So sometimes our courts are wacky

Look at this from Sweden.

Not just...

...staging news, but outright making it up: Michelle Malkin: THE BOSTON GLOBE'S BOGUS SEAL HUNT STORY. Lookit all those links at the bottom of the piece.

All I have to say is, "Yep!"

There's a reason why most military members look at the Lame-Stream Media as some sort of three-day old roadkill.

Ok, but what percentage of the American people favor an immediate pullout, you dolts? Isn't that the most relevant stat here? What percentage of the people oppose the troops? (In reality, the answer is more than anyone on the left wants to admit, though still a small minority of the population.) The AP, however, is Hell-bent on undercutting the president, here (and basically giving the troops a snide and subtle "fuck you" in the process), but what they are really giving is poll numbers that reflect support for the President. Not support for the troops.

Most editors I wrote for as a Time Inc. wretch would have caught that, and never let me get away with it. Not so at the AP I guess.

Personally, I wouldn't trust any member of the Lame-Stream Media any farther than I could throw them. And sometimes not even that far. The media has been anti-military, anti-war, anti-Bush, and anti-Conservative to the point that they can't be anything else if they tried. They have been banging the Democrat's drum for so long that changing their tune at this point and time would require an earthshaking event of such magnitude that half the planet wouldn't survive. I suppose that maybe fifty years in the future, I won't have to read a newspaper and wade through opinion posted as "news", but at this time and place I regard any "news" article about Iraq as an attack on myself and the military, and go from there. The press has an agenda, and they push it non stop. If you want to get the truth coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan, read what a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine is writing.

Oh, and here's the scuzziest bit of all:

Paul Rieckhoff, director of the New York-based Operation Truth, an advocacy group for U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, denounced the event as a "carefully scripted publicity stunt." Five of the 10 U.S. troops involved were officers, he said.

If Operation Truth is simply "an advocacy group for U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan," then I'm the Queen of Sheba. Their website says they're "nonpartisan." But look who's doing the fundraising: Randi Rhodes, Jenine Garofolo, Al Franken, Air America, and Tim Robbins.

This reporter is remarkably uncurious about the sources she seeks for comment.

"If he wants the real opinions of the troops, he can't do it in a nationally televised teleconference," Rieckhoff said. "He needs to be talking to the boots on the ground and that's not a bunch of captains."

Yeah. I guess we're all idiots. None of us know what's going on about anything. Actually, there could not have been more than 4 captains, since only five of the ten were officers, and one was a lieutenant. The remainder were NCOs. Yeah, I guess NCOs never talk to troops either.

Some advocate.

So the AP pushes the line that the President's meeting with "the troops" was a staged event, yet at the same time swallows a line from "Operation Truth" without questioning that group's motives? Why am I not surprised. And since when is a bunch of captains not considered "boots on the ground"? Aren't they there? Aren't they commanding troops there? Don't you think they might actually fucking know what the hell is going on? And don't five Non-Comissioned Officers count for something?

No, not when you've got an anti-troops, anti-Bush agenda to push!

Gah! Worthless fucking pukes. Rope. "Journalist". Tree. Some assembly required.

Want some Rand?

Analog Kid is putting up a quote of the day from Ayn Rand every day, if you're interested.

And why wouldn't you be interested?

If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor.

Any alleged “right” of one man, which necessitates the violation if the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.

Ayn Rand “Man’s Rights”

Now, I have a confession. I find Ayn Rand terribly dry to read. Almost boring. She was a writer of great technical skill, and she put more important messages into her books than almost anyone, but she's so damn DRY! The only reason I made it through "Atlas Shrugged" was because every time I turned the page, I kept finding little nuggets of wisdom that I hadn't found anywhere else.

Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man’s freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men. Private citizens are not a threat to one another’s rights or freedom. A private citizen who resorts to physical force and violates the rights of others is a criminal – and men have legal protection against him.

Criminals are a small minority in any age or country. And the harm they have done to mankind is infinitesimal when compared to the horrors – the bloodshed, the wars, the persecutions, the confiscations, the famines, the enslavements, the wholesale destructions – perpetrated by mankind’s governments. Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims. When unlimited and unrestricted by individual rights, a government is man’s deadliest enemy. It is not as protection against private actions, but against government actions that the Bill of Rights was written.

Ayn Rand, Man’s Rights

I guess I find her to be much like Bernard Lewis. Wonderful intellect. Great ideas, and the ability to put those ideas on paper. Horribly boring to read. That might get me excommunicated from the conservative blogger's club, but it's the truth.

If one wishes to advocate a free society – that is, capitalism – one must realize that its indispensable foundation is the principle of individual rights. If one wishes to uphold individual rights, one must realize that capitalism is the only system that can uphold and protect them. And if one wishes to gauge the relationship of freedom to the goals of today’s intellectuals, one may gauge it by the fact that the concept of individual rights is evaded, distorted, perverted and seldom discussed, most conspicuously seldom by the so-called “conservatives”.

“Rights” are a moral concept – the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual’s actions to the principals guiding his relationship with others – the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social concept – the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics.

Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.

Ayn Rand: Man’s Rights - 1967

So make sure you visit Random Nuclear Strikes on a daily basis. I know I will be, because I can have my Rand without banging my head against a wall trying to get through yet another 1000 page beheamoth that when boiled down, simply says "Any 'right' that infringes on another person is not a right."

Syrian Interior Minister suffers assisted suicide

LGF

We're Number Two

This is amazing to me: Google Search: right wing

If you "Read the whole thing" anywhere today...

...let it be here:

Today the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a letter between two senior al Qa'ida leaders, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, that was obtained during counterterrorism operations in Iraq. This lengthy document provides a comprehensive view of al Qa'ida's strategy in Iraq and globally.

Power Line notes:

Reading Zawahiri's letter is almost enough to make you feel sorry for him. He is like an old Bolshevik, wringing his hands over the murderous policies of his Stalinist progeny. Zawahiri was once a doctor, and is a relatively cultured and learned man. Zarqawi was a Jordanian street thug and is now a sadistic mass murderer. One can easily imagine how little effect Zawahiri's remorse will have on the bloodthirsty leader of the Iraqi 'insurgency.'

Also, this:

Zawahiri: "However, despite all of this, I say to you: that we are in a battle, and that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.... "

There you go.

Sunni, Shia, Kurds Reach Deal

Great news.

Great, great news.

The Iraqis have come up with a good constitution that, despite some disagreements, can certainly be fixed up once all groups are fully represented in parliament along. It would appear from a glance that the country’s political society is split completely along ethnic and religious lines, but that’s simply not the case, and the results from the December elections will prove that. There are a myriad of interests working for influence. The Iraqi voter hasn’t been one for long, but they are proving smarter and more politically than ethnically savvy, as they are moving away from these superficial biases toward whichever parties can govern the country best.

All politics aside, if the Iraqis can form themselves a solid and sustainable republic, what an achievement it will be.

Now that the constitution looks ever more likely to be approved, it will be important for us here in the west to focus on the December elections as well. We need to make sure that party-backed militias don’t wield undue influence over individuals and how they vote, we must make sure that their cronies don’t tamper with those votes behind the scenes, and we must make sure that, no matter what the real outcome of the vote is, that power transfers peacefully.

Publius Pundit - Blogging the democratic revolution

Saturday is the vote. Perhaps while the Iraqis are casting their ballots, we Americans, as well as focusing "on the December elections", can recall why those elections are possible:

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Army Sgt. Michael T. Crockett of Soperton, Georgia, died 14 July 14 2003 on patrol in Baghdad, Iraq when he came under RPG attack. Sergeant Crockett was 3rd Platoon Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, Fort Stewart, Georgia. Sergeant Crockett was 27.

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Marine Sgt. Kirk Allen Straseskie of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, drowned 19 May 2003 in a canal near Al Hillah, Iraq, when he attempted to rescue the crewmembers of a Marine CH-46 helicopter that went down in the canal. Sergeant Straseskie, 23, was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, Camp Pendleton, California.

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Navy Chief Joel Egan Baldwin of Arlington, Virginia died 21 December 2004, in Mosul, Iraq, when a suicide bomber entered his dining facility and detonated an improvised explosive device. Chief Baldwin was assigned to Navy Mobile Construction Battalion 77, Gulfport, Mississippi. Chief Baldwin left behind a wife and daughter.

Goddamnit.

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Air Force Airman 1st Class Elizabeth N. Jacobson of Riviera Beach, Florida died 28 September 2005 near Camp Bucca, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near her convoy vehicle. Airman Jacobson was assigned to the 17th Security Forces Squadron, Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas.

Airman Jacobson was 21.

Droplets on Leaf

The clover at lower right is cool.

Average age of newspaper readers?

55

"It's Gore Time"

You say you have high blood pressure, Dave?

Is Al Gore coming back? If allies we talked to have their way, the former veep will be the next president. "It's Gore Time," says a political strategist and fundraiser who is opening a bid to get Gore into the race.

Well, this one's for you.

After all, laughter is the best medicine.

USNews.com: Washington Whispers

I'm sorry, what was that?

Oh, a movie about Ronnie Earle indicting Tom DeLay? And it's been filming for two years?

Let me get this straight in my head. A partisan Democrat who happens to be a District Attourny persues Tom DeLay on whatever charges he can throw at DeLay and make stick, and has a fucking FILM CREW TAPING HIS EVERY MOVE, and people still want to say that Earle isn't a partisan piece of shit with no political motives in his attempts to smear and destroy the House Majority Leader?

Holy Hell people..... Gah. Just as my blood pressure was starting to go back down.

Found at ALMTTR.

John Hawkins asks a question

From Right Wing News

-- Sometimes, the dog that doesn't bark tells a tale. In this case, why is it that the blogosphere doesn't seem to be stepping up to help the victims of a cataclysmic earthquake that has killed so many people in Pakistan? Is it that they're not big fans of Pakistan? Are people too distracted by the Miers nomination? Is it donor fatigue after the Tsunami and Katrina that's responsible?

Personally, I think the US government should pay particular attention to this quake, even if the public doesn't. Pakistan, which has taken a big hit in this earthquake, has been a real help in the war on terror and Pervez Musharraf has caught a lot of hell for it from his own people. Now might be a great time to show everyone in Pakistan that there's no better friend to have in a crisis than the United States. Also keep in mind that Bin Laden is likely still hiding out in the Pakistani back country. Helping Pakistan in their time of need might be just the thing to set a few tongues wagging about his whereabouts.

Honestly, I think one of the big reasons that you don't see conservatives hopping up and down demanding aid for Pakistan is because we're already giving aid. One of the first groups of people to arrive in Pakistan was Chinook and Blackhawk helicopters from our troops in Afghanistan. We're already there, unloading food, water and supplies, as well as helping with rescue efforts where we are needed.

The entire world is pitching in, and there's no way for the USA to do everything that needs to be done. But we are there, as are countries from around the world. We have a chance to make some big inroads with the general population in Pakistan. And we're taking it.

Let's Get Linkdumped !!!

Leading off: Susan Sarandon sez we need to keep our eyes on Katrina. You know, so we can keep an eye on "who's getting the contracts to rebuild".

Nextly, great stuff at Instapundit regarding those faux anti-war people Dave was talking about the other day.

Lastly, Power Line notes that al Qaeda may be making themselves at home in Gaza. Doy.

Just a big joke

Rexibolus sent me a link to this little tidbit of news.

Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency that he heads won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize Friday for their efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

What. A. Fucking. Joke.

The Kallini Bros. have a list of what happened under ElBaradei's watch.

India announced it officially possessed nuclear weapons.

Pakistan announced it had nuclear weapons.

Libya announced that it had a highly-developed nuclear weapons program, and turned it over—lock, stock, and barrel—to the United States.

North Korea has continued violations of the treaty and is unabashedly seeking nuclear weapons.

Iran has repeatedly violated the treaty and is unabashedly seeking nuclear weapons.

Pakistan has helped spread what it has learned about nuclear weapons throughout the Muslim world.

And you think I joke when I say that the UN is nothing but a corrupt bunch of worthless goat-fucking tyrants who need to be burned alive while we destroy the UN building, preferably with all the UN staff inside it?

But I LIKE P.E.T.A!

I mean, who doesn't want to be a part of People Eating Tasty Animals, anyways?

Oh, he's talking about the OTHER P.E.T.A. I get it now.

If you ever want to see the world's biggest smackdown of PETA and it's cadre of moronic supporters, head on over to the DANE's place.