Saturday, August 09, 2003

Great point in a larger editorial that points out the lie in the Jackals attacks on Bush that I pointed out here a couple weeks ago. Bush never said the threat from Saddam was imminent. In fact, he said the argument against the war that relied on the belief that there was not an imminent threat was irresponsible because there can be little certainty as to when a threat becomes imminent. Any responsible national security posture in a post 9/11 world eliminates the threat before it can become imminent. Of course, the suicidal fanatics on the Left have not yet figured this out.


OpinionJournal - Featured Article: "The larger trouble with the imminence threshold is that in a post-September 11 world it is impossible to define and is therefore dangerous. When can we really say that the World Trade Center attack was 'imminent?' Perhaps even Senator Graham would agree it was imminent on September 10, when the killers partied away in Portland, Maine, but of course by then it was too late to stop it except by luck."
France is in Trouble

Things aren't going well right now in France. The economy is in the toilet, so with tax revenues down and entitlement payments up, the government is running a big deficit. This puts France in direct violation of EU guidelines.

One of the reasons is that the French tourism industry is in deep trouble, in particular because Americans have decided that they no longer want to visit. There had been hints that something like this might be coming. I predicted it in April. But just after the war, French business leaders publicly denied that there was any real chance of such a thing. After all, deep down the French and Americans are such wonderful friends. Unfortunately, that came across as "whistling past the graveyard", and in June they began to admit that there was a problem, though they still tried to portray it as being small.

Now it's beyond dispute: it is big and it is important.


USS Clueless

Of course, just about every economy in the world is sluggish. Does that effect ours?

Intriguing, isn't it, that when one mentions a poor economy in California, Leftists state that California's woes are inherited from the woes of its "parent" economy, the United States economy. But when Leftists wail and wuffle about the United States economy, they never attribute it to weakness in the world economy.

"Now why is that?" I wonder.
MoveOn Lefties express outrage...

...at things that never happened. No wonder they love the idea of a Nanny State - these extreme American Leftists just need someone to follow.

Hollywood Halfwits -> MoveOn.Org not happy at being called Pro-Saddam by WSJ
Tell Me Again Why The Russians Objected

Contrary to what some in the major media have reported, not all the jets found were from the Gulf War era.

The Russian-made MiG-25 Foxbat being recovered by U.S. Air Force troops in the photos is an advanced reconnaissance version never before seen in the West and is equipped with sophisticated electronic warfare devices.


Iraqi 'Mach 3' MiG Buried in Sand

Friday, August 08, 2003

N. Korea next to hear U.S. war drum


A senior Pentagon adviser has given details of a war strategy for invading North Korea and toppling its regime within 30 to 60 days, adding muscle to a lobbying campaign by U.S. hawks urging a pre-emptive military strike against Pyongyang's nuclear facilities.

Less than four months after the end of the Iraq war, the war drums in Washington have begun pounding again. A growing number of influential U.S. leaders are talking openly of military action against North Korea to destroy its nuclear-weapons program, and even those who prefer negotiations are warning of the mounting danger of war.


The Globe and Mail
Car Chases Too Dangerous

A federal appeals court has ruled that police may not use deadly force to stop someone trying to get away in a car, even if the chase itself presents a danger to public safety. It’s better, the court said, for police to just stop chasing.

Court: Car chases too dangerous
Davey Boy's Bag o' Fun!

Quite a few good articles today, several from Townhall.com. One by Rich Lowry, one by Larry Elder (which I will touch on more in a moment), one from Jonah Goldberg (Not as funny as usual, but still insightful), one from Michelle Malkin (Sexy, smart, conservative. It doesn't get any better than this, boys), and one last article by Paul Crespo, who attempts to figuratively smack President Bush upside the head. With good reason.

Now then, the article by Larry Elder on North Korea. This is one of the great hipocrisies that the Dimmy Donk Nine have been involved with. They shrieked and fumed at Bush's "unilateral" action in Iraq, (Translation: Joined by 45 different countries, but not France or Germany), but they want Bush to act unilaterally with North Korea.

After the way the Donks handled North Korea last time (Possibility of two nuclear weapons already built, in violation of every treaty they've signed with us on that topic) it still amazes me that the Donks think that they have ANY credibility left. If Clinton and Jimmah Cah-tuh hadn't screwed the pooch on this in the '90s, we wouldn't be staring at a mad, power-hungry dictator with delusions of grandure and a pudgy little finger on a big red button.

Okay, onto the blogs. Just two articles for you today, one from The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler. Short short version, the mayor of Hiroshima is pissed that the USA might be looking at R&D for tactical nukes.

Tadatoshi Akiba said Washington's apparent worship of "nuclear weapons as God" was threatening world peace

And here's where I get really mad and need to walk around to calm down.....

Akiba didn't directly criticize Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. But he urged North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, President Bush and the heads of other nuclear-armed countries to visit Hiroshima and confront the nuclear attack's aftermath.

Right. So a sawed-off half-pint threatening everyone and their mothers with nuclear war doesn't get your ire up, but a country who wants to develop weapons to deal with said half-pint is horrible and bad? Do I have that correct, Mr. Mayor?

Must. Calm. Down...... Need. Beer. Badly.

So I figure that I'll leave that blog, and go read up on some nifty obscure firearm to calm myself down. Hey, it works for me, don't knock it! I can't afford the range fees right now, so I have to read about some WWII rifle. It's a cheap substitute, but it works. Anyways, I go over to Mr. Firearms himself, Kim du Toit, and what do I see?

Yet another blood pressure raising report on liberal idiocy.

Want to guess who it's about? Do ya? Do ya? C'mon, take a guess! Here, I'll even give you a clue!

"It has been clear for a number of years that there really is a vast right-wing conspiracy.

Anyways, I have leatherwork to finish, guns to be cleaned, a motorcycle to be covered, and my blood pressure is up to the "Dollar signs popping out of cardiologist's eyes" levels. Time for me to drink a brew, plop down on the couch, and sign off for the night.

Toodles!
Got your Child Tax Credit check yet?

A couple suggestions:

Spend it at Sears

The USO
New York Time - Duped Again

I check the Corrections section of the New York Times every couple of days, mainly for laughs. But occasionally you find something more serious, like this entry from yesterday's edition...

Power Line: New York Times Hoaxed
Australian Paper reports...

A high-ranking al-Qaeda operative in custody disclosed that Iraq supplied the Islamist militant group with material to build chemical and biological weapons, the White House said today.

"A senior al-Qaeda terrorist, now detained, who had been responsible for al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, reports that al-Qaeda was intent on obtaining (weapons of mass destruction) assistance from Iraq," the White House said in a report.


Al-Qaeda chief told us Iraq supplied WMD material: US - War on Iraq - smh.com.au
The Online Journal of Chief Wiggles

Straight from Iraq
Younger Blacks Not Kneejerk Democrats

The more economically self-sufficient blacks become, the more education they get, the more successful they are, the more likely they are to reject the Democratic Party that has taken them for granted at the polls for thirty years.

Blacks are largely powerless politically, as Republicans ignore them, knowing they don't vote Republican, and Democrats assume the vote. This article quotes a couple young black folk who get it, and sooner or later it will become widespread conventional wisdom: if blacks were to vote Republican en masse, just once, their political power would increase tenfold.

Younger Blacks Tell Democrats to Take Notice

Thursday, August 07, 2003

German Schools in Trouble

It sounds like every child's dream: only 41/2 hours of school a day, no attendance taken, a free day if a teacher is sick, no punishment for playing hooky.

But this is no dream, as Germans have suddenly awakened to discover; it's the sorry state of their schools.

Germany's education system, like its economy, was once considered the pride of Europe. Worries about the stagnating economy have recently preoccupied Germans, and now they are realizing their schools are also in trouble.


Click Me

When were German schools and its economy the pride of Europe?
Tim's Daily Notes

There's a New Wacko in Town The Lopsided Poopdeck



Doctor Dean Does the Dance Dean sez: "I misspoke".



What Liberal Media? Check the tone of this fawning Associated Press piece on Texas Democrats.

Absent Texas Senators Remain Steadfast



It's the Skin Color, Stupid! Al Shaprton says white newsrooms are holding him back.



Disenfranchisers-R-Us California won't open some precincts for the recall election October 7th.



Run Al Run! Cuomo sez Gore should run.

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

Dean On Civil Liberties

What indignation (and perhaps rightly so) The Patriot Act has stirred in Liberal circles! Looks like American Leftist Hero Doctor Dean had the same reaction to the events of 11 September 2001. His hindsight is uberProgressive 20/20 now though <rolling eyes/>

Dateline : Montpelier, September 14, 2001

Dean said Wednesday he believed that the attacks and their aftermath would “require a re-evaluation of the importance of some of our specific civil liberties. I think there are going to be debates about what can be said where, what can be printed where, what kind of freedom of movement people have and whether it's OK for a policeman to ask for your ID just because you're walking down the street.”


The Rutland Herald Online - Dean's comments on civil liberties cause alarm

Courtesy Instapundit
U.S. Catches 4 Suspected Iraqi Insurgents

Reckon we have all heard the old saying which instructs us that "the best defense is a good offense". It looks as though US forces in Iraq are back on the offense, becoming the hunters instead of the hunted. Bravissimo! I'm reminded of something G. Gordon Liddy wrote in his book Will: "I refuse to worry abut my enemies, preferring instead to have them worry about me." Well, something like that anyway.

The lesson (in my opinion) in warfare that cost the United States 55,000 lives in Vietnam to learn is that the only way you defeat guerillas in war is with better guerillas. It is possible that Special Forces have been behind the scenes in every conflict since their founding, and we just didn't hear much, but it seems to me that our merciless murderous savages are kicking the shit out of their opponents in Afghanistan and Iraq, moreso than in previous wars. In Somalia, they were handcuffed, largely avoiding conflict and taking a defensive stance. Not this time.

I recall hearing an ex-Special Forces guy being interviewed by Don Imus about eight months ago. He said a couple days after 9/11, his and other units were briefed and told by their superiors: "We don't have time to put a grand plan together. We don't have time to deploy aircraft carriers. We don't have time to call up reserves and deploy a hundred thousand guys. We will, soon, but for now, we're sticking you in. Here's a map of Tora Bora. Here's where we think they are. Go do damage. Any questions?"

And the American guerillas landed in Afghanistan a couple days later and there was no debate and there was no UN council meeting and there was no press conference - there was just a few hundred highly-trained, highly-motivated, well-led, and well-equipped American soldiers in bands of a hundred or so just traipsing through the mountains blowing people away.

For all the technology and equipment we have, the basic principles of warfare have scarcely changed since Howe routed Washington at Brandywine.

Yahoo! News - U.S. Catches 4 Suspected Iraqi Insurgents
Hawk Attacks Chihuahua

Trained hawks employed to keep pigeons from making a mess on visitors in a midtown park have been grounded because one of the birds mistook a Chihuahua as its lunch.

Yahoo! News

Seems kind of funny in a slapstick way, but I have a friend Charlie who suffered a similar fate while in college. The school he attended had as its mascot the "Golden Eagle". So the school had one. Charlie was in some veterinary program or club or something like that, so once in a while for the football games he got to handle the eagle. Well one time he got sloppy and didn't put his leather glove on and the eagle went to perch on his hand and one of the talons went right through the webbing between his thumb and hand "like a paring knife into jello".

Charlie said it, uh, hurt.
Flight 93

Everyone has probably read things like this before, but in my opinion this is worth another read.

Of course, given today's media, some of the information herein may be inaccurate. If true though, it certainly does render laughable the notions that I used to hear from American Leftists:

- that the passenger uprising was all a myth

- that there really is no proof that any uprising occurred

- that hijackers may have caused the crash while struggling among themselves after some learned what only their leaders knew - that that day's mission was a suicide mission

Whatever. My intuition tells me the passengers knew they would die if they did nothing. They knew they'd be likely to die if they acted. The only question was would they hasten their deaths by acting to save others on the ground? All jokes about the unending messes in Congress aside - how would things have been different if Flight 93 had reached the Capitol and had killed, say, 200 Congressmen and Congresswomen? What if it had hit the White House?

Anyway - it's worth a reread for those who imagine the best of their fellow Americans.

The Final Moments of United Flight 93

Palestinians have their own state

Do I have your attention now?

Good.

Go. Read. This.

Thank you.

Hat tip to Deb of Insomnomaniac.

Also, a post that had me sitting back and thinking for a bit. It's from Analogkid at Random Nuclear Strikes. I've been ranting and raving about the amount of spending going on in the Bush administration, and he takes another look at it.

OK, I haven't been raving on THIS site, per se, but it's been happening.
"Not My Kind"

Sharpton got the biggest ovation when he challenged Bush for taking credit for appointing prominent blacks such as national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Sharpton cited Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as an example of a prominent black who's out of touch with the majority of black voters.

"Clarence Thomas is my color, but he's not my kind," Sharpton said.


The AFL-CIO hosted a little Bush bashing orgy last night (complete with an NPR reporter playing straight man).
"The Bomb & Dad"

As a child growing up in a University town, I heard the claims that the bombs were unnecessary, or vindictive Cold War power plays. In the late 70's I remember my father seething after he came home late from a Faculty Senate meeting where, for some reason, a debate erupted over the bomb.

This is topical today.

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

Please Visit. Please Comment.

Ten Great Americans by Oliver Willis
What were their goals?

They buried what? They buried DOZENS OF FIGHTER JETS we didn't know they had, unprotected IN THE SAND in Iraq. This isn't like covering a family member in sand at the beach......these are JETS! It takes signifcantly more effort to conceal a damned air craft. Despite the ignorance involved in burying Iraqi air force jets in the desert unprotected, this tells us something of their intentions! The might have been extremely ignorant, but I doubt they thought these things were going to sprout roots and grow new planes. Saddam might be evil and he might bluster on and on about how little chance his enemies had to defeat him......but he knew better. He had faced the U.S. military before and we absolutely decimated his military. He KNEW we would win! I'm sure he wanted to inflict untold damage upon the U.S. military. The regular slaughter of small amounts of troops also serves him exactly as he expects it to. He doesn't honestly think that his forces will take back Iraq in this manner. He does know the United States well though....or at least he thinks he does. He knows that U.S. President George W. Bush (in the tradition of Ronald Reagan) will not settle for anything less than absolute victory. And he KNOWS that this country is REPLETE with short-sighted, self-hating, weak-willed, scatter-brained LIBERALS who will relentlessly oppose this resolute Republican President. He KNOWS that by killing one of our soldiers here, another on another day, and two more the next.....the liberals in this country (especially those in the media) will trumpet these losses repeatedly, and that the result will be the erosion of resolution by the American public (let's hope he is wrong). Saddam would love nothing more than for these same simple-minded America-hating liberals to cry for removing our soldiers from Iraq and be successful..........to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. He is fully aware of this possibility. Which brings us back to the title of this post. What was their goal? Saddam knew his military would not be victorious, but if he could survive long enough and if he could use our weaknesses (liberal Americans) to erode our resolution and pull the troops out of his country, he could return to power. He could dig up these jet fighters! He could dig up his weapons of mass destruction. The possibility still exists!! Hell, he doesn't even have to wait for the liberals to whip the country into hysteria about the regular loss of soldiers if G.W. Bush doesn't win re-election in 2004, and he lasts that long. Then St. Dean can walk barefoot across the ocean, feel the pain of our troops, and withdraw our military from his country. You hear liberals blubbering over and over again "where are the weapons of mass destruction". I'm willing to guess they could have been buried somewhere in the sands of Iraq as these jets were. How likely are we to find them if that is indeed the case? If these planes are any indication of Saddam's strategy for he and his weapons of terror to survive the war (as it is of course), then the war at home is directly related to the war in Iraq. Saddam must be found and or destroyed. We must remain resolute! And President Bush must continue to express unwavering faith in our cause. All that must happen even with the albatross of liberal America and it's media hampering our progress and facilitating the goals of our enemies.
Tim's Daily Notes

I've been consuming too much space with piddly little items. Ergo henceforth I shall put my little piddly stuff into a Notes post like this one.

The More I Surf... the more I encounter people who are obsessed with driving religion into basements and caves.

To Wit: Alieniloquent: Separation of Church and State



Tampatantrum: This is really very odd. And unsafe for work.



Scouting needs support.



Run for Governor : At run-for-governor.org, visitors are exhorted to jam up the recall process with more than 1,000 candidates. The reasoning: "Campaign pundits have estimated that the well-heeled candidates will spend as little as $10 million on their campaigns in the special election." Jeepers creepers - protesting an election because the candidates won't spend enough money on getting elected. And it will cost California money to run the election. Ten bucks says this same guy supports taxpayer-funded elections. The more one supports Democrats, the more one must twist one's mind to get around reality into that special world where it's Liberalism Uber Alles.

Cox & Forkum

Nail it. Hit it out of the park. Paint it perfectly. Got it in one. Ect., ect., ad infinitum.

I could post more of their stuff, but I don't want to eat up the bandwidth. So I'll leave you with just one, and let you go look at the others.


Enjoy!

And Just Because

I know that someone is going to take umbrage with my remark about Washington D.C. being the murder capital of the USA (and the reason why).

Guess what, folks? More Americans die on a daily basis in D.C. than in Iraq.

Since President Bush told the nation on May 1 that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 52 U.S. soldiers have been killed in hostilities, according to statistics complied by Reuters on Thursday.

In the same period of time, however, 66 Americans were attacked and killed on Washington, D.C.'s mean streets.....


The jokes and one liners that could come out of this are endless.

Hat tip to Insignificant Thoughts, a misnomer if I've ever seen one.
"Hot Towel, Sir?"

Lee over at Right-Thinking sez he thinks the warning about explosive devices or other weapons in small electronic devices leads us sooner or later to a place where one will only be able to fly when naked.

I don't know about you'all but if this is to become the reality then i will be TOTALLY behind the proposed bans on fast food, Oreos, soda, and junk food.


WARNING
that last link is from The New York Times,
so take care not to assume
anything with respect to its veracity


And let's not kid ourselves that such a policy won't create a whole new cottage industry reserving airline seats anywhere within ten rows of (unsafe for work) Carmen Electra, when she chooses to travel.

Meanwhile, residents of South Brunswick, New Jersey are trying to ban fast food restaurants from heavily-traveled Route 1, but not for the reason you might think.

And then there was more

I was flipping through some news when I saw this little tidbit. It seems that the NRA is blocking a lawsuit by the CATO institute. This is a lawsuit intended to restore the 2nd Amendment rights to the D.C. residents, who desparately need them. So why is the NRA trying to block it? Because they don't like the fact that A) They're not involved, and B) they don't like the reasons given.

This is why I haven't become an NRA member, folks. It seems like this organization is more interested in politics and power, rather than helping the average Joe (You and I). Is it any wonder that the city with the strictest gun bans has the highest murder rate? The residents cannot protect themselves due to nanny-state regulations and gun bans. And that's what it comes down to, folks. I've seen study after study posted, all of them claiming that by getting rid of guns, you'll reduce crime. And people fall for those studies, and ban guns, and then crime starts going up. In England, even though they have stringent gun control laws, and have been getting rid of private gun ownership, gun crime is spiraling upwards. D.C., where you flat out can't own a handgun, has the highest murder rate in the USA. The facts show those anti-gun studies to be false. Every. Single. Time.

Also, the typical groups are taking aim at the president again. And it's STILL over the SOTU address. I'm going to say something which might help the Democrats right now. And I'm saying it because I know that the Donks will never take my advice.

Drop the uranium thing. There are bigger fish to fry, and more effective methods.

I can't say that I'm happy with the way President Bush has handled domestic affairs. He's done several things that I don't agree with. But the Left, in their blind hatred of all things Bush, have cut off their nose to spite their face. Their only tacticts, it seems, are their full frontal attacks on Bush, and their screams of "I'M NOT AN EEEEEEEEEEEEVIL REPUBLICAN!"

Great message there, Donks. "He's evil and I'm not him" is NOT the way to get elected. I'm looking forward to another Bush administration, unless one of them can reverse their cranial-rectal impaction before 2004. And it's looking like that's not going to happen.

News from yesterday

Some good, some sad.....

Let's get the sad news out of the way. Courtesy of Lee at Right Thinking, we've learned that a Jim Beam warehouse burned down yesterday. No jokes please.... it's too painfull.

However, on a rather nice note, we've found some unexpected support from the Middle East.

THE grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the cleric who launched an anti-American Islamic revolution in Iran that sparked 25 years of unrest in the Muslim world, has condemned his country’s clerical regime and suggested military intervention by the United States as a possible path to liberation.

Dominos, my friends. Just think of dominos.

Mr Khomeini - in Iraq on a religious pilgrimage to Shiite holy sites in Najaf, Karbala and Baghdad - also praised the US. takeover of Iraq, saying American forces were seen by Iraqis as liberators rather than occupiers.

"I see day-by-day that the country is on the path to improvement," he said. "I see that there’s security; that the people are happy; that they’ve been released from suffering."


Now if only the Dimmy Donk Nine would listen to him.
Affirmative action for hurricanes...

Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) is not happy. You see, racism is everywhere in our society, especially in the naming of Tropical Storms. Yes, that's right Tropical Storms. There are too many Anglo, Hispanic, and French names, and not enough "black" names like Lakeisha and Antwon.

Scroll down for the story from thehill.com

“All racial groups should be represented,” said Lee.

I think that she should propose a quota system.

Monday, August 04, 2003

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh............

There's only one way the war against Iraq (news - web sites) could have gone worse: if Bush hadn't been lying about Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s nuclear program. But short of a Manhattan mushroom cloud, it's hard to imagine a darker scenario than the one we're in. No WMDs. No Saddam. Millions of new enemies. Billions in new debt. And an estimated 35,000 guerillas exacting a terrible tithe--one dead American soldier for every day we stay where we don't belong.

BRING HOME THE TROOPS
The Watcher's Council

This is such a cool idea, indicative of the way that the Internet in a large sense and blogs in a smaller sense are really revolutionizing community.

Watcher of Weasels
Miscellaneous Stuff

I was wondering what happened to the New York City Councilman shooting. Now I know.

A strange illness is afflicting servicemen in Iraq.

They banned smoking in New York State. Business in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania is booming.
St. Dean the liberal "conservative".

As more and more people wake up from the spin liberals in the media have been passing off as the dissemination of information, the liberal distortion machine reacts by painting themselves as something they are not. Case in point. St. Dean the every-taxing is being hailed as a "fiscal conservative"..............by liberals.

"Compare that to the Cato Institute’s “Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors: 2002,” by Stephen Moore and Stephen Slivinski. They gave him a “D.” An excerpt from their evaluation of his tenure in Montpelier: "

Howard Dean, Vermont’s articulate and telegenic governor since 1991, is one of America’s most iconoclastic politicians. On many issues, he is as pro–government intervention as any governor. He supports state-funded universal health care, government-subsidized child care (even for upper-income families), a higher minimum wage, liberal family leave legislation, and taxpayer-financed campaigns. Dean has raised many taxes over the past decade, including the gas tax, the sales tax, the corporate income tax, the cigarette tax, and the property tax. But he also claims to be “Vermont’s most fiscally conservative governor in decades.” He has been receptive to smaller government in a few areas. In his first three terms as governor, state spending rose by less than personal income growth. In 1999, he sought and won support for an across-the-board income tax cut to make the state more competitive. He was dead right on that score: Vermont has one of the highest income taxes in the nation and loses jobs and businesses to its income tax-free neighbor, New Hampshire. He also has also supported electricity deregulation and some limited school choice initiatives for high school students.

By far the most contentious decision of his administration was to back Act 60, a controversial Robin Hood–like school equity financing scheme. Act 60 guarantees $5,000 per student for every school district and delivers that guarantee by soaking up funds from some communities and redistributing dollars to poorer ones. Act 60 has unleashed a taxpayer revolt across the state. Dean has taken the brunt of the anger and nearly lost reelection in 1998 as a result. Vermonters want local control back and their property tax dollars spent on their own kids’ schools. Vermont has been hit hard by the recession, and Dean’s main response has been higher taxes. He raised the cigarette tax by 50 cents a pack and then decoupled the state income tax from the federal tax, so that Vermont would not have to reduce taxes in response to President Bush’s federal tax relief.

After 12 years of Dean’s so-called “fiscal conservatism,” Vermont remains one of the highest taxing and spending states. Dean is said to be a potential Democratic presidential nominee and is a frequent guest on national TV talk shows, usually espousing a more activist government.

For the Cato report in full, in PDF format

"Telegenic"? I have no desire to see his mug in the media. "Articulate"? I guess if you consider the blathering hate-filled ant-Bush rhetoric he pukes out for cameras to be "articulate".......sure. And it's hyperbole to call him "iconoclastic".

Golly gee whiz......ya mean ya can't be for huge entitlement programs and be "fiscally conservative"? ;)

The Valiant Elephant
Stop Light Pollution

NOW!
Leftist Cartoonist Embraces Nazi Symbolism

Echoes of Nazism
Congressman blames liberals, Bush's open-door policy for immigration crisis


More than 33.1 million immigrants live in the United States, a number unprecedented in U.S. history. Poverty rates for immigrants and their U.S.-born children are two-thirds higher than for native-born Americans and their children and account for approximately 25 percent of those now living in poverty in this country. Twenty-four of the southernmost U.S. states have accrued almost $1 billion in unpaid medical care – all attributed to illegal immigration.


WorldNetDaily: 'Cult of multiculturalism' vs. U.S. sovereignty
Is Iraq a Honey Pot?

We have heard it said that the Bush Administration might be using Iraq as a sort of "honey pot" to attract as many Islam Fundamentalists into a single country as is possible, with the intent of immolating them. This is consistent with President Bush's "Bring 'Em On" statement that caused so much self-righteous indignation among the American Left.

We know that American soldiers in Iraq often used loudspeakers to question the manliness of Iraqi soldiers who responded by leaving their bunkers and holes to charge those who questioned their sexuality. Perhaps President Bush was goading the Islamic extreme when he said what he did.

A good friend of mine (let's call him "Bill") thought we would lose the war - he theorized that Iraq was luring American forces into an over-extended position (remember the stretched-thin supply lines?) and then, my friend posited, Iraqi forces would attack from the North, Iran from the East, Syria from the West, and maybe even the Saudis from the South. Bill's negativity was irking my uber-jingo brain, so I replied:

"Good - then we'll be able to kill all of those dirty motherfuckers in one engagement".

Flippant? Well, yeah. But is that kinda sorta what is happening on (albeit) a smaller and more informal (read: Stateless) scale? Dig:

Members of groups linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network may have taken part in attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, a British diplomatic source said on Friday.

The source said that while the attacks were largely the work of Iraqis loyal to deposed dictator Saddam Hussein "there is some evidence that they've been joined by groups that are loosely connected with the al Qaeda network."


Al Qaeda Link to Attacks in Iraq -UK Source (washingtonpost.com)



NOTE: There is some neat stuff here where Glenn Reynolds wonders aloud if the Bush Administration is holding back on presenting their finds until election time next year. Like the hetero Iraqi soldiers who ran to their deaths because they had been called homosexual, maybe the Left are running to their political deaths because there's no evidence of WMD or Al Qaeda in Iraq - errrrrr, yet.

Chew, and wonder.

Update: Content Wire speaks to creating a honey pot to attract hackers, thereby luring them away from your really valuable hardware, software, and data. The Justice Department says that's a crime. This guy says that initial "target of opportunity" strike in Baghdad may have been a honey pot.




Did Loyola University Chicago lose its innocence to the RIAA?

Northwestern University law professor Anthony D'Amato has issued a strong caution to universities, calling on them to consider students' privacy before shipping them off to the RIAA sponsored legal gulag.

The Register
Why did the Left abandon Human Rights for Iraqis?

Instapundit.com
QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Would the far-left rather have a nuclear bomb go off in an American city or have W reelected for another term?

My guess is that some of them would take the nuke so long as it is NIMBY....


OpinionJournal - Featured Article: "We are not eager to see force used on the Korean peninsula. It is better to resolve this crisis without war. However, unless China succeeds in ending North Korea's nuclear weapons development--and we believe this will require a change in regime--Americans will be left with the threat to our existence described by Secretary Perry when he recently said that the North Korean nuclear program 'poses an imminent danger of nuclear weapons being detonated in American cities.'"

Your comments are invited...


....and don't insult my intelligence by saying a Democrat President would take care of North Korea. A Democrat President already had the opportunity and simply deferred payment on the North Korean nuke problem and not one of the 9 dwarves (or however many there are at this point), aside from possibly Lieberman, could be trusted by a reasonable person to negotiate the problem from a position of strength.

Sunday, August 03, 2003

Things that make ya go "Hmmmmm"

Found while on the blog rounds: A nifty little study about charitable contributions.

Just something to make you think, is all.......

NGO - Notoriously Greedy Offal

Yet another reason for the US to tell the UN to insert a running chainsaw into their nether regions...

It’’s not all monotonous or pointless in Kabul; at one French NGO housed in a stunning antique-laden chalet, I’’ve devoured a seven-course meal prepared by a 4 star chef. Then there’’s always the sumptuous UN House, where one can take a dip, mingle poolside among scandalous bikinis and dowse dehydration with inspired cocktails fashioned by our languid Euro masters. Unfortunately, since "American UN employee" is an oxymoron, our one attempt to storm the formidable barricades is a spectacular failure. We’’re rudely turned away, despite flashing $20 bills to the Afghan UN security. My companion, a fierce Pushtoon-American licensed to pack a very visible Glock 19, glances back at the sunbathers as we’’re escorted out: ““We’’ve paid for all this with our taxes, you bastards!”” One of the Pushto guard’’s shrugs his shoulderssympathetically, muttering an apology that suggests ““someday this will all be ours again.”” For all the heroic American efforts in Afghanistan, truly and deeply appreciated by the indigenous population, we’’re still treated as unwanted nuisances by the predominantly European NGO residents.

And there's more here (not as infuriating) and there's a wonderfull quote from here:

The BBC is a true world service; that is, there is not a region of the planet where the BBC is without a fierce opinion about how things are and should be. The British may have been drummed unceremoniously out of Afghanistan and the colonies in other centuries, but they are returned with a vengeance and an attitude no less condescending or patronizing

The UN shows with every passing day that it is nothing but a powerhungry pack of dicators and thugs, a collection of autocrats and money-grubbing parasites. In short, they disgust me. No wonder France is in love with that group. They get to throw their weight around, suck money off of successful countries, and attempt to make themselves relevant to the rest of the world!

Kick them out and reclaim that space on the Hudson, I say!