Happy New Year...

...from my little roadside blog-stand, on a lost corner of the vast wilderness that is the internet.

Thanks for stopping by - I appreciate every visitor I get, and I am flatttered by the spike in readership this past year has brought.

Here's hoping that 2009 brings you everything you desire in life.

"And surely you will pay for your pint,
And surely I will pay for mine!
And we will take a cup of kindness yet
For auld lang syne!"

Best wishes to all...!

Wanna See Terrorists Die?

Islamists the world over have been having a field day by waging denial-of-service assaults on websites that dare to air the videos that the IDF is putting out, showing the percision bombing camapign that they have been waging against Hamas. The anti-Semite crowd on YouTube (which is larger than I ever imagined) is also "flagging" every video the IDF puts up on its on its "channel" in order to label it as "offensive", and thus have it removed.

When you have to supress the truth, guys, you know your case is really, really weak...Bad form....

So I am going to post two videos below showing terrorist infrastructure getting obliterated by IDF ordanance. If there are any civilians there, well...blame Hamas for sticking them there. If it offends you, you first have to explain why you support the Islamic terrorists of Gaza (crucifixion now legal!) over the peaceful democracy that is Israel. Then maybe we'll talk...

In the meantime, enjoy the show.

Israeli Navy Strikes Hamas-linked Terror Targets in Gaza



Israeli Air Force Destroys Tunnels, Launch Sites, and Weapons Stores

Why Israel Matters

The brilliant Melanie Phillips:

The issue of Israel sits at the very apex of the fight to defend civilisation. Those who wish to destroy western civilisation need to destroy the Jews, whose moral precepts formed its foundation stones. The deranged hatred of the Jews lies at the core of the Islamists’ hatred of America, the ‘infidel’ west and modernity, and is the reason why they wish to destroy Israel. Unless people in the west understand that Israel’s fight is their own fight, they will be on the wrong side of the war to defend not just the west but civilisation in general.

Why so much of the West roots for Israel's destruction is a subject for a multivolumned tome, but like a drinker knowingly careening towards rock bottom, we cannot represss our worst impulses, despite an inner nagging that they will be eventually result in our hastuy demise. And so goes Western Civilization, led off a cliff by liberals locked in a tounge-kiss with anti-Semites....

Incidentally, the next time you read about alleged "civilian deaths" in Gaza, remember this:

Two Hamas rockets struck nearly 30 miles inside Israel yesterday - farther than they've ever reached before...One of the Hamas rockets hit a children's playground in Beersheba yesterday. No one was wounded, but 34 people were treated for shock at a hospital.

One side goes to great pains to avoid civilian casualties, the other side deliberately targets innocent children. Look at which side the world is rooting for, and wonder not that 2008 has been an annus horriblus, with no light on the horizon that is 2009...

New Jersey, THIS Is Your Future!

Via Baseball Crank, we get a vision of the post-apocolyptical world that is the city of Detroit:

How bad is Detroit? It once gave the keys to the city to Saddam Hussein.

Over the last several years, it has ranked as the most murderous city, the poorest city, the most segregated city, as the city with the highest auto-insurance rates, with the bleakest outlook for workers in their 20s and 30s, and as the place with the most heart attacks, slowest income growth, and fewest sunny days.

It is a city without a single national grocery store chain. It has been deemed the most stressful metropolitan area in America. Likewise, it has ranked last in numerous studies: in new employment growth, in environmental indicators, in the rate of immunization of 2-year-olds, and, among big cities, in the number of high school or college graduates.

Men's Fitness magazine christened Detroit America's fattest city, while Men's Health called it America's sexual disease capital. Should the editors of these two metrosexual magazines be concerned for their safety after slagging the citizens of a city which has won the "most dangerous" title for five of the last ten years?

Probably not: 47 percent of Detroit adults are functionally illiterate.

A city of Democrats who refuse to vote any other way no matter how much the party has failed them; does that sound like any state you know?

Well, the WSJ knows where to look for abject failure:

New Jersey Is the Perfect Bad Example

When Barack Obama makes his New Year's resolutions, at the top of his list ought to be the following: "I will not allow America to become New Jersey."

....It seems not to have dented the consciousness of our political class that New Jersey's dismal economic performance might be linked to the state's tax policy. According to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, New Jersey is home to the most hostile tax environment for business in the nation. We also bear the nation's highest burden of state and local taxes. And on the list of the 10 counties with the highest median property tax, we claim seven of them.

Of course, there was one area where jobs did grow. From 2000 to 2007, says the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, the government added 54,800 jobs. To put that in proper perspective, that works out to 93% of all jobs created in New Jersey over those seven years.

So how do we respond to these new hard times? Beginning New Year's Day, New Jersey workers will see even more money taken from their paychecks...

How long until we become Detroit? Or California? Or Ramallah? That's up to us, of course, for in a democracy the voters always get the government they deserve...

"The Enemy of My Enemy...."

...and the wacky B-movie gorefest that is the Middle East rolls on. Jeffery Goldberg, again:

I've been talking to friends of mine, former Palestinian Authority intelligence officials (ejected from power by the Hamas coup), and they tell me that not only are they rooting for the Israelis to decimate Hamas, but that Fatah has actually been assisting the Israelis with targeting information. One of my friends told me that one of his comrades was thrown off a high-rise building in Gaza City last year by Hamas, and so he sheds no tears for the Hamas dead.

"Let the Israelis kill them," he said. "They've brought only trouble for my people."

A common view in the Middle East, apparently:

Hezbollah is ...calling for protests in Lebanon and across the Middle East to pressure Arab governments to act against Israel.

That call hasn't drawn any action for now — Egypt on Tuesday said it would not end its blockade of Gaza as long as Hamas remains in power there, and no Arab government has offered anything stronger than words and humanitarian assistance in response to Israel's assault.

For now, Hezbollah's strategy seems to be to mobilize the Arab masses, particularly in Egypt, while counting on Hamas holding out until Israel backs down under outside pressure to end the Gaza offensive.

Seems like Hezbollah is scared sh*tless of Isreal - who certainly have apperared to have learned the lessons of the 2006 war, and have promised to "flatten" any village in Lebenon that Hezbollah uses as a staging area for attacks on Northern Israel.

Seems like the only ones rooting for Hamas these days are the media, and they are certainly doing Hezbollah's bidding...

Media Working Hard for Hamas

First, the headline:

Israel rejects truce, presses on with Gaza strikes

Conjures up certain images, right? Now, on to the story:

Both sides rejected any notion of a ceasefire soon, three days after Israeli leaders launched bombing raids with the declared aim of halting rocket salvoes from the Hamas-controlled coastal enclave....

Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas official, said: "We are not begging for calm and there is no room to talk about calm amid the continued aggression and siege."

Seems as if both sides are in agreement over the necessity of killing each other. So what's with the headline? Need to go down about 17 paragraphs or so to get to it:

The United Nations and the European Union's executive arm have called for an immediate truce. But Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit said "there is no room for a ceasefire" with Hamas until the threat of rocket fire had been removed.

There are no further details given in this 28 paragraph story. What were the terms the UN and the EU, both notoriously very pro-Israel, were recommending? We don't know, because Reuters refuses to report it. Most likely a return to the status quo - Hamas killing Jews while Israel sits on its hands - which, while popular with the Reuters crowd, is less and less so with their reading public. But hey - why ruin a good anti-Israel headline with backround or facts?

This will get worse before it gets better. Wait for Hamas to roll out the old "bombed ambulance" trick that worked so well for Hezbollah a few years back...

My fellow Jews, Prepare To Be Disappointed...

Jeffery Goldberg is optimistic:

If someone was sending rockets on my house where my daughters were sleeping at night, I would do everything to stop it, and I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.

These aren't my words -- they're Barack Obama's. But I attach myself to this sentiment. Obama said this in July, after visiting the southern Israeli town of Sderot.

Here in the right corner we've had a few good laughs at Obama's center-pivot in his transition (Bill Gates, Rick Warren, most of his economic team, and even Hillary Clinton) and the feeling of abandonment and impotent rage that his devoted followers have suffered since.

So why are the Jews so cocky that he'll maintain his pro-Israel position once he actually needs to take one? With the Hebrew vote in his pocket and the twisted liberals of Jewish PAC J-Street whispering in his ear, he loses nothing by throwing his support against Israel in an attempt to "improve our standing in the Muslim world".

And the poor people of Sderot will be thrown under the bus, like so many who were once useful to Barack Obama when it was expedient for his ends....

UN Renews Its Position On Worthlessness of Jewish Lives

Not suprising, but still worth noting:

At the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon again condemned Israel's excessive use of force and called for an immediate cease-fire.

"The frightening nature of what is happening on the ground, in particular its effects on children — who are more than half of the population — troubles me greatly. I have continuously stressed the need for strict observance of international humanitarian law," he said.

So, Mr. Ki-moon..where the f*ck have you been over the last year as Jewish children in southern Israel have been forced to huddle daily - daily - in bomb shelters as Palestinian rockets rained down indiscriminately upon their towns, in direct violation of a cease-fire? And where were you a week ago when Hamas denounced the "truce" with Israel and exponentially increased their rocket fire?

That's right, asswipe. You were silent, nowhere to be seen or heard. Apparently, Jewish lives are of little interest to you. That's OK, same as your predecessor, no biggie. And despite your disdain for the lives of Jewish kids, the Israelis will continue to fight to protect them from the murderous intentions of Hamas - who, incidentally, target schools and day-care centers, unlike Israel, who does whatever she can to avoid them.

One hopes that the Israeli leadership will not fall for this line of guilt again, and do the right thing by their children, and finish off the scourge that is Hamas once and for all.

The Media Has Its Priorities Straight !

You want to write about a scandal? Great, getting back to basics when business is bad is always smart. Here's a list to get you started:

Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich - selling a Senate seat
Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel - tax cheat
Democratic Congressman William Jefferson - $96K in cold cash in the fridge?
Democratic Congressman/Obama aide Rahm Emanuel - buying aforementioned Senate seat?
Democratic Congressman Christopher Dodd - using his position to coerce favorable mortgage terms?
Democratic Congressman Barney Frank - a bit "cozy" with Fannie Mae?

So what did I see touted as "top news story" on my home page last night? This:

Sen. Craig restroom tanking as tourist destination

The men's room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport where Republican Sen. Larry Craig was arrested in a sex sting is losing it appeal as a tourist stop, an official said.

Wow. Even as a de facto 527 for the Democratic party - dudes, you are just embarrassing yourselves, OK?
I mean, you can distract some of the people some of the time....

Props to the AP, though, for getting Craig's Republican identification clarified within the first dozen words....

Hamas Dips Into Its Arsenal

Yesterday, the BBC noted Israel's fear that Hamas had increased its terroristic capabilities with more powerful rockets than it was currently using in its assault against southern Israel. Yesterday those fears were confirmed (note the sympathetic AP lede):

Unbowed by 250 Israeli airstrikes, militants fired dozens of rockets and mortars at border communities Sunday. Two rockets struck close to the largest city in southern Israel, Ashdod, some 38 kilometers (23 miles) from Gaza, reaching deeper into Israel than ever before. The targeting of Ashdod confirmed Israel's concern that militants are capable of putting major cities within rocket range.

The rockets that struck close to Ashdod, extending the militants' reach closer to Israel's heartland, landed some 23 miles (38 kilometers) from Gaza. Gaza's Hamas rulers have been stockpiling weapons in recent months, including medium-range missiles. Until Sunday, the deepest targets inside Israel had been the city of Ashkelon and the town of Netivot, which are about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from Gaza.

And when the usual chorus of anti-Semites begins to clamor for Israel's collective head for this alleged assortment of War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, and Atrocities, it would be useful to keep this in mind:

The offensive began eight days after a six-month truce between Israel and the militants expired. The Israeli army says Palestinian militants have fired more than 300 rockets and mortars at Israeli targets over the past week, and 10 times that number over the past year.

Incidentally, the truce did not quite expire; Hamas unilaterally "called it off" - despite Israel's willingness to keep it in place - and began the rocket barrage that has brought them - and thier people - to the edge of ruin.

So when the French complain about Israel's "disproportionate use of force," perhaps Israel will agree to stop the bombardment after they launch their 3,000th missile strike against Gaza.

Fair, no?

Israel Wreaks Havoc in Gaza; Long Past Due....

Israeli warplanes and combat helicopters pounded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing at least 155 people in the bloodiest day for Palestinians in more than 20 years of conflict.
Militants in the Gaza Strip responded with rocket salvoes that killed one Israeli man and wounded several others. Both sides said they were prepared to launch wider attacks.

Black smoke billowed over Gaza City, where the dead and wounded lay scattered on the ground after more than 30 air strikes destroyed Palestinian security compounds, including two where Hamas was hosting graduation ceremonies for new recruits.

Beautiful, says I. Killing these graduating terrorists before they had a chance to maim one innocent victim is doing God's work (see here for a moral justification of that position, incidentally). Personally, I feel the U.S should drop a few cluster munitions on some of those "Death to America" rallies held in Iran, and Syria....

Here's a BBC report, with its typical pro-Palestinian bent toned down a bit. Interesting to note, around the 3:30 mark, how the BBC announcer makes references to several thousand "stonger, more powerful" missiles - perhaps smuggled in from Iran - that Israel believed Hamas was gearing up to use against them:




I'm not going to backlink to this user, as his comments are filled with loathsome anti-semitism (and I don't know about the motivations of the host either), but there was at least one salient point made in the morass of hatred that could be found there:

"If Hamas and the Islamic world in general laid down it's weapons tomorrow there would be peace. If Isreal laid down their weapons tomorrow they would be dead"

2008: The Year in Global Warming Derangement

...or GWDS (Global Warming Derangement Syndrome), soon to be given its own chapter in the new DSM-IV

Anyway...FOX News gives us the headline: No Matter What Happens, Someone Will Blame Global Warming. It's got ten of the best examples of GWDS from the year 2008; here's a sampler:

Cannibalism - In April, media mogul Ted Turner told PBS's Charlie Rose that global warming would make the world 8 degrees hotter in 30 or 40 years. "Civilization will have broken down."
Crops won't grow and "most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals," Turner said.

The Death of the Loch Ness Monster - In February, Scotland's Daily Mirror reported that 85-year-old American Robert Rines would be giving up his quest for Scotland's most famous underwater denizen. A World War II veteran, Rines has spent 37 years hunting for Nessie with sonar equipment. In 2008, "despite having hundreds of sonar contacts over the years, the trail has since gone cold and Rines believes that Nessie may be dead, a victim of global warming."

Beer Gets More Expensive - In April, the Associated Press [the worst and perhaps most wildly insane of the alarmists; see here] reported that global warming was going to hit beer drinkers in the wallet because the cost of barley would increase, driving up the price of a pint....It will mean either there will be pubs without beer or the cost of beer will go up," Salinger said at a beer brewer's convention, the AP reported.

Kidney Stones - A University of Texas study said global warming will cause an increase in kidney stones over the next 30 years, the Globe and Mail reported in July.
Scientists predict that higher temperatures will lead to more dehydration and therefore to more kidney stones. "This will come and get you in your home," said Dr. Tom Brikowski, lead researcher and an associate professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. "It will make life just uncomfortable enough that maybe people will slow down and think what they're doing to the climate."

Black Hawk Down - Although it happened in 1993, the crash of a U.S. military helicopter in Mogadishu that became the film "Black Hawk Down" was blamed on global warming by a Massachusetts congressman in 2008.
"In Somalia back in 1993, climate change, according to 11 three- and four-star generals, resulted in a drought which led to famine,” Rep. Edward Markey told a group of students who had come to the Capitol to discuss global warming, according to CNSNews.com. "That famine translated to international aid we sent in to Somalia, which then led to the U.S. having to send in forces to separate all the groups that were fighting over the aid, which led to Black Hawk Down."

There's more....God, there's more...

And with the inmates about to be given the key to the asylum, you can bet that our 2009 GWDS list will put this one to shame.

Me, I'll be doing what I can to drive these nutjobs into the abyss: Unnecessarily driving my low-MPG Jeep offroad (oh, to avoid, let's say, a red light), using my gas-powered snowblower when an inch of the white stuff falls, using my energy-hogging leaf blower to blow all matter of things around and about, power-washing my house (man, does that thing generate that icky thick white smoke, or what!) as opposed to using a hose, and just in general trying to use as many devices that require a two-cycle (oil and gasoline mix) engine as possible!

That is, until Obama's brownshirted "Unity Corps" breaks down my door and takes them, "in the name of the people and the planet...!"

"NJ Government Fails at All Levels"

Oooh, is that the best headline of the day! John Bury at NJ.com:

What are New Jersey governments planning? Pension raids and musicfests. I am coming to the conclusion that government in New Jersey, at all levels, is incapable of coping with this Depression...

John goes on to bash every level of government in this thrid-world hellhole we call New Jersey. But buck up, the people at the very top seem to be very...relaxed:

At that [state] level those people have other priorities. They've won the lottery and the problems of the regular people are simply inconveniences to dance around.

Well, although I disagree we are in a "Depression", the fact is that New Jersey will get hit harder by this economic downswing than most states, simply by dint of our inability to control our spending and liberal litigation impulses during the good times. Unlike biblical imperatives, in New Jersey the Fall will goeth before Pride, as Democratic legislatures will sooner hand in their ACLU memberships then cut spending or trim the bloated state workforce. It's not until the state is gasping its last that voters - in a blind panic - will vote in a few fresh and fearless faces to clean up the mess.

How much damage will be done by that point? One doubts that New Jersey will ever recover....

"And So, This Is Christmas..."

This was too depressing to post yesterday, on Christmas Day, but important enough to still note while the spirit of the season remains upon us...

What has Christmas become, in parts of the world overtaken by - wait for it - politically correct liberalism? In a word - terrifying:

When my daughter stumbled, clambering on to the sleigh, Santa reached out and grabbed hold of her: an instinctive reaction, something we all might do. ....it was the look on Santa's face when he realised what he'd done that chilled to the marrow: a look, according to my wife, of pure, blind panic and fright. "I'm really, really, sorry for touching her," he mumbled. "I didn't mean to. I thought she might fall." This is where we are now.

A couple of years back, in Cairns, another Santa was sacked from his grotto in a department store for having said "Ho, ho, ho" to the children waiting before him. According to the store, he should have said "Ha, ha, ha" but he was a Bad Santa. "Ho, ho, ho" might be perceived as being derogatory to women, it was strongly argued....This is where we are now.

In my lovely old home town of Guisborough, in Cleveland, they used to have Santa on a sleigh riding through the part-cobbled old market high street, dispensing sweets to the kids. Not any more. The insurance monkeys and the health and safety monkeys got together and decided that it would cost about US$30,000 in future to safeguard and insure such an event. So of course it was stopped. This is where we are,etc....

A Santa Claus working at Selfridges department store in London was sacked this year for having invited an elderly woman to sit on his lap. I do not know what the elderly woman was doing in the queue for the grotto but, of course, it is her right to queue up to meet Santa and get a present...But you shouldn't have to put up with an outrage such as being invited to sit on Santa's lap, so Santa was sacked. A statement from Selfridges read: "We do not promote or proactively seek lap-sitting." Read that quote again and try to imagine the sort of person who wrote it...

In the north of England a boy was not allowed to attend his school's Christmas party because his parents had insisted, that he should not be required to attend lessons in religious education...The boy's mum, Dawn Riddell, was incandescent at the cruelty inflicted on her poor son. Christmas parties, she said, "have got absolutely nothing to do with Jesus". I think that's one of my favourite quotes of this year or any year. And that's where we are now, too.....

..it would seem to be the logical consequence of an agenda driven by the liberal middle-class Left over the past 30 years, in which the common denominator is the yearning for an artificial world that is entirely risk-free. Certainly there must be no risk to life or limb....no risk that anyone's sensibilities might be offended, no matter how thin their skins may have become over the years. It is an aspiration towards a pretend world, a confection every bit as make-believe as Santa's grotto.

Still, have a good Christmas now. And remember: it's got absolutely nothing to do with Jesus.

Depressing. While most of these tales of Christmas horror are from across the seas, remember that these are the societies that the Obamaphiles look to as an example of the direction America should be headed. And remember, once they take power in just over three weeks, armed with an imaginary mandate and a frightfully real Democratic-controlled Congress, there is no one to stand in their way.

Sleep well, with sugar plums dancing, etc....

A "Merry Christmas!", From Your Resident Jew

I like Christmas. A lot.

I grew up in an Italian-Catholic neighborhood, and celebrated Christmas with the families of my friends since I was a little kid. Not "celebrated" in the sense of going to church - it's not my place - but I was always invited over to a friends house to eat, drink, and occasionally exchange a gift. I think Christmas trees are beautiful, I like Christmas specials on TV, and I enjoy getting into the spirit of the season.

So it annoys the hell out of me when I hear people getting offended when they are wished a "Merry Christmas" by someone who good-naturedly assumes they celebrate. The intent of the greeting is good wishes on a special day; even if you do not worship the diety involved, the wish of a "merry" is a positive one; what the hell does it cost to smile, say "Thank you", and return the greeting?

Sometimes people will start to wish me a Merry Christmas, then stutter and stammer a bit when they remember I'm Jewish. It ususally goes like this:

"Hey, Jerseynut - Merry...oh, wait, I forgot..how do you pronounce it again....?"

Me: "it's OK - you can wish me a Merry Christmas!

"But you don't celebrate it - I'm sorry, happy...is it still...Hanukkah?"

Me: "Yes, but it's OK. A Merry Christmas to you too ! "

"Can you say that?"

I'll speak for myself: I'll take any good wishes I can get, whether I celebrate them or not. I understand this is predominately a Christian nation, and as a Jew, I thank God that I live here, perhaps the most hospitable nation for a Jew since our beginnings. After thousands of years of being persecuted, tormented, executed...is this the best we can do? Complain about Christmas greetings and Christmas trees on public property? To my people I say - get a grip. Thank God for your good luck. And of course, Merry Christmas!

I'll end with an excerpt (that checked out OK on Snopes) from a viral email that I recieved with a holiday message from fellow tribe member Ben Stein:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat....

Hamas-Speak, Translated Into English !

With Hamas now pounding southern Israel with "dozens of rockets and mortar bombs" (which the AP calls, ahem, a "flare-up"), it might be a good time to review the phrases that Hamas uses when addressing English-speaking media, and what they really mean. J.G. Thayer helpfully provides a translation guide:

Truce: A period during which Hamas limits its offensive actions to rockets and mortar shells, smuggles in more and more weapons, and Israel is not allowed to hit back.

Resumption of hostilities: Hamas increases the rocket and mortar attacks, resumes suicide bombings, and other attacks. Israel is still not allowed to hit back.

War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, Atrocities: Israel hits back.

Innocent Civilians: Anyone killed or wounded by Israel.

Legitimate Military Targets: Anyone within Israel. Also, any thing within Israel, including pizza parlors, buses, and Passover celebrations.

Occupation: What Hamas is resisting, even though there is not a single Israeli within the Gaza Strip.

Humanitarian Relief: Bombs, explosives, and other weapons

Next lesson: AP-speak to English translations! For instance, did you know a "flare-up" that is "dampening prospects for a renewed ceasefire", really means that Hamas fired 30 rockets and 30 mortar shells into Israel, without a response? See lexicon above to be able to describe what will happen when Israel decides to fight back...

"Damn! Why Didn't We Think Of That?"

You know that's the wail heard today from media outlets across America, as Britian manages to outdo us again by shamelessly kowtowing to a deadly foe while simultaneously defiling Christmas:

Merry Christmas, "bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers."

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will deliver a Christmas Day broadcast on Britain's Channel 4 television, occupying a slot used to provide an often controversial counterpoint to Queen Elizabeth II's traditional annual message, the station said Wednesday.

In his recorded message, Ahmadinejad offers seasonal greetings to Christians and says he believes that if Jesus were alive, he would "stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers," an apparent reference to the United States and its allies.

Imagine, if MSNBC, CNN, or any of the "Big Three" had thought about this a few years earlier, they could have aired a Christmas message from Osama bin Laden, or perhaps from Saddam Hussein, as an "alternative" to the good-natured good-will that we try to enjoy this time of year...

The pathetic excuse from the far-left bureucrats who run the BBC?

"As the leader of one of the most powerful states in the Middle East, President Ahmadinejad's views are enormously influential. As we approach a critical time in international relations, we are offering our viewers an insight into an alternative world view," Dorothy Byrne, head of news and current affairs at Channel 4 , said.

Maybe. But not during Christmas. No more appropriate than having Hitler deliver Hanukkah greetings as a way to try to understand his "insight" into the "issue" of Judiasm.

But the true intent here is not to inform, but to offend. And on that scale, Ms. Byrne did her job extremely well...

Stupid in Seattle

After a few years of Democratic control, all of America will look like Seattle....frozen in place and unable to move, becaause somewhere, somehow, a little fishie might get hurt.

Think I am kidding? Seattle's streets are packed with snow and ice after an unusually heavy snowfall - caused by global warming, of course - and it turns out that the city's liberal elders want it that way:

To hear the city's spin, Seattle's road crews are making "great progress" in clearing the ice-caked streets. But it turns out "plowed streets" in Seattle actually means "snow-packed," as in there's snow and ice left on major arterials by design.

"We're trying to create a hard-packed surface," said Alex Wiggins, chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. "It doesn't look like anything you'd find in Chicago or New York."

The city's approach means crews clear the roads enough for all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles, or those with front-wheel drive cars as long as they are using chains, Wiggins said.

The icy streets are the result of Seattle's refusal to use salt, an effective ice-buster used by the state Department of Transportation and cities accustomed to dealing with heavy winter snows. "If we were using salt, you'd see patches of bare road because salt is very effective," Wiggins said. "We decided not to utilize salt because it's not a healthy addition to Puget Sound."

And what about all the accidents that will obviously occur with increasing frequency, resulting in dozens of injuries and even death, due to this policy of putting people last?

Well, I won't cry for you, liberal cattle in Seattle - you voted for this kind of government, so don't complain when your ass hits the ice-covered pavement and sends you skidding foolishly down the street. Just remember, as you slowly get up and limp away - you are liberal, you are progressive, you are superior...

Caroline Kennedy? Or Mr. Kennedy?

The media is gearing up to get behind her - not for our own good, but for theirs. Celebrity+politics = good copy, and maybe increased readership/viewership besides. Lord knows they need it, and will throw us under the bus to get it...

James Taranto reveals how far the media is trying to stretch in order for us to believe Princess Caroline is one of us:

Bloomberg columnist Albert R. Hunt makes the case for why Basil Paterson's son should appoint John F. Kennedy's daughter to replace Bill Clinton's wife in the Senate:

[Caroline Kennedy] has all the qualities--intellectual curiosity; a friendly, at times pointed, sense of humor, and a deferential manner (she hails her own cabs)--that are the stuff of a good legislator. '

She hails her own cabs! This is what passes for a common touch these days? Lots of New Yorkers can't even afford cabs and ride the subway instead.

When we read this, our first thought was: We hail our own cabs, too. We deserve that Senate seat.

Victor Davis Hanson doesn't know whether to laugh or cry:

The probable appointment of Caroline Kennedy, the 51-year-old daughter of former President John Kennedy, to fill Secretary-of-State nominee Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate seat is both laughable and yet a parable for our bankrupt times.

Ms. Kennedy apparently spends a great deal of her time divided between her Park Avenue Upper-East-Side Manhattan townhouse and her hereditary estate on Martha’s Vineyard. She has had no real experience with the ordinary lives of New Yorkers

Ms. Kennedy is about as undiverse as one could imagine. She was educated at exclusively private schools among those of her like race and class. Her financial security is due to either inheritance or marriage; there is no evidence of a self-employed stellar legal or business career.

Her only prerequisites for Senator are her pedigree from her father and her purported celebrity mystique passed on from her mother Jackie.

We know in our hearts that Charles Gibson and Katie Couric, who mercilessly grilled pro-life, Christian Sarah Palin with the poor white twang, would pull in their talons—if given the chance to dialogue with Caroline.

In short, appointing Caroline Kennedy to the Senate from New York tells us a lot more about ourselves than it does even her.

Gawker reports on the New York Times' reporting, becuase I don't have the stomach to:

Reasoning that senate candidates have to file an elaborate, 10-part report on their assets, debts and income, and that Kennedy herself oversaw intensive vetting of Barack Obama's running mates, the Times asked Kennedy for "a variety of basic data," including "potential ethical, legal and financial entanglements." Appropriate.

Kennedy refused!

Really, if liberals claimed Sarah Palin was unqualified for the undemanding post of VP, how in the world can Caroline Kennedy be a qualified Senator- one of only two - charged with representing and fighting for the needs of the tens of millions of ordinary people who live in New York State? What has she actually ever had to fight tooth-and-nail for, anyway, in her privileged life?

She's done nothing, folks, absolutely nothing - and that's about all she is qualified to do at this point.

You guys want another celebrity politician? Dying for another Kennedy to set you free? Well, here's one who actually may be qualified for the job:


Kennedy is more than just talk - he knows how to dish it out in the ring. He can talk smack and give it back at the same time. Kennedy has billed himself as the future of sports-entertainment and future of WWE. Those are quite bold statements, but Kennedy's record speaks for itself. The laundry list of former World Champions and future Hall of Famers he has defeated reads like a Who's Who of the elite in WWE. Kane, Undertaker, Rey Mysterio, Batista and Shawn Michaels, among others, have all tasted defeat at the hands of Mr. Kennedy. Though he has held the United States Championship and is a former Mr. Money in the Bank winner, Kennedy will not be content until he is a World Champion.

So what fuels Mr. Kennedy's desire? Maybe it is his huge ego; maybe it's greed...


Is he a Democrat? If so...sign him up!

The North, Looking to Re-Enact Sherman's March?

Instead of all the backlash we were told to expect from the hidebound South when Barack Obama won the presidency, it is the North, now flush with victory, that wishes to refight the Civil War just to make sure those on the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon line know who's really in charge of this here nation....

Barack Obama is leading the charge, as more and more folks are getting irritated at what we noticed a few days back, that the new president's diversity does not extend to Southern-Americans:

The South may have inched toward Democrats in November, but that progress isn't showing in President-elect Barack Obama's Cabinet selections. Obama hasn't nominated a single Southerner among his 15 Cabinet secretaries.

The disparity isn't an accident — critics already are calling it a snub — and that perception could slow the pace of recent electoral gains Democrats have made below the Mason-Dixon line.
"Southerners need not apply," said Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga. "It's hard to believe that there wasn't anybody qualified for something from the South."

Most of his other nominees have come from the Democrat-rich Northeast, with a couple from his home state of Illinois.
Obama officials declined to directly discuss the dearth of Southerners among his top aides, reiterating statements that Obama's staff will be one of the most diverse and qualified in history.

I wonder if Southern-Americans will agree that a cabinet that deliberately excludes them can also represent them, as Obama's officials seem to say. Well, half of them will be gone by the time Blago-gate is over anyway...

Salon.com claims the the South must be "northernized" (sorry, "Americanized") in order to make them economically equal to - in other words, as weak as - the Northeast, and of course to avoid any chance that the blue states could be contaminated by the touch of the South:

The alternative to the Southernization of the U.S. is the Americanization of the South -- a process that was not completed by Reconstruction and the New Deal and the Civil Rights era, which can be thought of as the Second Reconstruction.

The first step is to end the race to the bottom in wages and regulation, by national action. The national minimum wage should be gradually raised until it is a living wage, of $10 to $12 an hour, and it should be adjusted for inflation.... Most Southern politicians and business leaders will howl that this will bankrupt the South. That's what they said about the abolition of slavery, child labor, and the convict lease system, too.

Wow. Not paying a $12- hour wage is equal to slavery? Wait, the liberal elite's hatred of its fellow Americans gets worse:

If a non-Southern majority, controlling the White House and Congress, with the support of at least some moderate Republicans in other regions, along with the support of Southern populists and progressives, is too timid to take on a Southern oligarchy that is willing to wreck the national economy to promote their local economic empires, then the neo-Confederates have already prevailed.

The choice is simple -- the reconstruction of the South, or the deconstruction of the U.S. economy.

Thank God for the fact that the Northeastern liberal elite have taken over the country, or else who knows how far those "neo-Confederates" may have gone! Why, they may have pushed their successful economy (the five least successful states economically are all dark blue, incidentally - California, Michigan, Rhode Island are the top three) up to our borders, and taken folks off of welfare with $8/hr jobs! The nerve!

Well, liberals need to feed on their fellow Americans to survive, and now that Bush and the neo-conservatives are off the radar for a while, it it the South and the neo-Confederates that are the true threat to "our" way of life.

And based on his cabinet appointments, Barack Obama seems to agree. For his own sake, I'll reprise a bit more from my post on the subject:

Barack better remember what the great Lynyrd Skynyrd taught us:

Well I heard mister Obama sing about her
Well, I heard ole Baracky put her down
Well, I hope Barack Obama will remember
A southern man don't need him around anyhow...

In Illinois they love(d) the governor
Now we all did what we could do
Now Blago-gate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you? Tell the truth...

Wow, so a day without a true "post". Haven't done that since I went on that three-day bender down in Long Beach Island back in mid-August.

Four months, long run. Need to stop. Take a breath. Then begin again. Maybe tomorrow....

Maybe. But a three-day bender sounds real good right about now. Work sucks, I've got a cold, and traffic is just flippin' brutal.

Hmmm...could start tomorrow afternoon at the company Christmas party, and just run it through the whole damn snowy weekend...

How Deep In The Tank?

The Washington Post has been the worst of all; and they just can't stop the music, even with their man about to enter the White House....

Check it out - they're creating a special classified section specifically for inaguration day:

WashingtonPost Media is at the epicenter of the inauguration, and the Classifieds team is giving readers the chance to send a personal message of congratulations to President-Elect Obama that can be read by millions. The announcements can be placed though the call center or online, with prices starting at $10 for the combo.

Just like they did for George W. Bush, right?

Anyway, nothing wrong with this little scam - everyone's trying to make a few bucks off the inauguration, why shouldn't the paper that helped put him there? But there is a pretty interesting disclaimer to the WaPo's "classified kudos" scheme that Media Bistro caught:

"All ads must be congratulatory in nature"

Just like they were for George W. Bush, right?

Isn't this somewhat discriminatory? If a man can successfully sue eHarmony for not allowing gay matchmaking, can't someone argue that the Washington Post is equally discriminatory against people of different...preferences, who also have a right to express their opinion publically?

Won't happen, conservatives don't roll that way - the whiney, bitchy, look-at-me-I-am-an-oppressed-victim way. Still, I'd love to see the Washington Post get its comeuppence for its insanely unprofessional behavior this election season.

Well, I'll just have to wait for their inevitable Chapter 11 filing, I guess...

Bush: I Burned The Village To Save the Village

Whenever you feel the need to sacrifice priciples, you've either done the wrong thing, or your attachment to said principles was never too strong to being with:

US President George W. Bush said in an interview Tuesday he was forced to sacrifice free market principles to save the economy from "collapse."

"I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system," Bush told CNN television, saying he had made the decision "to make sure the economy doesn't collapse."

Bush's comments reflect an extraordinary departure from his longtime advocacy for an unfettered free market, as his administration has orchestrated unprecedented government intervention in the face of a dire financial crisis.

"I am sorry we're having to do it," Bush said.

Me too. I think we'll be sorry for a long, long time...

Update 12/19: It has begun....

And The Democrats Can't Wait To Spend More!

Keep those bailouts coming....

The United States of America is bankrupt. Don’t believe it? Consider this: Federal obligations now exceed the collective net worth of all Americans, according to the New York-based Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Washington politicians and bureaucrats have essentially mortgaged everything We the People own so they can keep spending our tax dollars like there’s no tomorrow.

The foundation’s grim calculations are based on Sept. 30 consolidated federal statements, which showed that Americans’ total household net worth, diminished by falling stock prices and home equity, is $56.5 trillion. But rising costs for unfunded social programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security increased to $56.4 trillion – and that was before the more recent stock market crash, $700 billion bank bailout, and monster federal deficits chalked up in October and November.

“Given more recent developments, it’s clear that America now owes more than its citizens are worth,” said Foundation president David M. Walker, the former Comptroller-General of the United States who has been trying to warn Americans of the coming financial tsunami for years, to no avail. So, after Uncle Sam bails out bankers, Wall Street gamblers, carmakers and over-their-head homeowners, who’ll bail out Uncle Sam?

The crazy thing is, none of the aformentioned bailouts have crossed the threshold of even a 50% approval rating among American voters. So why is the political class shoving this down our throats? What's in it for them I wonder? Or are we to just shut up and believe that Nancy Pelosi, Charles Rangel, Chris Dodd, and Barney Frank are simply so much smarter than the rest of us that our best course of action is to smile blandly and take it?

Based on their results since the election of 2006, that's a hard sell.

Barack Obama: Keepin' The Southern Man Down!

Not on his radar:

Barack Obama has moved faster than any modern president-elect in selecting his Cabinet, scouring Wall Street, academia and the Senate to assemble a diverse team that has won bipartisan praise.

Still, the Democrat’s star-studded roster lacks representatives from two groups: Southerners and the Republicans that he vowed to appoint during the campaign.

After Obama’s victory, John Podesta, the co-chairman of the transition team, reaffirmed the president-elect’s campaign intentions, saying Republicans would be “spread throughout the administration.”

Allan Lichtman, a professor at American University in Washington, said it would be a mistake for Obama to neglect the South.
“He’d be very much remiss not to name a Southerner,” Lichtman said. “After all, he’s trying to convert the South back to the Democratic Party, and he doesn’t want to be accused of snubbing the South.”

Barack better remember what the great Lynyrd Skynyrd taught us:

Well I heard mister Obama sing about her
Well, I heard ole Baracky put her down
Well, I hope Barack Obama will remember
A southern man don't need him around anyhow...

In Illinois they love(d) the governor
Now we all did what we could do
Now Blago-gate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you? Tell the truth...

Well, Obama has the pat liberal answer for Lynyrd Skynyrd, and anyone else who wants to know where the southern portion of the Mason-Dixon line disappeared to during his presidency:

Obama’s White House will have at least one public Southern accent. Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, will brief reporters in his native Alabama drawl.

Ah, tokenism. The calling card of the liberal elitist. "Sure, we don't have anyone fron the South in our Cabinet, but listen to my spokesman talk! Doesn't he have the most authentic regional dialect imaginable?"

A Southern man - moreso than a Northeastern liberal - knows when he's getting jacked around. That's why they rarely help elect Democrats. You got a real thin rope here, Baracky...

Washington Post Shills for Auto Bailout...

...perhaps because they hope the legacy media is next in line to recieve some no-strings taxpayer cash?

Buried on page D8, we find another story (like yesterday's on "global warming") that tried to tell us that up is, in fact, down:

55 percent of those polled oppose the latest plan that Chrysler, Ford and General Motors executives pitched to Congress last week, on par with public opposition to earlier, pricier efforts. But with 42 percent support, the new request for up to $14 billion in emergency loans has more backers than previous proposals to secure up to $34 billion in loan guarantees.

And right next to a picture of a GMC office building, we get this caption:

With the support of 42 percent polled, a new request for up to $14 billion in loans for the auto industry has more backers than previous proposals.

So it's not the 55% of the country that is opposed (69% of Republicans, 57% of Independants, and Democrats splitting among regional lines..even union households only approve 44-42%) that matters...it's the fact that 42% of the people approve that's "newsworthy"! Hey, people are finally starting to see things the same way as the Washington Post's editorial staff! Finally!

Bottom line: A story about bailout opposition that crosses party and class lines gets buried in section D, page 8, and is warped into a story about "more backers" for these loans.

Same way they skew their political reporting, I reckon...

Shoot - if our alleged leadership were in place in the early 1900's, we'd still be subsidizing buggy whip manufacturers...

Quid Pro Quo, Jay Carney?

I haven't picked up Time magazine since the last time I went to the dentist, but I am sure their coverage of Election 2008 was fair and even-handed all the way through:

[Washington bureau chief] Jay Carney is leaving Time magazine after 20 years to be Vice President-elect Joe Biden's communications director in the White House, astonished magazine and gleeful transition sources said. Carney's title will be assistant to the vice president and director of communications.

More of the ties that bind:

Carney and his wife, Claire Shipman, the senior Washington correspondent for ABC's "Good Morning America," have two children — a son, Hugo, and daughter, Della.

This is the second member of the media elite who has signed on with Obama's administration. ABC News correspondent Linda Douglass joined the campaign as traveling spokeswoman, and now is working for Obama's Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Am I the only one to find this a bit...unseemly?

The AP has a Global Warming Freakout!

Is it the fact that gloabal warming has been kicked to the back burner (so to speak) by more pressing needs such as the ability to aquire work, food, gas, and shelter that has sent the AP off the deep end?

Well, the AP is gonna try to bring it back to the forefront, even if insanely over-the-top reputation-destroying hyperbole is the only way to do it...some samples of their work:

When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid...

Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it....

Obama is pushing changes in the way Americans use energy, and produce greenhouse gases, as part of what will be a massive economic stimulus. He called it an opportunity "to re-power America."

Scientists are increasingly anxious, talking more often and more urgently about exceeding "tipping points."
"We're out of time," Stanford University biologist Terry Root said. "Things are going extinct."

Scientists fear that what's happening with Arctic ice melt will be amplified so that ominous sea level rise will occur sooner than they expected. They predict Arctic waters could be ice-free in summers, perhaps by 2013, decades earlier than they thought only a few years ago.

Obama is stacking his Cabinet and inner circle with advocates who have pushed for deep mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas pollution and even with government officials who have achieved results at the local level.

Yeah, in California and New Jersey, where both economies are a total wreck - hey, let's bring that negative progression nationwide! Sure, people are going broke at an amazing rate in "green" states, but at least they'll starve breathing 0.00000001% cleaner air!

They end with a joke:

Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

Ah, OK. Because we are in a cooling tend, that means we are actually in a warming trend, and anyone who says the opposite is a "skeptic", and thus less informed than the AP.

There is so much evidence to refute this nonsense printed under the guise of news I don't know where to begin (although you can make a start, and follow the links from here). So just look again at that last sentence, and note the contortions they must put themselves through to make their global warming case salient.

If you need to use argumentations such as "well, if up was down and black were white then "A" would be true" to make your case, then...you ain't got a case. Shame on you, AP, for trying to scare people with made-up monster stories, when we have so many real bogeymen - the crashing economy, crazy oil prices, foreign terrorists, plunging home values, and Barack Obama - to worry about...

Hate Crimes in Alaska; Media Chuckles to Itself...

Yeah, I am sure that the media's relentlesss gang -rape of Sarah Palin and its subsequent attempts to turn her into a cross between the village (of Wasilla) idiot and the whore of Babylon had nothing to do with what happened on Friday night:

Sarah Palin's church in Alaska was set on fire with women and children inside, working on arts and crafts, authorities said yesterday.

No one was hurt in the blaze, which began near the Wasilla Bible Church's entrance at about 9:30 p.m. Friday and caused an estimated $1 million in damage.

A spokesman for Palin said the governor, who was not at the church at the time, apologized to the congregation in case the fire was connected to any "undeserved negative attention" the church received after she became John McCain's presidential running mate.

"Whatever the motives of the arsonist, the governor has faith in the scriptural passage that what was intended for evil will in some way be used for good," the statement said.

It's a bottom-story, of course. Where would the media placement have been if an outspoken liberal had his/her place of worship (or favorite abortion clinic) set ablaze with women and children inside?

Fuggedaboutit....we'd be seeing candlelight vigils and editorials screaming about "right-wing hatred". But when liberals (and I admit, this is an assumption here) commit a hate crime, well...bottom of page 12, folks.

The placement is not accidental - it gives the attack almost an air of respectability. After all, if it really were an outrage, it would be on the front page, right?

Imagine if Reverend Wright's Chicago church was burned with women and children inside. Would that particular story be buried at the bottom of page ten? Nah, I didn't think so either. And the difference is what, exactly?

Oh yeah. Racial. And political. In the media's America, it is not the victims of a crime that matter as such; their suffering - and the outrage generated by such - is a matter of the color of their skin, and the political parties they support.

And people thing that this country is taking steps forward with the election of Barack Obama? Maybe, if eliminating one type of hatred by being accepting of another can be considered "progress"...

George W. Bush: Liberal Idiot?

What else am I supposed to think? The Republican party in Congress (or what's left of it, anyway) mounts a stalwart defense against the giveaway of billions of dollars to what Roger Simon calls "a rescue program for incompetent execs and thuggish union leaders", and what does W do? He frantically tries to sabotage the party's last stand against a nationalized auto industry by attempting to divert funds from dollars dedicated to rescuing the financial sector of the economy (keeping the financials of a country operating is not the same as rescuing three individual companies within one industry, incidentally).

NRO points to the procedural overeach by the Bush administration here:

...the Bush administration’s decision to use the bank-bailout funds to rescue the auto companies is both disappointing and wrong-headed. Congress directed the administration to use those funds to save the financial system, not three car companies. Congress’s intent cannot be misconstrued, especially after it explicitly rejected the automakers’ pleas for help.

....Bankruptcy court is the place where cooler heads can sort through Detroit’s Byzantine labor contracts and decide what makes sense and what doesn’t.

His [Bush's] reversal on this issue is a sad affront to his party and its philosophy — not the exit we would have hoped for.

The Republican party will have a lot of tought fights ahead. This victory was a no-brainer - with even some Senate Democrats weak-kneed on the auto bailout - and the President betrayed his party just when they had won the fight, a fight that had strong public backing.

Why? It's all about legacy, of course. Bush didn't want to be known as the president on who's watch the auto industry failed. Instead, he will be known as the president on who's watch the nationalization of the auto industry began. And we all know how well that's going to work out.

Sweet Jeebus, bring on Barack Obama already. At least we'll see the knife coming from the front as opposed to feeling it slicing through the back...

Good Question

Pseudo-con David Brooks, writing in today's New York Times:

Why is it that the pork-meisters in Congress are already distorting the best-laid stimulus plans? Why are there so few saying “no” to any budget request? Why do so many of the plans being offered rely upon a Magic Technocrat — an all-knowing Car Czar who can reorganize Detroit, an all-seeing team of Olympians who decide which medicines doctors will be allowed to prescribe?

Jen Rubin answers:

Well, it is because the voters, egged on by dreamy-eyed elites, voted for the “brilliant” candidate, the transformational candidate — who has now resorted to every bad, old idea he could find.

Didn't I just say that intellectual-worship will surely mean the death of us all?

More from Brooks:

Once America was a decentralized country, but now all roads lead to Washington. Mighty C.E.O.’s abase themselves before junior House members. Governors and mayors come groveling. The status of the lowliest bureaucrat has risen delightfully, and there is a feeling of overflowing abundance amid the national scarcity as Washington spends the trillions it doesn’t have.

Certainly something big needs to be done to calm this crisis, but perhaps in the doing, some unholiness is being unwittingly and rashly created....

Watch that last sentence. It is prophetic.