh evidence, and draw conclusions. But the truth is more complicated...
Among the most potent motivators, it turns out, is fear. How the United States should confront the threat of terrorism remains a subject of endless political debate. But Americans' response to threats of attack is now more clear-cut than ever. The fear of death alone is surprisingly effective in shaping our political decisions—more powerful, often, than thought itself.
And we are not simply quivering children scared of our Freudian shadows; oh no...gosh darn it, liberals (especially men) are just so much more...sophisticated than their Cro-Magnum Conservative cousins:
Liberals have more books, and their books cover a greater variety of topics. And that's just a start. Multiple studies find that liberals are more optimistic. Conservatives are more likely to be religious. Liberals are more likely to like classical music and jazz, conservatives, country music. Liberals are more likely to enjoy abstract art. Conservative men are more likely than liberal men to prefer conventional forms of entertainment like TV and talk radio. Liberal men like romantic comedies more than conservative men. Liberal women are more likely than conservative women to enjoy books, poetry, writing in a diary, acting, and playing musical instruments.
I find all this quite difficult to believe, as most of the East Coast liberals that I am forced to deal with daily spout political generalizations and hackneyed expressions with an assurity and defiance that would be impressive, if it was even remotely thought-through or sustainable by facts.
But does enjoying poetry and crying during Sanda Bullock flicks make you a better person, or specifically a more sane one?
Dr. Sanity takes this sh*t apart:
....there is indeed some serious psychological pathology at work here, and it depends on which side of that question corresponds to objective reality. Which side is engaging in gross self-deception; and which side is denying and distorting reality and truth? Which side is constructing complicated conspiracy theories to shore up their view of the world and is refusing to process any information that contradicts that view?
How does a rational person decide which part of that question is true? Are we or are we not threatened by Islamic fascism?
How you answer that question will, of course, determine which political ideology you accuse of engaging in psychological pathology
Now, how's about a quick quiz - the good doctor gives a number of Roarsch-type questions that should be asked, I'll just sample a few:
Did Islamic fascists plan and execute the mass murder of 9/11 ; or, was it a conspiracy of the Bush Administration and the US government (and/or the Jews)?
Have Islamic fascists declared war on the U.S. and the West; or, are their statements--made on a daily basis-- simply mere rhetoric and in reality pose little or no threat to our national security?
Are we involved in a global war against Islamic fascism that is being waged right now (in Europe, the Middle East, Russia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Indonesia, the Phillipines etc.) against the fanatic religionists of Islam; or is this "war" a psychotic figment of neocons' imaginations?
Take the test, you don't need an answer guide to figure out your final score, although Dr. Sanity gives you a hint:
...I can't promise that everything will be okay--bad things do happen in the real world; innocents do suffer and evil does exist--but, you do have a choice: you can choose to face life with honor, integrity and dignity--fighting when necessary for those things that give meaning to human life; and standing up for that which is good; or, you can whine and whimper, cower and run from the unpleasantness of the real world--and just let yourself be a deer in the headlights waiting for that final crash to end the paralysis and self-deception.
Must be like Neo emerging from the Matrix to discover the disturbing truth about reality....
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Castro's Surgery, and New Jersey....
Every time an apologist for Cuba's tyrannical regime speaks up in its defense, the first thing they will brag about is Cuba's "excellent medical care". Uh huh:
Cuban leader Fidel Castro has long prided himself on Cuba's doctors and free public health care system, but that system seems to have let him down after he fell ill in July , U.S.-based doctors said on Tuesday.
Based on a report in Tuesday's edition of Spain's El Pais newspaper, the doctors -- who have no first-hand knowledge of Castro's condition -- said Castro had received questionable or even botched care at the hands of health experts on his communist-ruled island.
"It's not a good story. Too bad they didn't send him to Miami for surgery," said Dr. Charles Gerson...
According to two medical sources cited by El Pais, the veteran revolutionary was in "very serious" condition after three failed operations on his large intestine for diverticulitis, or pouch-like bulges in the intestine, complicated by infection.
The sources in El Pais were from the same Madrid hospital where a surgeon who visited the 80-year-old Castro in late December works.
Well, one fallacy bites the dust...too bad New Jersey lawmakers are too thick to get it. I wrote a few weeks ago about their attempts to institute certain price controls on doctors treating automobile-related injuries:
....why would any good doctor practice in New Jersey? It's not like the state intends to pay them:
The new fee limits will be based on federal Medicare rates with adjustments for New Jersey's high cost of living. Medicare is the national health insurance program for people over 65 years of age and its reimbursement rates are considered low.
Cuba's best doctors would rather take a chance swimming with the sharks than stay in Castro's communist paradise. Maybe if they we allowed to work for real money in an open market, instead of being forced to heal for the "good of the revolution", Fearless Leader would not be on his deathbed today.
Wait until New Jersey doctors, tired of getting paid what bought-off politicans tell them they should be earning, start leaving the state for fairer climes. How ironic if Corzine and his ilk need to seek treatment outside of their home state for medical woes. Oh, well, at least he can afford it. As for the rest of us, trapped in the People's State of New Jersey....
Cuban leader Fidel Castro has long prided himself on Cuba's doctors and free public health care system, but that system seems to have let him down after he fell ill in July , U.S.-based doctors said on Tuesday.
Based on a report in Tuesday's edition of Spain's El Pais newspaper, the doctors -- who have no first-hand knowledge of Castro's condition -- said Castro had received questionable or even botched care at the hands of health experts on his communist-ruled island.
"It's not a good story. Too bad they didn't send him to Miami for surgery," said Dr. Charles Gerson...
According to two medical sources cited by El Pais, the veteran revolutionary was in "very serious" condition after three failed operations on his large intestine for diverticulitis, or pouch-like bulges in the intestine, complicated by infection.
The sources in El Pais were from the same Madrid hospital where a surgeon who visited the 80-year-old Castro in late December works.
Well, one fallacy bites the dust...too bad New Jersey lawmakers are too thick to get it. I wrote a few weeks ago about their attempts to institute certain price controls on doctors treating automobile-related injuries:
....why would any good doctor practice in New Jersey? It's not like the state intends to pay them:
The new fee limits will be based on federal Medicare rates with adjustments for New Jersey's high cost of living. Medicare is the national health insurance program for people over 65 years of age and its reimbursement rates are considered low.
Cuba's best doctors would rather take a chance swimming with the sharks than stay in Castro's communist paradise. Maybe if they we allowed to work for real money in an open market, instead of being forced to heal for the "good of the revolution", Fearless Leader would not be on his deathbed today.
Wait until New Jersey doctors, tired of getting paid what bought-off politicans tell them they should be earning, start leaving the state for fairer climes. How ironic if Corzine and his ilk need to seek treatment outside of their home state for medical woes. Oh, well, at least he can afford it. As for the rest of us, trapped in the People's State of New Jersey....