Under Your Nose

2009-01-25T13:40:00.002-07:00

I've decided to merge my political bloggerating over onto my Dadmocracy comic site. There'll be a new comic once a week, but blog posts more often than that. Head on over to dadmocracy.com.

2008-12-20T21:57:00.001-07:00

New Study Find Children Who Live with Biological Parents and go to Church Fare Best Developmentally (LifeSiteNews)

"A new study from the Mapping America project, co-released by more than 30 state family policy councils, has fund that children have fewer problems at school and home when they live with both biological parents and frequently attend religious services.

Dr. Nicholas Zill, the founding president of Child Trends, and Dr. Philip Fletcher, a research psychologist at Westat, co-authored the new study, which analyzes data from the National Survey of Children's Health.

Among their remarkable findings: children in this group are five times less likely to repeat a grade, less likely to have behavior problems at home and school, and are more likely to be cooperative and understanding of others' feelings. Parents of these children report less stress, healthier parent-child relationships, and fewer concerns about their children's achievement. These differences hold up even after controlling for family income and poverty, low parent education levels, and race and ethnicity."

2008-12-02T21:43:00.003-07:00

Debra Saunders - "When the Warmest in History Isn't"

"When it comes to global warming, newspapers play up stories that reinforce the prevalent the-sky-is-falling belief that global warming is human-caused and catastrophic. But if a study or scientist does not portend the end of the world as we know it, it rarely rates as news...

No wonder, David Bellamy -- an Australian botanist who was involved in some 400 TV productions, only to see his TV career go south after he questioned global warming orthodoxy -- wrote in The Australian last week, 'It's not even science anymore; it's anti-science.' Bellamy notes that official data show that 'in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased.' Exhibit B: Richard S. Lindzen, the MIT Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, recently wrote, 'There has been no warming since 1997 and no statistically significant warming since 1995.'

Such findings rarely are reported, even as, Marc Morano, communications director for the Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee told me, 'Scientists keep coming out of the woodwork' to challenge the so-called consensus. 'It's almost like a bandwagon effect.'"

2008-11-28T13:31:00.002-07:00

Randall Hoven - "Making the World Safe for Marxism"

"It is almost commonplace to accuse someone of being like Hitler or acting Nazi-like. (Googling 'bush hitler' yields 1,300,000 hits, for example.) Yet you are considered beyond the pale, and possibly insane, to even suggest that someone might harbor Marxist sympathies. To question someone's dedication to traditional American or merely Western ideals = calling him communist = being Joe McCarthy = we now know you're nuts...

We are now at the point where any utterance at all that merely questions whether a politician leans Marxist is immediate grounds for dismissal, derision and even banishment from the Republican Party and the public conversation. It is 'McCarthyism' in reverse, or more properly, real McCarthyism as it actually happened, meaning the accuser is the one who suffers, not the accused.

But what if they are Marxist?

Excuse me, but isn't the great lesson we were supposed to learn from Nazism to recognize such evil before it reaches critical mass - to quash such movements before things get violent? As a reminder, the Holocaust count was 11 million; communism killed 100 million.

If we do not allow ourselves to call something 'wrong' or 'evil', we yield the battle without even a fight. Yet to refrain from such 'invective' is what is now called 'civil discourse' and the right 'tone.'"

How Obama Got Elected... Interviews With Obama Voters

2008-11-18T21:14:00.001-07:00

2008-11-14T23:22:00.002-07:00

Tolerance fails T-shirt test (Chicago Tribune)

"As the media keeps gushing on about how America has finally adopted tolerance as the great virtue, and that we're all united now, let's consider the Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment.

Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park...

[J]ust before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:

'McCain Girl.'

Immediately, Catherine learned she was stupid for wearing a shirt with Republican John McCain's name. Not merely stupid. Very stupid.

'People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn't be wearing it,' Catherine said.

Then it got worse.

'One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed,' Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

But students weren't the only ones surprised that she wore a shirt supporting McCain.

'In one class, I had one teacher say she will not judge me for my choice, but that she was surprised that I supported McCain,' Catherine said.

If Catherine was shocked by such passive-aggressive threats from instructors, just wait until she goes to college."

2008-11-14T11:19:00.002-07:00

Michelle Malkin - "Hank Paulson, Naked Emperor "

"Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson finally confirmed what lonely bailout opponents tried to tell the American public all along: The man doesn't know what the hell he's doing.

Paulson held a bazooka to taxpayers' heads. He groveled on his knees in front of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He lured leaders from both political parties into linking arms in a panicked Chicken Little line dance for the beleaguered mortgage industry. Paulson demanded an unprecedented $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program for the good of the country. For the health of the housing market. For the survival of the economy. No time for deliberation. No time to review the failures of such interventionist approaches around the world. Now, now, now!

And now? The pulled-out-of-the-posterior '$700 billion' price tag has ballooned into the trillions. The 'mortgage industry rescue' has expanded to banks, insurance companies, automakers, credit card companies and possibly the entire national volume of consumer lending. Oh, and that vaunted 'TARP' component, Paulson admitted this week, is nothing but a four-letter word that rhymes with TRAP...

Paulson explained at his non-mea culpa press conference that he knew when the bailout was signed that it wasn't going to work as sold: 'It was clear to me by the time the bill was signed on October 3 that we needed to act quickly and forcefully, and that purchasing troubled assets -- our initial focus -- would take time to implement and would not be sufficient given the severity of the problem.'

Now he tells us? Would have been nice if he had made this clear -- quickly, forcefully and publicly -- to the Beltway stooges who were pulling the TARP over our eyes. So much for Paulson's earnest transparency commitments on the Hill.

Members of Congress who let themselves be bullied into switching their votes on the bailout should be experiencing the biggest case of buyers' remorse in U.S. history. They fell for what Nobel Prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek called 'the fatal conceit' -- the disastrous idea that a federal bureaucrat has the knowledge to do a better job than the private market in organizing and directing an economy. They gave unchecked power to a single government official without a clue."

2008-11-14T09:21:00.004-07:00

Astronomers capture first images of new planets (CNN)

"The first-ever pictures of planets outside the solar system have been released in two studies.

Using the latest techniques in space technology, astronomers at NASA and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used direct-imaging techniques to capture pictures of four newly discovered planets orbiting stars outside our solar system.

'After all these years, it's amazing to have a picture showing not one but three planets,' said physicist Bruce Macintosh of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.

'The discovery of the HR8799 system is a crucial step on the road to the ultimate detection of another Earth,' he said.

None of the planets is remotely habitable, scientists said."

2008-11-13T11:27:00.002-07:00

Bailout Lacks Oversight Despite Billions Pledged (Wash. Post)

"In the six weeks since lawmakers approved the Treasury's massive bailout of financial firms, the government has poured money into the country's largest banks, recruited smaller banks into the program and repeatedly widened its scope to cover yet other types of businesses, from insurers to consumer lenders.

Along the way, the Bush administration has committed $290 billion of the $700 billion rescue package.

Yet for all this activity, no formal action has been taken to fill the independent oversight posts established by Congress when it approved the bailout to prevent corruption and government waste. Nor has the first monitoring report required by lawmakers been completed, though the initial deadline has passed.

'It's a mess,' said Eric M. Thorson, the Treasury Department's inspector general, who has been working to oversee the bailout program until the newly created position of special inspector general is filled. 'I don't think anyone understands right now how we're going to do proper oversight of this thing.'"

2008-11-11T18:24:00.003-07:00

Cuban president Raul Castro to visit Russia (Telegraph)

"Cuban president Raul Castro will visit Russia next year, in a move that will deepen ties between the two countries.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev announced the trip during talks with Cuba's foreign minister.

Mr Medvedev said the visit would be 'a new contribution to the development of our relationship'.

'Your visit is new proof that relations between Russia and Cuba are developing very dynamically. We have overcome the lull seen in the last decade; our contacts are very intense, our relations are friendly,' Mr Medvedev told Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque.

He added that Cuba remained 'one of our key partners in Latin America'.

Mr Medvedev, who was himself been invited to visit Cuba, also sent his best wishes to former Cuban president Fidel Castro who stepped down in February.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier urged US President-elect Barack Obama to lift Washington's 46-year-old trade embargo against communist-ruled Cuba.

'We hope that the voice of the international community which has made itself heard again at the United Nations will be taken into consideration,' said Mr Lavrov.

'I heard that relations with Cuba were among the questions on which the administration of the President-elect Barack Obama were going to reflect and take decisions,' he added following talks with the Cuban foreign minister.

The United Nations general assembly last month again called on Washington to lift the embargo."

2008-11-11T14:26:00.001-07:00

Thomas Sowell - "Intellectuals"

"Among the many wonders to be expected from an Obama administration, if Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times is to be believed, is ending 'the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life...'

It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry...

The intellectual levels of politicians are just one of the many things that intellectuals have grossly misjudged for years on end.

During the 1930s, some of the leading intellectuals in America condemned our economic system and pointed to the centrally planned Soviet economy as a model-- all this at a time when literally millions of people were starving to death in the Soviet Union, from a famine in a country with some of the richest farmland in Europe and historically a large exporter of food.

New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for telling the intelligentsia what they wanted to hear-- that claims of starvation in the Ukraine were false.

After British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge reported from the Ukraine on the massive deaths from starvation there, he was ostracized after returning to England and unable to find a job.

More than half a century later, when the archives of the Soviet Union were finally opened up under Mikhail Gorbachev, it turned out that about six million people had died in that famine-- about the same number as the people killed in Hitler's Holocaust.

In the 1930s, it was the intellectuals who pooh-poohed the dangers from the rise of Hitler and urged Western disarmament.

It would be no feat to fill a big book with all the things on which intellectuals were grossly mistaken, just in the 20th century-- far more so than ordinary people...

How have intellectuals managed to be so wrong, so often? By thinking that because they are knowledgeable-- or even expert-- within some narrow band out of the vast spectrum of human concerns, that makes them wise guides to the masses and to the rulers of the nation.

But the ignorance of Ph.D.s is still ignorance and high-IQ groupthink is still groupthink, which is the antithesis of real thinking."

2008-11-10T13:04:00.003-07:00

Amity Shlaes - "Don't repeat errors of New Deal"

"The historical model that the Democrats are choosing to hold up as they ponder our financial crisis isn't Harry Truman's Fair Deal or Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. It is Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. At least three economic reforms under discussion now were also central in the New Deal package. Trouble is, these reforms didn't necessarily work well when they were first tried - and some failed outright.

Consider, for starters, a stimulus package. President-elect Obama has said that 'the one thing I can say with certainty is that we are going to need a stimulus package passed either before or after my inauguration...'

Last summer saw the failure of just such a stimulus - President Bush's. University of Michigan economists found that, instead of spending as proposed, consumers saved their money. But the original stimuli of the New Deal also failed...

Even more than specific New Deal projects, Obama and his fellow Democrats are evoking Roosevelt's leadership style. In school, we learned that it was FDR's personality that pulled the country through the Depression. If only, the suggestion is, we can have a strong enough leader, Americans will also find recovery again. We need some 'bold persistent experimentation' of the Roosevelt variety.

There is evidence, however, that FDR's very strength was a negative, because he used it to give himself a license to do true experimenting. In his second inaugural address, FDR said that he sought 'an instrument of unimagined power for the establishment of a morally better world.'

No one knew what it meant, and markets were terrified. Everyone feared FDR would regulate or prosecute them next. Businesses refused to invest. The 1930s' second half proved frustrating for the country: The economy was always recovering but never quite recovered. The Dow didn't get back to its 1929 level until the mid-'50s.

These facts are important to bear in mind. The New Deal inspired. But it is the wrong deal for the country, even now."

Rep. Jim Moran, Democrat, Virginia

2008-11-10T08:21:00.001-07:00

"We have been guided by a Republican administration who believes in the simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it..."

2008-11-09T06:53:00.002-07:00

Change you can believe in - Rahm Emanuel was on Freddie Mac board while they were cooking the books (ABC News)

"President-elect Barack Obama's newly appointed chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, served on the board of directors of the federal mortgage firm Freddie Mac at a time when scandal was brewing at the troubled agency and the board failed to spot 'red flags,' according to government reports reviewed by ABCNews.com.

According to a complaint later filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Freddie Mac, known formally as the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, misreported profits by billions of dollars in order to deceive investors between the years 2000 and 2002.

Emanuel was not named in the SEC complaint, but the entire board was later accused by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) of having 'failed in its duty to follow up on matters brought to its attention.'"

2008-11-09T06:37:00.003-07:00

Mark Steyn - "'Center-right' America lurches further left"

"'The greatest dangers to liberty,' wrote Justice Brandeis, 'lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.'

Now who does that remind you of?

Ha! Trick question! Never mind Obama, it's John McCain. He encroached on our liberties with the constitutional abomination of McCain-Feingold. Well-meaning but without understanding, he proposed that the federal government buy up all these junk mortgages so that people would be able to stay in 'their' homes. And this is the 'center-right' candidate? It's hard for Republicans to hammer Obama as a socialist when their own party's nationalizing the banks and its presidential nominee is denouncing the private sector for putting profits before patriotism. That's why Joe the Plumber struck a chord: He briefly turned a one-and-a-half party election back into a two-party choice again.

If you went back to the end of the 19th century and suggested to, say, William McKinley that one day Americans would find themselves choosing between a candidate promising to guarantee your mortgage and a candidate promising to give 'tax cuts' to millions of people who pay no taxes he would scoff at you for concocting some patently absurd H.G. Wells dystopian fantasy. Yet it happened. Slowly, remorselessly, government metastasized to the point where it now seems entirely normal for Peggy Joseph of Sarasota, Fla., to vote for Obama because 'I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car. I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage'...

I don't need Barack Obama's help to 'spread the wealth around.' I spread my wealth around every time I hire somebody, expand my business, or just go to the general store and buy a quart of milk and loaf of bread. As far as I know, only one bloated plutocrat declines to spread his wealth around, and that's Scrooge McDuck, whose principal activity in Disney cartoons was getting into his little bulldozer and plowing back and forth over a mountain of warehoused gold and silver coins. Don't know where he is these days. On the board at Halliburton, no doubt. But most of the beleaguered band of American capitalists do not warehouse their wealth in McDuck fashion. It's not a choice between hoarding and spreading, but a choice between who spreads it best: an individual free to make his own decisions about investment and spending, or Barney Frank. I don't find that a difficult question to answer. More to the point, put Barney & Co. in charge of the spreading, and there'll be a lot less to spread.

I disagree with my fellow conservatives who think the Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Frank liberal behemoth will so obviously screw up that they'll be routed in two or four years' time. The president-elect's so-called 'tax cut' will absolve 48 percent of Americans from paying any federal income tax at all, while those who are left will pay more. Just under half the population will be, as Daniel Henninger pointed out in The Wall Street Journal, on the dole."

2008-11-07T23:31:00.002-07:00

Israel Developing Nuke-Hunting Drone (Wired)

"Israel is increasingly worried about the threat of a nuclear, missile-equipped Iran. So the Israeli military is working on 'a high-flying, long-endurance unmanned infrared sensor' that can tell the difference between 'nuclear warheads amid dozens of decoys sent to confound national missile defenses,' Defense News' Barbara Opall-Rome reports. 'If implemented, the Israeli program will mark the first use of an unmanned platform for [n]uclear warhead hunting.'"

2008-11-07T14:08:00.003-07:00

Orson Scott Card - "Gay Marriage: Disagree but don't be unkind"

"Some people have misunderstood the LDS Church's position on Proposition 8 in California, and its opposition to gay marriage. They think that we are 'against homosexuals' -- that we think of 'them' as our enemies, and that individuals who have entered into 'gay marriages' pose a direct personal threat to us.

The unfortunate thing is that some of those who have this false impression are Mormons.

So let's set the record straight...

We do not believe that homosexuals, by entering into a 'marriage,' are personally hurting anybody. Where the law makes such a thing available, even temporarily, those who 'marry' are not our enemies. We believe the law is wrong and the marriage is not, in any meaningful way, what we mean by marriage.

But my family and I are perfectly able to deal with such couples socially and keep them as friends, as long as they show the same respect and understanding for our customs and beliefs as we show for theirs...

Only when a gay friend demanded that I agree with his or her point of view or cease to be friends has the friendship ended. What is odd is that in every case they called me intolerant. They misunderstood the meaning of 'tolerance.'

Tolerance implies disagreement -- it means that even though we don't agree with or approve of each others beliefs or actions, we can still live together amicably. When we agree, we aren't being tolerant, we're being uniform.

It's uniformity or submission these former friends wanted, not tolerance at all...

Legalizing gay marriage has huge legal implications far beyond letting same-sex couples enter into marriage contracts. Once 'marriage' has been so radically redefined, it will become unlawful and discriminatory for schools or any other public facility to favor, for instance, heterosexual dating or dancing.

Since our culture (like all human cultures throughout all of history) is oriented toward promoting the maximum opportunity for reproductive success for all members of the community, but channeled in a way that will best promote the survival of the community, such a radical change should not be entered into lightly.

Yet serious examination of scientific, historical, and legal issues has been all but drowned out by name-calling and demands for 'rights'...

No serious attempt has been made to consider anything more than a general feeling that "tolerance is good" and "discrimination is bad." Yet we are proceeding headlong into a vast social experiment whose consequences, as far as we can see, risk serious damage to many in order to create only the most marginal benefit for a few.

What's the hurry? Why the hostility toward even the slightest opposition? Can't our opponents wait to get their way until they have persuaded a clear majority? Can't they listen to people with ideas that are different from theirs?"

In the name of tolerance, there will be a protest march against people who dare to express an opinion about gay marriage in Salt Lake City today, because the LDS church asked its members to support Proposition 8 in California. I'm anxiously awaiting the protests in East LA tomorrow against those homophobic blacks, too...

__________

2008-11-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

Iowahawk - "America Can Take Pride In This Historic, Inspirational Disaster

"Although I have not always been the most outspoken advocate of President-Elect Barack Obama, today I would like to congratulate him and add my voice to the millions of fellow citizens who are celebrating his historic and frightening election victory. I don't care whether you are a conservative or a liberal -- when you saw this inspiring young African-American rise to our nation's highest office I hope you felt the same sense of patriotic pride that I experienced, no matter how hard you were hyperventilating with deep existential dread.

Yes, I know there are probably other African-Americans much better qualified and prepared for the presidency. Much, much better qualified. Hundreds, easily, if not thousands, and without any troubling ties to radical lunatics and Chicago mobsters. Gary Coleman comes to mind. But let's not let that distract us from the fact that Mr. Obama's election represents a profound, positive milestone in our country's struggle to overcome its long legacy of racial divisions and bigotry. It reminds us of how far we've come, and it's something everyone in our nation should celebrate in whatever little time we now have left...

It's also heartening to realize that as president Mr. Obama will soon be working hand-in-hand with a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard like Senator Robert Byrd to craft the incoherent and destructive programs that will plunge the American economy into a nightmare of full-blown sustained depression. As Vice President-Elect Joe Biden has repeatedly warned, there will be difficult times ahead and the programs will not always be popular, or even sane. But as we look out over the wreckage of bankrupt coal companies, nationalized banks, and hyperinflation, we can always look back with sustained pride on the great National Reconciliation of 2008. Call me an optimist, but I like to think when America's breadlines erupt into riots it will be because of our shared starvation, not the differences in our color."

Obama Supporters Wave Communist Flag at White House Rally

2008-11-05T20:54:00.001-07:00

I think they left the Ché flag back in the campaign office...

2008-10-30T10:53:00.004-06:00

Michelle Malkin - "Notorious Obamedia Moments of 2008"

"The journalist who squealed 'He touched me!' at the UNITY minority journalists' convention in July; the MSNBC producer who broke down and shed tears of joy upon learning that The One had clinched the Democratic presidential nomination; MSNBC host Chris Matthews, who proclaimed that he 'felt a thrill up his leg' after an Obama speech in February; Oprah Winfrey, who confessed she did a 'happy dance' for Obama; and the writer for the German publication Bild, who worked out with Obama at the Ritz-Carlton in Berlin and reported: 'I put my arm around his hip -- wow, he didn't even sweat! WHAT A MAN!'

...In May, CNN posted 'breaking news video' of female journalists on Obama's press plane fawning over the Democratic presidential candidate as he talked on his cell phone. The caption listed on the network's website: 'Obama in jeans: Sen. Barack Obama surprises the press corps by wearing jeans.'

In the clip, several members of the press corps yell at a Secret Service agent to 'sit down' because she's obstructing the view of their beloved Obama. They giggle and sigh as Obama straddles over a row of seats and they furiously click away on their cameras. 'You're killing us,' one of them says breathlessly.

No, you're killing yourselves."

2008-10-30T10:35:00.003-06:00

Clerk charged with unlawful search of 'Joe the Plumber' (WNWO)

"Toledo Police have confirmed that a TPD records clerk is accused of performing an illegal search of information related to 'Joe the Plumber.'
Julie McConnell, has been charged with Gross Misconduct for allegedly making an improper inquiry into a state database in search of information pertaining to Samuel Wurzelbacher on Oct. 16.
Wurzelbacher came under the spotlight after being spoken about during the final presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain.
The inquiry into Wurzelbacher's record is a violation of department and state policy governing the use of the Law Enforcement Automated Data System. The clerk is under fire for making the inquiry for a non-law enforcement purpose."

Big brother is alive and well. Good thing Little Brother has the internet.

Cartoon hat tip to Batton Lash

2008-10-28T19:22:00.001-06:00

Andrew McCarthy - "The L.A. Times Suppresses Obama’s Khalidi Bash Tape"

"Let’s try a thought experiment. Say John McCain attended a party at which known racists and terror mongers were in attendance. Say testimonials were given, including a glowing one by McCain for the benefit of the guest of honor ... who happened to be a top apologist for terrorists. Say McCain not only gave a speech but stood by, in tacit approval and solidarity, while other racists and terror mongers gave speeches that reeked of hatred for an American ally and rationalizations of terror attacks.

Now let’s say the Los Angeles Times obtained a videotape of the party.

Question: Is there any chance — any chance — the Times would not release the tape and publish front-page story after story about the gory details, with the usual accompanying chorus of sanctimony from the oped commentariat? Is there any chance, if the Times was the least bit reluctant about publishing (remember, we’re pretending here), that the rest of the mainstream media (y’know, the guys who drove Trent Lott out of his leadership position over a birthday-party toast) would not be screaming for the release of the tape?

Do we really have to ask?

So now, let’s leave thought experiments and return to reality: Why is the Los Angeles Times sitting on a videotape of the 2003 farewell bash in Chicago at which Barack Obama lavished praise on the guest of honor, Rashid Khalidi — former mouthpiece for master terrorist Yasser Arafat?

...the press doesn’t think it’s quite as newsworthy as Sarah Palin’s wardrobe."

Bipartisan corruption:

2008-10-28T14:22:00.003-06:00

Rep. Alaska Senator Ted Stevens Convicted on 7 Corruption Counts

Dem. State Senator Dianne Wilkerson nabbed on complaint of extortion and theft

__

2008-10-27T17:00:00.003-06:00

Tom Blumer - "Obama’s Redistributionist Obsession"

"Even by Internet speed standards, the reaction to the YouTube posting of a 2001 radio interview of Barack Obama on Chicago public radio station WBEZ has been fast and furious...

This is, and should be, a big, big deal, because it leaves Obama nowhere to hide. He clearly exposes himself as a far-left socialist who believes that income and wealth redistribution should have been an integral element of the 1960s civil rights movement...

Obama: You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the courts, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples...But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society...

And one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which to bring about redistributive change...
This is astounding stuff from a man who is one election away from the presidency. In politer tones, he is saying things that would make his mentors — Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger, and William Ayers, not necessarily in that order — proud as peacocks. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez are probably beaming too."

2008-10-27T16:15:00.003-06:00

At the U.N., Many Hope for an Obama Win (Washington Post)

"There are no 'Obama 2008' buttons, banners or T-shirts visible here at U.N. headquarters, but it might be difficult to find a sliver of territory in the United States more enthusiastic over the prospect of the Illinois senator winning the White House.

An informal survey of more than two dozen U.N. staff members and foreign delegates showed that the overwhelming majority would prefer that Sen. Barack Obama win the presidency, saying they think that the Democrat would usher in a new agenda of multilateralism after an era marked by Republican disdain for the world body.

Obama supporters hail from Russia, Canada, France, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Indonesia and elsewhere. One American employee here seemed puzzled that he was being asked whether Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was even a consideration. 'Obama was and is unstoppable,' the official said. 'Please, God, let him win,' he added.

'It would be hard to find anybody, I think, at the U.N. who would not believe that Obama would be a considerable improvement over any other alternative,' said William H. Luers, executive director of the United Nations Association. 'It's been a bad eight years, and there is a lot of bad feeling over it.'

Conservatives who are skeptical of the United Nations said they are not surprised by the political tilt. 'The fact is that most conservatives, most Republicans don't worship at the altar in New York, and I think that aggravates them more than anything else,' said John R. Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. 'What they want is the bending of the knee, and they'll get it from an Obama administration.'"

Colum Lynch of the Post forgot to mention other regimes that support Obama: Palestinians, Cuba, North Korea, Libya, Venezuela, and Iran. At least he mentioned Russia...

2008-10-26T17:58:00.002-06:00

Mark Steyn: Obama nears the 'now what?' moment

"Across the electric wires, the hum is ceaseless: Give it up, loser. Don't go down with the ship when it's swept away by the Obama tsunami. According to newspaper reports, polls show that most people believe newspaper reports claiming that most people believe polls showing that most people have read newspaper reports agreeing that polls show he's going to win.

In the words of Publishers' Clearing House, he may already have won!...

'People of the world,' Sen. Obama declared sonorously at his self-worship service in Germany, 'look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.'

No, sorry. History proved no such thing. In the Cold War, the world did not stand as one. One half of Europe was a prison, and in the other half far too many people – the Barack Obamas of the day – were happy to go along with that division in perpetuity.

And the wall came down not because 'the world stood as one,' but because a few courageous people stood against the conventional wisdom of the day. Had Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan been like Helmut Schmidt and Francois Mitterrand and Pierre Trudeau and Jimmy Carter, the Soviet empire (notwithstanding its own incompetence) would have survived, and the wall would still be standing. Sen. Obama's feeble passivity will get you a big round of applause precisely because it's the easy option: Do nothing but hold hands and sing the easy-listening anthems of one-worldism, and the planet will heal.

To govern is to choose. And sometimes the choices are tough ones. When has Barack Obama chosen to take a stand? When he got along to get along with the Chicago machine? When he sat for 20 years in the pews of an ugly neo-segregationist race-baiting grievance-monger? When he voted to deny the surviving 'fetuses' of botched abortions medical treatment? When in his short time in national politics he racked up the most liberal – i.e., the most doctrinaire, the most orthodox, the most reflex – voting record in the Senate? Or when, on those many occasions the questions got complex and required a choice, he dodged it and voted merely 'present'?

The world rarely stands as one. You can, as Reagan and Thatcher did, stand up. Or, like Obama voting 'present,' you can stand down."

2008-10-26T17:47:00.002-06:00

Syria: US conducted cross-border raid (Long War Journal)

"Syrian officials claim the US military conducted a cross-border raid into Syria from Iraqi territory.

The raid was reportedly carried out in the town of Sukkariya near Abu Kamal in eastern Syria. According to witnesses, four US helicopters crossed the border and two of the helicopters landed to drop off special operations forces.

Syrian television claimed nine people were killed and 14 were wounded during the raid. Syria claimed of those killed and wounded were construction workers.

The raid occurred close to the main border crossing point between Iraq and Syria. Al Qaeda declared an Islamic Emirate in Al Qaim right along the Iraqi border during the spring of 2005. Al Qaeda terrorized the local tribes and attempted to institute a Taliban-like rule. Al Qaim was the main infiltration route into Iraq until US Marines and Iraqi troops launched a campaign to dislodge al Qaeda from the region.

The US has neither confirmed nor denied the operation took place."

2008-10-25T16:28:00.003-06:00

William Tate - "Secret of Obama tax plan revealed?"

"I have learned how Barack Obama plans to cut taxes for 95% of the public, even though only 60% of people pay income taxes. The explanation came from a young man calling from an Obama phone bank, one of millions of such calls being made these days...

-Obama will increase employment by giving tax breaks for corporations to bring jobs back to America. When I said my understanding was that the tax break would be $3,000 per job and asked how many people he thought would be willing to work for $3,000 a year, he said he would. He apparently had no concept of how little money that would be.

-The stock market will tank further if McCain is elected. When I pointed out that the stock market is a forward-looking mechanism, and that at least some of the market's recent fall has been the result of pricing in an expected Obama victory, he simply continued to maintain the market would fall if McCain is elected.

Finally, I asked the troubling question about how Obama will ensure a tax break for 95% of people--despite the fact that about 40% don't pay income taxes. He struggled with that one for a while. Again, it seemed to be a foreign concept to him, like no one had ever raised the subject before.

He stumbled through a series of answers. Obama would 'give' the unemployed jobs so that they could pay taxes and get a tax break. When I reminded him that would only account for 6%, he--in a tribute to the American education system--said that Obama was really talking about the 55% difference between 95 and 40. I reminded him that Obama had specified 95%, not 55%. He replied that 'Obama didn't really mean that.' I asked if he, the caller, was really supporting a candidate who lied about something so important?

He told me to wait while he talked to his supervisor. I could overhear bits of a conversation in which he referred to me, rather politely, as 'a difficult one.' (At least he didn't call me THAT one.)

When he returned to the phone, he informed me that Obama would reach the 95% figure by initiating taxes on the 40% who don't pay income taxes now, so that he could later give them their promised tax break.

Out of the mouths of babes."

Best Interview Ever: Barbara West vs. Joe Biden

2008-10-25T16:12:00.001-06:00

How much is the rest of the media going to sort through this woman's garbage like they did to Joe the Plumber to discredit her for daring to ask someone from the Obama ticket a tough question?

Obama: "My Plan is to Spread the Wealth Around"

2008-10-14T20:16:00.001-06:00

THE VOTE REAPER

2008-10-12T08:36:00.001-06:00

Another racist who disagrees with Darth Obama...

2008-09-12T23:27:00.002-06:00

John Hinderaker - "Obama gets tough, shoots self in head"

"I've always thought that Barack Obama is unqualified for the office of President--he isn't qualified to be a Senator, either--but I've never thought he was particularly mean-spirited. Until now. Obama said he was going to get tough, and put out [an] ad, which is offensive in a number of ways:

McCain "can't send an email?" That's true, actually, as Jonah Goldberg explains:

The reason he doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country. From the Boston Globe (March 4, 2000):

McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.

I guess now we'll find out whether Barack Obama is capable of shame."

2008-09-04T20:33:00.002-06:00

Newsbusters - Rasmussen: By 10-to-1 Public Says Reporters 'Trying to Hurt Palin'

"'Over half of U.S. voters (51%) think reporters are trying to hurt Sarah Palin with their news coverage, and 24% say those stories make them more likely to vote for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in November,' Rasmussen Reports announced Thursday in posting survey results which determined 'just five percent (5%) think reporters are trying to help her with their coverage, while 35 percent believe reporters are providing unbiased coverage.' In Thursday's Grapevine segment, FNC's Brit Hume highlighted the findings from the poll of 1,000 'likely voters.'”

2008-09-03T17:38:00.001-06:00

Palin Dodges Tough Questions About Existence of "Alaska"

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 3, 2008; A1

Media Bubble, Sept. 2 -- Embattled former beauty queen Sarah Palin* continued to wilt yesterday under the pressure of numerous fair, evenhanded media questions regarding the alleged state of "Alaska." Palin has claimed to be "governor" of the legendary land mass, which, while heretofore undiscovered by explorers, was once rumored to contain vast expanses rich with oil, gold, and "eski-mos."

Palin first made the "Alaska" claim during an Aug. 29 public appearance alongside elderly, mean-looking cancer victim John McCain. McCain, a white man with whiter hair, has long publicly blocked efforts by Barack Obama, a youthful black man with a certain indefinable aura about him, to move into Obama's new house. Palin, also white-skinned, has been linked to the McCain offensive.

After four days of telling silence from the McCain camp, Palin finally deigned to reappear in public yesterday. In a followup press conference, Palin, who is a girl, lashed out at the media.

"Listen to me: Alaska. Is. A. State. Seriously. The 49th state, in fact. Way up north there. What, did somebody go around your newsrooms and hide all the maps underneath the ethics manuals? Or are you idiots just completely insane?"

Shaking her head in a transparent attempt to feign exasperation, Palin -- who is perhaps not as pretty as she thinks she is -- then left the podium without answering followup questions regarding her plagiarism of CBS's Northern Exposure.

Internet reaction to the unfit mother's unhinged rant was swift. Andrew Sullivan, right-wing blogger for The Atlantic, saw Palin's comments as a major misstep. "She's working the refs. This is what they do. Sure, blame the media. Is it their fault she's unwilling to back up these suspicious claims?

"Look, I'm willing to entertain the idea that there really is a place called 'Alaska.' We've all heard the old wives' tales, and I've dreamed about such a rugged, outdoorsy paradise since I was about 13 or 14. But why is she so afraid to give us some proof? I mean, I've never been there, have you?"

Yukon Cornelius could not be reached for comment.

Update: After consultation with the Association of American Geographers and several DC-area kindergarten students, the Washington Post can now report that many current world maps contain a small area in the northwest corner of North America labeled "Alaska." Palin's relationship with the mapmaking industry is currently under investigation.

*Real name unconfirmed at press time

Newt takes on MSNBC over Gov. Palin's experience

2008-09-03T17:36:00.001-06:00

Newt can take on the media like no one else.

2008-07-04T13:07:00.002-06:00

America at 232: Liberty's fight (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Editorial)

"'We are in the very midst of a revolution,' wrote John Adams, 'the most complete, unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of nations.'

"In a ringing preamble, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, the document declared it 'self-evident' that 'all men are created equal,' and were endowed with the 'unalienable' rights of 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' And to this noble end the delegates had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.

"Such courage and high ideals were of little consequence, of course, the Declaration itself being no more than a declaration without military success against the most formidable force on Earth. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, an eminent member of Congress who opposed the Declaration, had called it a 'skiff made of paper.' And as Nathanael Greene had warned, there were never any certainties about the fate of war.

"But from this point on, the citizen-soldiers of Washington's army were no longer to be fighting only for the defense of their country, or for their rightful liberties as freeborn Englishmen, as they had at Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill and through the long siege at Boston. It was now a proudly proclaimed, all-out war for an independent America, a new America, and thus a new day of freedom and equality." (David McCullough, 1776)

We won that war, of course. But, ironically and quite sadly, the war for our independence continues.

Our leaders have rationalized our liberties.

Our legislators have spent us into servitude.

The U.S. Supreme Court thankfully just affirmed the Framers' Second Amendment intent. But our courts regularly mock the Constitution.

Free and independent we remain, but a little less with each exception made, each dollar porked and every Founders' precept and Framers' proscription ignored.

Let us resolve on this Independence Day 2008 to rededicate ourselves to this nation's founding proposition. For liberty is the people's property. And it's the government that's supposed to serve the people -- not the other way around.

2008-06-18T11:21:00.002-06:00

Michelle Malkin - "The Marines vs. Haditha Smear Merchants"

"Yet another U.S. Marine, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, had charges dropped Tuesday in the so-called Haditha massacre -- bringing the total number of Marines who've been cleared or won case dismissals in the Iraq war incident to seven. 'Undue command influence' on the prosecution led to the outcome in Chessani's case. Bottom line: That's zero for seven for military prosecutors, with one trial left to go...

[Rep. John] Murtha [D, PA] and company applied Queen of Hearts ('Off with their heads!') treatment to our own men and women in uniform while giving more benefit of the doubt to foreign terror suspects at Gitmo. It is worth recalling, because the press won't do it for you, what they concluded about the now-crumbling Haditha case in the summer of 2006 before a single formal charge had been filed...

Rep. Murtha -- the stab in the Marines' backs heard 'round the world: 'Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.'

Relatives of the Haditha Marines have called for Congress to censure Murtha, who cuts and runs to the nearest elevator when questioned about the Haditha dismissals. He and the Haditha smear merchants have skated while the men and their families suffered global whippings on the airwaves and eternal demonization in print. Whose 'culture of impunity'?"

2008-06-18T11:18:00.001-06:00

Muslims barred from picture at Obama event (Politico)

"Two Muslim women at Barack Obama's rally in Detroit on Monday were barred from sitting behind the podium by campaign volunteers seeking to prevent the women's headscarves from appearing in photographs or on television with the candidate.

The campaign has apologized to the women, both Obama supporters who said they felt betrayed by their treatment at the rally.

'This is of course not the policy of the campaign. It is offensive and counter to Obama's commitment to bring Americans together and simply not the kind of campaign we run,' said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. 'We sincerely apologize for the behavior of these volunteers.'"

2008-06-15T09:41:00.001-06:00

Charles Krauthammer - Obama's Plan for Defeat

"The disconnect between what Democrats are saying about Iraq and what is actually happening there has reached grotesque proportions. Democrats won an exhilarating electoral victory in 2006 pledging withdrawal at a time when conditions in Iraq were dire and we were indeed losing the war. Two years later, when everything is changed, they continue to reflexively repeat their "narrative of defeat and retreat" (as Joe Lieberman so memorably called it) as if nothing has changed.

It is a position so utterly untenable that John McCain must seize the opportunity and, contrary to conventional wisdom, make the Iraq War the central winning plank of his campaign. Yes, Americans are war-weary. Yes, most think we should not have engaged in the first place. Yes, Obama will keep pulling out his 2002 speech opposing the war.

But McCain's case is simple. Is not Obama's central mantra that this election is about the future not the past? It is about 2009, not 2002. Obama promises that upon his inauguration, he will order the Joint Chiefs to bring him a plan for withdrawal from Iraq within 16 months. McCain says that upon his inauguration, he'll ask the Joint Chiefs for a plan for continued and ultimate success.

The choice could not be more clearly drawn. The Democrats' one objective in Iraq is withdrawal. McCain's one objective is victory."

2008-06-15T09:37:00.001-06:00

71% Believe Being a Father is the Most Important Role a Man Can Fill (Rasmussen Reports)

"Most Americans believe that being a father is the most important role for a man to fill, but they are still more likely to visit their mom on Mother's Day.

A new Rasmussen Reports survey reveals that 57% of adults say they will visit their fathers this Sunday. That's 10% fewer than those who said they'd visit their mother for Mother's Day last month .

But dads will get more telephone calls. A third (33%) of adults say that they will call their fathers on their big day. Last month's survey found that 27% intended to call their moms on Mother's Day.

For Americans whose fathers are still alive, the new survey finds that 59% plan to buy dad a gift for Father's Day, but 32% will not. Women (65%) are more likely to purchase presents for their father than men (52%)."

2008-04-08T10:19:00.002-06:00

Thomas Sowell - "Random Thoughts"

"One way to reduce illegal immigration might be to translate some of our far left publications into Spanish and give everyone in Mexico subscriptions. After they read how terrible this country is, many may want to stay away...

The same people who have gone ballistic when some prominent figure is found to belong to some all-male social club are full of excuses for why Barack Obama remained a member of a racist and anti-American church for 20 years...

The way to get people's votes is to say that all their problems are caused by other people, and that you will stop those other people from giving them trouble. But if you really want to help, then you can tell them the truth and risk losing their votes...

The idea behind giving professors lifetime tenure is that this will enable them to speak out freely. But it would be hard to name any other occupation with a more cowardly record than academics, who have been giving in to politically correct campus bullies ever since the 1960s."

2008-04-08T07:45:00.002-06:00

China orders Tibetans 'reeducated' about Dalai Lama (LA Times)

"In an effort to quell unrest, Communist Party officials are ordering Tibetans back to school.

Buddhist monks, civil servants and public school students have been instructed to attend special classes in the virtues of Chinese rule and the evils of their exiled leader, the Dalai Lama. In these classes, the Tibetans read and recite from texts that denounce the Dalai Lama as a 'political reactionary' and a 'betrayer of the motherland.'

Ideological training is an enduring feature of Communist life, but has taken a back seat in a country consumed with more modern pursuits, such as making money. But in Tibetan areas, the Communist Party is pursuing 'patriotic education' with new zeal."

2008-04-07T14:43:00.002-06:00

Mark Steyn - "Good Time for McCain"

"So Senator Clinton has now released another electrifyingly vivid three-in-the-morning scenario:

'It’s 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep. But there’s a phone ringing in the White House and this time the crisis is economic. Home foreclosures mounting, markets teetering.

'John McCain just said the government shouldn’t take any real action on the housing crisis, he’d let the phone keep ringing. Hillary Clinton has a plan to protect our homes, create jobs.

'It’s 3 a.m., time for a president who’s ready.'

Jeepers, will all business during the Clinton Administration be transacted at 3 a.m.? Is it some union-negotiated flex-time deal? 'Home foreclosures mounting'? We’d better wake the President. There are now so many foreclosures the banks can no longer foreclose on everyone they need to foreclose on during normal banking hours. 'The First National Bank of Dead Skunk, Maine has begun issuing midnight foreclosure notices, Madam President.'

'Okay, nuke ‘em.'

'Er, well, maybe this can wait till the regular afternoon meeting.'

It’s 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep. But there’s a phone ringing in the White House. And ringing and ringing and ringing. Kim Jong-Il’s No Dong missiles are heading for every major West Coast city, but the President’s not picking up because at 2:57 a.m. the Secretary for Soccer Moms called to alert her to the growing crisis caused by the lack of Federally mandated children’s bicycling helmets. When the powder keg goes up, who do you want in the White House? Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose customized MCI Friends/Family/European Foreign Ministers/Overseas Dictators plan allows her to receive unlimited incoming calls between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.? Or John McCain, who’d bawl out the White House operator for waking him up to take a call from the Director of the Federal Bike Path Agency?"

2008-04-01T14:38:00.002-06:00

USA 2008: The Great Depression (The Independent)

"We knew things were bad on Wall Street, but on Main Street it may be worse. Startling official statistics show that as a new economic recession stalks the United States, a record number of Americans will shortly be depending on food stamps just to feed themselves and their families.

Dismal projections by the Congressional Budget Office in Washington suggest that in the fiscal year starting in October, 28 million people in the US will be using government food stamps to buy essential groceries, the highest level since the food assistance programme was introduced in the 1960s.

The increase – from 26.5 million in 2007 – is due partly to recent efforts to increase public awareness of the programme and also a switch from paper coupons to electronic debit cards. But above all it is the pressures being exerted on ordinary Americans by an economy that is suddenly beset by troubles. Housing foreclosures, accelerating jobs losses and fast-rising prices all add to the squeeze."

Wow, I'm glad I don't live in the United States with their Depression and horrible -- wait, what? Gee, my grandparents were a bunch of whiners...this Great Depression stuff is nothin'!

2008-04-01T12:13:00.001-06:00

Thomas Sowell - "Irony in Wall Street"

"There was a real irony in the recent intervention by the Federal Reserve System to provide the money that enabled the firm of JPMorgan Chase to buy Bear Stearns before it went bankrupt. The point was to try to prevent a domino effect of panic in the financial markets that could lead to a downturn in the economy.

The irony is that it was almost exactly a hundred years ago -- 1907, to be exact -- that the original J.P. Morgan arranged a bailout of a troubled financial institution for the same purpose of preventing a panic that could end up with the whole economy declining.

The difference is that J.P. Morgan and his fellow bankers used their own money, while the Federal Reserve System used their power to create money.

What that means is that the value of your money and my money -- all Federal Reserve Notes -- goes down when more Federal Reserve Notes are issued to subsidize the purchase of Bear Stearns by JPMorgan Chase."

2008-03-31T14:49:00.001-06:00

U.S. erred on nuke delivery (Detroit Free Press)

"The U.S. military mistakenly shipped four nuclear-missile detonators to Taiwan in 2006, then failed to detect the error for more than a year, the Pentagon admitted Tuesday.

The incident raises concerns about relations with China, which already opposes U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. China claims the self-governing island as its own and has threatened to attack if Taiwan makes its independence formal.

Also, this was the second time in recent months that Pentagon officials acknowledged losing track of parts of the country's nuclear arsenal. Last September, a B52 bomber was mistakenly loaded with nuclear-armed missiles and flown across the United States to a military base in Louisiana. At the time, Pentagon leaders called the incident isolated.

The fuses mistakenly sent to Taiwan had been shipped in March 2005 from Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming to the Defense Logistics Agency warehouse at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.

Pentagon officials said they didn't know how the detonators had been sent when Taiwan had ordered helicopter batteries, or who was responsible."

2008-03-31T14:41:00.002-06:00

Mark Steyn - "No one left to lie to"

"About this business of Hillary coming under intense sniping, I have some sympathy. The Clintons got away with this sort of thing for so long that you can’t blame them for wondering how they missed the memo advising that henceforth the old rules no longer apply. Bill, being warier, was usually canny enough to set his fantasies just far enough back in time that live cable footage was unlikely to be available — his vivid memories of entirely mythical black church burnings in his childhood, etc. But Hillary liked to live a little more dangerously. The defining fiction arose back in the mid-Nineties when she visited New Zealand and met Sir Edmund Hillary, the conqueror of Everest, and for some reason decided to tell him he was the guy her parents had named her after.

Hmm. Edmund Hillary reached the top of Everest in 1953. Hillary Rodham was born in 1947, when Sir Edmund was an obscure New Zealand beekeeper and a somewhat unlikely inspiration for two young parents in the Chicago suburbs. If any of the bigshot U.S. newspaper correspondents on the trip noticed this inconsistency, they kept it to themselves. I mentioned it in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph at the time, but like so many other improbabilities in the Clinton record it sailed on indestructibly for years. By 2004 it was preserved for the ages in Bill Clinton’s autobiography, on page (gulp) 870: 'Sir Edmund Hillary, who had explored the South Pole in the 1950s, was the first man to reach the top of Mount Everest and, most important, was the man Chelsea’s mother had been named for.'

Eventually, when it was noticed that Hillary was born six years before the ascent of Everest, Clinton aides tried assuring skeptics that her parents had seen a press interview with Sir Edmund in his beekeeping days, Mr. and Mrs. Rodham apparently being the only Illinois subscribers to The New Zealand Apiarist. Then, in the early days of her presidential campaign, Senator Clinton quietly withdrew the story, by which time the damage was done. Edmund Hillary passed away a couple of months back, and, as I recall, the New York Times headline read: 'New Zealander For Whom Senator Clinton Named Dies; Also First Man To Climb Everest. Senator Clinton Was At The Summit To Greet Him, After Landing Under Heavy Sniper Fire From The Abominable Snowman.'

There’s something weird about the need to tell quite so many unnecessary fictions. Yet Senator Clinton might reasonably have expected the sniper-fire landing in Tuzla to have been like the late-1940s epidemic of beekeeper-inspired Chicago christenings, something planted in the record that no one dares question."

2008-03-27T08:14:00.001-06:00

Michelle Malkin - "The Clintons' Truth Deficit Disorder"

"Seeking to burnish her foreign policy leadership credentials, Sen. Clinton has repeatedly peddled a harrowing anecdote about dodging sniper fire during a trip to Tuzla, Bosnia, in 1996. She brought her then-teenage daughter Chelsea on the dangerous mission. And entertainer Sinbad. And singer Sheryl Crow. And, oh, yeah, there was 8-year-old Emina Bicakcic, a Bosnian girl who calmly embraced the intrepid first lady and read her a poem on the tarmac -- while a huge contingent of children, parents and other onlookers surrounded them with not the least bit of concern about flying bullets.

When Sinbad, the Washington Post and every fact-checker on the Internet and under the sun debunked her tall tale, Sen. Clinton doubled down. She dissed Sinbad as a mere 'comedian.' She asserted that she and her compatriots ran for safety with 'our heads down.' She clung to her story that she 'had to be moved inside because of sniper fire.' And she embellished further: 'There was no greeting ceremony, and we were basically told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened.'

When video of the cheery greeting ceremony surfaced this week showing no such thing, Hillary's Truth Deficit Disorder kicked in and the symptomatic excuses poured forth. She 'misspoke.' Besides, she pooh-poohed, 'I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement.'

Priceless campaign slogan: The more she speaks, the more she 'mis'-speaks. Finally, truth in Clinton advertising!"

2008-03-24T14:41:00.003-06:00

Detroit mayor faces felony charges (CNN)
"Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and an ex-aide were charged Monday with perjury and obstruction of justice after prosecutors said sexually explicit text messages between the two contradicted their sworn court testimony.

Kilpatrick defiantly declared his innocence just an hour after the charges were announced.

'This has been a very flawed process from the beginning,' said Kilpatrick at a press conference Monday. 'I look forward to complete exoneration.'

Kilpatrick, who is married, has been snarled in a well-publicized sex scandal since January after The Detroit Free Press reported he exchanged romantic text messages with his then-chief of staff, Christine Beatty.

The paper reported in January that in an analysis of nearly 14,000 text messages on Beatty's city-issued pager, it found some from 2002 and 2003 that indicated the two were having a romantic affair."

2008-03-24T14:10:00.001-06:00

Mark Steyn - "Post ‘Post-Racial Candidate’"

"'I’m sure,' said Barack Obama in that sonorous baritone that makes his drive-thru order for a Big Mac, fries, and strawberry shake sound profound, 'many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.'

Well, yes. But not many of us have heard remarks from our pastors, priests, or rabbis that are stark, staring, out-of-his-tree flown-the-coop nuts. Unlike Bill Clinton, whose legions of 'spiritual advisers' at the height of his Monica troubles outnumbered the U.S. diplomatic corps, Senator Obama has had just one spiritual adviser his entire adult life: the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, two-decade pastor to the president presumptive. The Reverend Wright believes that AIDS was created by the government of the United States — and not as a cure for the common cold that went tragically awry and had to be covered up by Karl Rove, but for the explicit purpose of killing millions of its own citizens. The government has never come clean about this, but the Reverend Wright knows the truth. 'The government lied,' he told his flock, 'about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.'

Does he really believe this? If so, he’s crazy, and no sane person would sit through his gibberish, certainly not for 20 years.

Or is he just saying it? In which case, he’s profoundly wicked. If you understand that AIDS is spread by sexual promiscuity and drug use, you’ll know that it’s within your power to protect yourself from the disease. If you’re told that it’s just whitey’s latest cunning plot to stick it to you, well, hey, it’s out of your hands, nothing to do with you or your behavior...

Nonetheless, last week, Barack Obama told America: 'I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.'"

Tomany useful idiots?

2008-03-19T14:43:00.004-06:00

Wow, I don't think I've ever seen one picture that can sum up the whole anti-war movement as well as this one does.

Props to Zombie.

2008-03-10T09:12:00.002-06:00

Mark Steyn - "A Farewell to Guilt"

"Well, we will have Hillary Clinton to kick around some more, at least for another few weeks. The Mummy (as my radio pal Hugh Hewitt calls her) kicked open the sarcophagus door and, despite the rotting bandages dating back to Iowa, began staggering around terrorizing folks all over again. 'She is a monster,' Obama advisor Samantha Power told a reporter from The Scotsman — and not a monster in a cute Loch Ness blurry long-distance kind of way but something far more repulsive and in your face. 'You just look at her and think, Ergh,' continued Ms. Power, warming to her theme perhaps more than is advisable even in an interview with an overseas newspaper.

The New York Times took a different line. The only monster is you — yes, you, the American people. Surveying the Hillary-Barack death match, Maureen Dowd wrote: 'People will have to choose which of America's sins are greater, and which stain will have to be removed first. Is misogyny worse than racism, or is racism worse than misogyny?'

Do even Democrats really talk like this? Apparently so. As Ali Gallagher, a white female (sorry, this identity-politics labeling is contagious) from Texas, told The Washington Post: 'A friend of mine, a black man, said to me, "My ancestors came to this country in chains; I'm voting for Barack." I told him, "Well, my sisters came here in chains and on their periods; I'm voting for Hillary."'

When everybody's a victim, nobody's a victim. Poor Ms. Gallagher can't appreciate the distinction between purely metaphorical chains and real ones, or even how offensive it might be to assume blithely that there's no difference whatsoever. But, if her sisters really came here in chains, it must have been Bondage Night at the Mayflower's Swingers' Club. On the other hand, Barack's ancestors didn't come here in chains either: his mother was a white Kansan, so was presumably undergoing menstrual hell with the Gallagher gals, and his dad was a black man a long way away in colonial Kenya."

2008-03-07T13:34:00.007-07:00

Summit to take on crisis over Colombian raid into Ecuador (CNN)

"The presidents of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, entangled in a crisis sparked by a raid by Colombian forces into Ecuador, plan to join other Latin American leaders at a summit Friday.

Colombian forces killed 22 people in the cross-border raid, which targeted a rebel group that has fought the Colombian government for more than 40 years.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish acronym FARC, has operated out of camps in Ecuador, according to Colombia's government.

Colombia has apologized for conducting an attack inside Ecuador, but it also has said the killing of a senior leader of FARC in the raid was the most significant blow in more than four decades of warfare between the Colombian government and the group, which the United States and European Union label a terrorist organization.

After the raid, Ecuador and Venezuela, leftist allies that border Colombia, moved troops toward the frontier and denounced the rightist government of Colombia."

Read this post by Señor Dangriga on the situation, an hombre who has some firsthand knowledge; I am officially going so far as to deem him an expert!

2008-03-07T13:34:00.006-07:00

Ben Stein - "Exxon Mobil Needs a Hug"

"[Barack Obama]talked about the country’s energy policy and how he planned to change our dependence on oil. And he took aim at Exxon Mobil, which had almost $12 billion in earnings last quarter, and said that good old Exxon Mobil wouldn’t part easily with its profits...

Mr. Obama is clearly an intelligent man. So it may not be too early to start a small process of education about Exxon Mobil and other oil companies and why attacking them is not smart. First, Exxon Mobil, like all the other gigantic integrated energy companies in this country, is owned not by a cabal of reactionary businessmen holding clandestine meetings in a lodge in the Texas scrublands (as Oliver Stone so brilliantly illustrated in Nixon).

Exxon Mobil, in fact, is owned mostly by ordinary Americans. Mutual funds, index funds and pension funds (including union pension funds) own about 52 percent of Exxon Mobil’s shares. Individual shareholders, about two million or so, own almost all the rest. The pooh-bahs who run Exxon own less than 1 percent of the company.

When Exxon Mobil earns almost $12 billion in a quarter, or $41 billion in a year, as it did in 2007, that money does not go into the coffers of a few billionaire executives quaffing Champagne in Texas. It goes into the pension and retirement accounts of ordinary citizens. When Exxon pays a dividend, that money goes to pay for the mortgages and oxygen tanks and in-home care of lots of elderly Americans.

So, Mr. Obama, which union pension plans — and which blue-collar workers who benefit from them — will be among the first you would like to deprive of the income that flows from Exxon’s rich dividends?"

2008-03-06T10:48:00.003-07:00

Ruling seen as a threat to many home-schooling families (LA Times)

"Parents who lack teaching credentials cannot educate their children at home, according to a state appellate court ruling that is sending waves of fear through California's home schooling families.

Advocates for the families vowed to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. Enforcement until then appears unlikely, but if the ruling stands, home-schooling supporters say California will have the most regressive law in the nation...

'This decision is a direct hit against every home schooler in California,' said Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, which represents the Sunland Christian School, which specializes in religious home schooling. 'If the state Supreme Court does not reverse this . . . there will be nothing to prevent home-school witch hunts from being implemented in every corner of the state of California.'...

'Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children,' wrote Justice H. Walter Croskey in a Feb. 28 opinion signed by the two other members of the district court. 'Parents who fail to [comply with school enrollment laws] may be subject to a criminal complaint against them, found guilty of an infraction, and subject to imposition of fines or an order to complete a parent education and counseling program.'

Phillip Long said he believes the ruling stems from hostility against Christians and vowed to appeal to the state Supreme Court."

2008-03-06T10:29:00.002-07:00

Cal Thomas - "Coming Out"

"As one group attempts to use California public schools as laboratories to assist children in 'coming out' with their nontraditional sexual orientation, another is urging parents to come out from these schools and educate their children with their values at home or in private schools.

Last Sunday, a group called 'Exodus Mandate' began placing literature in scores of Southern California church lobbies, urging parents to take charge of their children's education and oppose attempts by activists and politicians to shape the worldview of young people, a worldview that runs counter to what many taxpaying parents believe and teach in their homes and places of worship.

The final straw for some was the decision last fall by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign SB 777...[which] requires 'nondiscrimination' against sexual orientation, as well as other characteristics. Opponents take that to mean favorable teaching about homosexuality, bisexuality, gender identity and any and every other form of sexual expression for which there is an advocate...

The tragedy is that too many conservative Christian, Republican parents who want their children to have a different worldview -- their own -- willingly participate in the destruction of their children's minds by turning them over to a way of thinking that is antithetical to their beliefs. Parents who worship at conservative churches on Sunday willingly send their children to schools five days a week where what they are taught undermines what they learned in church and at home. They would never think of taking their kids to a church that teaches doctrines opposed to their beliefs, but they don't give a second thought to doing the same thing by sending them to government schools. It makes no sense...

[Dr. Ron Gleason, pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Yorba Linda, Calif]'s rationale is simple. 'If you're going to send your kids to Caesar, you're going to get Romans back.'"

2008-03-06T09:11:00.002-07:00

Police probe cyclist link in Times Square blast (MSN)

"A witness saw a person on a bicycle acting suspiciously around the time a 'low-order explosive device' damaged the Times Square recruiting station, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Thursday.

No one was injured in the 3:45 a.m. blast, but it left a gaping hole in the front window and shattered a glass door, twisting and blackening its metal frame.

Police said investigators would have to examine the evidence to determine exactly what kind of device was used. The Department of Homeland Security said it was examining whether there was a terrorism link to the explosion."

2008-03-06T09:03:00.001-07:00

George Will - "In Cuba, Ignorance In Amber"

"The letter from a 12-year-old to 'my good friend Roosvelt' is dated Nov. 6, 1940, one day after FDR won a third term. Saying he is 'very happy' FDR won, he adds: 'If you like, give me a ten dollars bill green american.' The letter, an enlarged copy of which is on display in the National Archives, ends: 'Good by. Your friend, Fidel Castro.'

Young Castro with his hand out prefigured his role in political history. Until its spell was broken, Marxism mesmerized millions by promising to solve mankind's economic problem -- abundance without the alienation caused by work, the French word for which is travail. Instead, Castro created mendicant Marxism, making Cuba dependent on huge subventions from the Soviet Union, which paid eight times the market price for sugar, and in the process purchased young Cuban men to fight in various 'wars of liberation.' When Russia withdrew its aid, Cuba's economy quickly shrank 35 percent, more than the U.S. economy contracted (26.5 percent) in the Depression. Cuba under communism had to import sugar. Today, Hugo Chavez's Venezuela provides $4 billion of oil to a Cuba with a GDP of $45 billion.

The departure, if such it really is, of Castro, the weird uncle in the island's attic, cures nothing. Cuba's affliction remains: It is Castroism, which is communism colored by Bonapartism. Communism of any stripe is afflicted by terminal ignorance. Having no market, which is an information-generating mechanism, communism cannot know what things should cost."

2008-03-05T11:25:00.002-07:00

Did the Clinton Campaign Doctor Obama Footage to Make Him 'Blacker'? (Wired)

Tensions are running high in Democratic circles between the supporters of senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- and nowhere is that more evident than on the internet.

Some of the more explosive blog posts making the rounds today concern a charge from a couple of diarists on the Daily Kos that the Clinton campaign deliberately darkened Obama's skin color in a recent television ad.

"Troutnut," who made the recommended blog post today, is an Obama supporter. A myDD diarist named "Hunter Thompson," a Clinton supporter, blasts the entry as "the dumbest diary in blog history."

Asked about the assertion made in the Kos blog post, Clinton campaign spokesman Jay Carson said that "the ad capture on Kos is not a capture of our original ad and this entire assertion is ridiculous."

2008-03-05T10:40:00.002-07:00

Michelle Malkin - "The Death Cry of Gloria Steinem"

"From once-ripe feminist icon to idea-barren harridan, [Gloria Steinem] offers nothing to young women but anachronistic man-hate, anti-military bigotry and woe-is-me wallowing.

Hope and change? Try harp and whinge. Some things get better with age. The women's rights movement isn't one of them.

In the dark and desperate days of gyno-candidate Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, Team Hill dragged Steinem out of the leftist dustbin for a grieve-a-thon in Austin, Texas. The 73-year-old activist sulked about Barack Obama's ascendancy to The New York Observer, blaming voters who 'want redemption for racism' and complaining that not 'as many want redemption for the gynocide.'

What does she mean by gynocide? 'There are six million female lives lost in the world every year simply because they are female,' Steinem asserted, making a passing reference to pregnant women killed by male partners. Presumably, she's not including the millions of unborn girls aborted around the world every year because of their gender. (Not exactly the kind of empowerment the fist-raising, bra-burning pro-choicers had in mind.) And nothing in Steinem's record indicates that she's thinking of the untold numbers of girls and women murdered for 'honor' in the name of Allah by Muslim relatives.

It's Western men Steinem detests. You know, the ones who watch football, whom the NOW propagandists tried to blame for a mythic rise in domestic violence on Super Bowl Sundays, and the ones who serve in the U.S. armed forces -- like that gyno-enemy, John McCain...

American women are the freest, wealthiest, most educated in the world. They are liberated enough to choose someone for president other than a female candidate out of uterus-based loyalty. This should be viewed as progress, not heresy. But the old-guard feminists -- the 'ruling people' -- deeply resent this independence as they cling to what's left of their power base and their shrinking absolute moral authority card."

2008-03-04T14:51:00.002-07:00

China, Russia block Iran nuclear resolution (CNN)

"Russia and China Tuesday scuttled a Western attempt to introduce a resolution on Iran's nuclear defiance at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, diplomats said.

The decision appeared to be the result of lingering unhappiness by the two world powers about not being informed earlier of plans for such a resolution.

It came a day after the U.N. Security Council imposed another round of sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment. Iran defiantly vowed to continue its nuclear program, which it insists is aimed only at generating power.

Moscow Monday had threatened not to back the new U.N. sanctions against Iran unless the West gave up its IAEA resolution plans."

China and Russia apparently like the fact that Iran and jihad are America's problem, and they like to keep it that way.

2008-03-04T13:39:00.002-07:00

Thomas Sowell - "Rescuing the Rust Belt"

"When the American automobile industry was the world's leader in its field, many people seemed to think that labor unions could transfer a bigger chunk of that prosperity to its members without causing economic repercussions.

Toyota, Honda, and others who took away more and more of the Big Three automakers' market share, leading to huge job losses in Detroit, proved once again the old trite saying that there is no free lunch.

Like the United Automobile Workers union in its heyday, unions in the steel industry and other industries piled on costs, not only in wage rates having little relationship to supply and demand, but in all sorts of red tape work rules that added costs.

State and local governments in what later became the rust belt also thought that they too could treat the industries under their jurisdiction as prey rather than assets, and siphon off more of the wealth created by those industries into state and local treasuries with ever higher taxes -- again, without considering repercussions.

In the short run, you can get away with all sorts of things. But, in the long run, the chickens come home to roost. The rust belt is where those rising costs have come home to roost...

NAFTA makes it easier for politicians to blame the problem on foreigners. In fact, foreigners make ideal scapegoats for politicians. After all, people in Japan or India can't vote in American elections.

Americans who can vote would do well to start spending more time thinking about economic realities, instead of being swept away by political rhetoric."

2008-03-03T12:25:00.002-07:00

Alan Dershowitz - "Worshippers of Death"

"Late last month, a young female bomber was shot as she approached some shops in central Baghdad. The Iraqi soldier who drew his gun hesitated as the bomber, hands raised, insisted that she wasn't armed. The soldier and a shop owner finally opened fire as she dashed for the stores; she was knocked to the ground but still managed to detonate the bomb, killing three and wounding eight. Had the soldier and other bystanders not called out a warning to others -- and had they not shot her before she could enter the shops -- the death toll certainly would have been higher. Had he not hesitated, it might have been lower.

As more women and children are recruited by their mothers and their religious leaders to become suicide bombers, more women and children will be shot at -- some mistakenly. That too is part of the grand plan of our enemies. They want us to kill their civilians, who they also consider martyrs, because when we accidentally kill a civilian, they win in the court of public opinion. One Western diplomat called this the 'harsh arithmetic of pain,' whereby civilian casualties on both sides 'play in their favor.' Democracies lose, both politically and emotionally, when they kill civilians, even inadvertently. As Golda Meir once put it: 'We can perhaps someday forgive you for killing our children, but we cannot forgive you for making us kill your children.'"

John McCain: I'm a proud conservative liberal Republican

2008-03-01T12:00:00.001-07:00

Check it out at about 1:30 in...

It's great.

Такого как Путин (I think that's Russian for "Propaganda")

2008-02-29T22:45:00.001-07:00

This is an English translation of the #1 song in Russia right now. Roughly it goes a little sump'm like this:
"My boyfirend has got himself into trouble again,
Had a fight, downed a lot of crap.
I'm so fed up with him, I dumped him,
And now I want someone like Putin.

Someone like Putin, full of strength,
Someone like Putin, who doesn't drink,
Someone like Putin, who doesn't hurt me,
Someone like Putin, who won't run away.

I saw him yesterday on the news,
He said that the world is at a crossroads.
Someone like him is easy to be with at home and with friends,
And now I want someone like Putin.
Someone like Putin, full of strength,
Someone like Putin, who doesn't drink,
Someone like Putin, who doesn't hurt me,
Someone like Putin, who won't run away."
And I thought Michael Moore was a propaganda master; Russia puts us to shame...

2008-02-28T16:16:00.004-07:00

British Cities Fighting Hygiene Battle With Muslim Hospital Workers (Fox News)

"Muslim medical workers in three major English cities are balking at hospital hygiene rules such as rolling up their sleeves when they scrub for surgery, according to The Daily Mail.

Health officials have been ready to wash their hands of the dispute, but at least one hospital is bending to the requests.

Female med students and staff at hospitals in at least a trio of large British cities — Liverpool, Leicester and Sheffield — have continued to flat-out refuse to comply with regulations aimed at fending off germs and infections, the Mail reported, with some saying they'd rather quit than expose their arms.

The workers object on the grounds that showing their forearms is immodest for women who practice Islam and against their religion. Hygiene gurus insist that no exceptions should be made for religious or other reasons...

The dispute has been ongoing, with the U.K. Daily Telegraph reporting earlier this month that Britain's Department of Health regulations — devised to prevent the spread of various superbugs — were being violated with more frequency.

The Islamic Medical Association has gotten involved, telling Muslim women in the field that they must stay covered."

Is this why they don't let me give blood if I've been to Britain? Ewww...

________

2008-02-28T16:10:00.002-07:00

Glenn Beck - "Don't follow herd on the economy"

"'The people who survived the Great Depression were the ones who had money to buy when everybody else was selling.' -- My grandfather

I learned a lot from my grandfather, but that might have been the greatest lesson he ever taught me. He wasn't just talking about managing money, he was talking about managing life -- and his words have stuck with me since I was a child...

Less than a year ago, a recession was the last thing on anyone's mind. In fact, over the summer, as I was questioning the conventional wisdom, I read an article on my television show that quoted a financial expert as saying, 'It is the strongest global market that we've seen in the history of measuring these things.'

That's when I realized how fast the herd was approaching the cliff.

But with predictions of a recession now more common than Fed rate cuts -- and that's saying something -- maybe now it's time to look at a worst-case scenario. After all, considering all sides of an issue, no matter how extreme they may be, doesn't make you a crazy person; it makes you an educated one...

Depressions aren't advertised in advance. Last time around we went from the Roaring '20s to bread lines in a matter of just a few years.

Anyone who says that can't happen again either doesn't know history, doesn't understand how interconnected the world's economies have become, or is lying to you. While that doesn't mean you should panic, it does mean you should prepare -- something my grandfather would've done a long time ago."

2008-02-27T13:40:00.002-07:00

Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling (Daily Tech)

"Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down."

2008-02-27T13:13:00.003-07:00

Gary Hubbell - "In election 2008, don’t forget Angry White Man"

"Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

His common traits are that he isn’t looking for anything from anyone — just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.

The victimhood syndrome buzzwords — 'disenfranchised,' 'marginalized' and 'voiceless' — don’t resonate with him. 'Press one for English' is a curse-word to him. He’s used to picking up the tab, whether it’s the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.

He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a 'living document' open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives...

The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina — he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter...

He’s not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He’s willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.

Most important, the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don’t pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers. When a child gets charged with carrying a concealed weapon for mistakenly bringing a penknife to school, he takes note of who the local idiots are in education and law enforcement...

He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton...It’s not that she is a woman. It’s that she is who she is. It’s the liberal victim groups she panders to, the “poor me” attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves...

He hopes that she will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and he will make sure that she gets beaten like a drum."

2008-02-26T12:12:00.004-07:00

Mercury leaks found as new bulbs break (Boston Globe)

"Compact fluorescent lamps - those spiral, energy-efficient bulbs popular as a device to combat global warming - can pose a small risk of mercury poisoning to infants, young children, and pregnant women if they break, two reports concluded yesterday.

But the reports, issued by the state of Maine and the Vermont-based Mercury Policy Project, urged homeowners to keep using compact fluorescents because their energy-saving benefits far outweigh the risk posed by mercury released from a broken lamp...

Mercury is a naturally occurring metal that accumulates in the body and can harm the nervous system of a fetus or young child if ingested in sufficient quantity.

For the Maine study, researchers shattered 65 compact fluorescents to test air quality and cleanup methods. They found that, in many cases, immediately after the bulb was broken - and sometimes even after a cleanup was attempted - levels of mercury vapor exceeded federal guidelines for chronic exposure by as much as 100 times...

The study recommended that if a compact fluorescent breaks, get children and pets out of the room. Ventilate the room. Never use a vacuum, even on a rug, to clean up a broken compact fluorescent lamps. Instead, use stiff paper such as index cards and tape to pick up pieces, and then wipe the area with a wet wipe or damp paper towel. If there are young children or pregnant woman in the house, consider cutting out the piece of carpet where the lamp broke as a precaution. Place the shards and cleanup debris in a glass jar with a screw top and remove the jar from the house."

So if your bulb breaks, get children, pets, and pregnant women out of the house, and cut out your carpet where the mercury soaked in. But don't worry, saving the planet is worth a few endangered children, right?

2008-02-26T11:42:00.003-07:00

Thomas Sowell - "Bad Times"

"The front page of the New York Times has increasingly become the home of editorials disguised as 'news' stories. Too often it has become the home of hoaxes.

Going back some years, it was the Tawana Brawley hoax that she had been gang-raped by a bunch of white men. Just a couple of years ago, it was the Duke University 'rape' hoax that they fell for.

In between there were the various hoaxes of New York Times reporter Jason Blair, who was kept on and promoted until too many people found out what he had been doing and the paper had to let him go.

Last month the New York Times created its own hoax with a long front page article about how war veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan were killing people back in the United States because of the stress they had gone through in combat.

That hoax was shot down two days later by the New York Post, which showed that the murder rate among returning war veterans was only one-fifth the murder rate among civilians in the same age brackets.

Undaunted, the New York Times has come up with its latest front-page sensation, the claim that some anonymous people either suspected an affair between Senator John McCain and a female lobbyist or tried to forestall an affair.

But apparently no one actually claimed that they knew there was an affair...

The declining credibility of the New York Times and of other tendentious media is, in one sense, a healthy thing. There has been too much public gullibility that has been cynically exploited by both the media and politicians.

In another sense, however, it is a sad day for the country as a whole that there are shrinking sources of reliable news and informed and honest commentary."

2008-02-25T14:57:00.001-07:00

Oscars a ratings flop (Hollywood Reporter)

"This season continues to be no country for network award shows.

Following the lowest-rated Emmys since 1990, the strike-hindered ratings performance of a severely truncated version of the Golden Globes and a nonstruck airing of the Grammys that nonetheless disappointed, Sunday night's presentation of the 80th Annual Academy Awards on ABC hit an all-time ratings low.

According to overnight fast national ratings, the awards averaged a 10.7 rating among adults 18 to 49 and was seen by 32 million viewers. In the demo, that's down a sharp 24% from last year and the lowest on record. Among viewers, that's a 20% drop. The previous all-time low was in 2003."

So did anyone actually watch any of the best picture nominees? Not me...

2008-02-25T12:52:00.002-07:00

Mark Steyn - "Clinton's Melancholy"

"The Clintons have met their Waterloo but it's not some doughty conservative warrior who gets to play Duke of Wellington, only some freshman pap peddler of liberal boilerplate whom no-one had heard of the day before yesterday.

Such are the vicissitudes of politics. I see from the gay newspaper The Washington Blade that, as the headline writer put it, 'Clinton Leads Among Gay Super Delegates.' Only in the Democratic Party. I don't know how many supergays it takes to outvote the non-super primary and caucus voters from Maine to Nevada to Hawaii. They may yet pull Senator Clinton's chestnuts out of the fire, but they're looking pretty charred and indigestible right now. Unlike the Fall of Thatcher, it's nothing so glamorous as an act of matricide, but just the nightly hell of a tired vaudeville act that can no longer find the spark...

And, worst of all for Bill and Hill, the Dems found a new star — their first in 16 years. Look at it from Hillary's point of view: She'd expected to run against the likes of Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd — the usual mediocrities and misfits. Then Barack Obama came along, and did what the Clintons did in 1992 — saw his opportunity and seized it. All of a sudden, she's the Bill Richardson — worthy but dull, earthbound and joyless, lead weights round her ankles."

2008-02-22T14:59:00.001-07:00

John Stossel - "Presidents can't manage the economy"

"The presidential candidates have been repeatedly asked how they would 'manage the economy.' With the exception of Ron Paul, every candidate has accepted the premise that this is something the president of the United States should do.

Or can do.

Nonsense.

Democrats act like the president is national economic manager. Republicans pay lip service to free markets, tax and spending cuts, and less regulation -- before proposing big programs to achieve 'energy independence,' job training and a cooler climate...

McCain says, 'It is government's job to help workers get the education and training they need for the new jobs'. Mike Huckabee (who glories in public-works projects as a job-creation machine) and Barack Obama talk in similar terms.

That hardly shows confidence in the free market, which, if allowed, would train and educate workers just fine. But it shows misplaced confidence in the federal government, which, as journalist Jim Bovard has shown, has an unbelievably bad track record at doing it...

The economy is far too complex for any president -- no matter how smart -- to manage. How can politicians and bureaucrats possibly know what hundreds of millions of individuals know, want and aspire to? How can government employees fathom what trade-offs to make in a world of scarce resources?

They can't. That's why free people are more prosperous than unfree people.

Presidential candidates should promise to keep their hands off the economy."

2008-02-21T14:58:00.001-07:00

China's Role In Supply Of Drug Is Under Fire (Wall Street Journal)

"In a small, damp factory here, blood-smeared men wring pulp from pig intestines, then heat it in concrete vats.

The activity at Yuan Intestine & Casing Factory is the first step in the poorly regulated process of making raw heparin, the main ingredient in a type of blood-thinning medicine that in recent days has come under suspicion in the deaths of four Americans.

More than half the world's heparin comes from China. The chemical is often extracted from pig entrails in small factories -- many as rudimentary as this one, which also manufactures sausage casings from intestines. The heparin eventually ends up in drugs used world-wide by patients having surgery or who need dialysis.

Heparin goes through extensive processing in its journey from abattoir to IV bag. Nevertheless, because some of it originates in tiny Chinese factories like these, if there's a problem with the final medication, it can be nearly impossible to trace the raw heparin back to the source, the pigs whose tissue was used to make it."

2008-02-21T14:44:00.001-07:00

Bob Lonsberry - "Is ignoring illegals compassionate?"

"I'm talking about the assertion that those who oppose illegal immigration somehow lack compassion, that they fail to see the human element of the issue, that they lose sight of the fact that illegal aliens are children of God, that if they only knew an illegal alien and his family their view on the issue would change.

I think that viewpoint represents both arrogance and ignorance. Specifically, it represents a failure to understand the people who oppose illegal immigration.

So let me explain.

People who oppose illegal immigration don't hate illegal aliens, they love America. And they understand America and its reliance on constitutional order and the rule of law. They know that liberty is rooted in and protected by law. They know that it is the moral duty of all Americans to uphold the law. In fact, they join with Abraham Lincoln in declaring obedience to law our 'national religion.'

People who oppose illegal immigration have no objection to immigration, but they can never accept 'illegal' as a way of doing things in this country. The Lord said that his house is a 'house of order,' and so must the affairs of this nation be. Unchallenged illegality – of any nature – is a threat to our Constitution and – consequently – to our country.

When the laws do not matter, then the Congress that passed them does not matter and the executive who supposedly enforces them does not matter and the courts that interpret them do not matter and our entire Republic does not matter. When the laws do not matter, our Constitution twists in the wind, dangling by a thread."

2008-02-18T15:46:00.004-07:00

Kosovo Makes Historic Declaration of Independence From Serbia, Russia Protests (Fox News)

"A decade after a bloody separatist war with Serbian forces that claimed 10,000 lives, lawmakers pronounced the territory the Republic of Kosovo and pledged to make it a 'democratic, multiethnic state.' Its leaders looked for swift recognition from the U.S. and key European powers — but also braced for a bitter showdown.

Serbia called the declaration illegal and its ally Russia denounced it, saying it threatened to touch off a new conflict in the Balkans. Russia and Serbia called for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, which met later Sunday...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has argued that independence without U.N. approval would set a dangerous precedent for 'frozen conflicts' across the former Soviet Union, where separatists in Chechnya and Georgia are agitating for independence.
Serbia's government ruled out a military response as part of a secret 'action plan' drafted earlier this week, but warned that it would downgrade relations with any foreign government that recognizes Kosovo's independence."

2008-02-18T15:26:00.003-07:00

Jonah Goldberg - "Five Minutes Well Spent"

"Less than five minutes.

That’s the total amount of time the United States has waterboarded terrorist detainees. How many detainees? Three. Who were these detainees?

One was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 'the principle architect of the 9/11 attacks' according to the 9/11 Report, and the head of al-Qaeda’s 'military committee...' A second was Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the head of al-Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf...The third was Abu Zubaydah, said to be al-Qaeda’s chief logistics operative and Osama bin Laden’s top man after Ayman al Zawahri...

And that’s it. Less than five minutes, three awful men, five years ago...

The reason these facts are important is simple. For several years, human rights groups, the media, and partisan opponents of the Bush administration and the war on terror have tried to portray the U.S. as a 'torture state' that has completely abdicated its decency, its principles, and even its soul under the leadership of a president who believes in an ominous-sounding 'unitary executive' branch. We’ve been barreling down a 'slippery slope,' making America indistinguishable from Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia.

Yet none of these interrogations were the result of a 'rogue' CIA or the mad whims of a 'torture presidency.' The relevant Democratic congressional leadership for intelligence — including current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, and former Sen. Bob Graham — were briefed on CIA operations more than once. 'Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing,' Porter Goss, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee from 1997 to 2004 before becoming CIA director, told the Washington Post. 'And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement.'"

2008-02-12T14:57:00.000-07:00

Pakistan nuclear staff go missing (BBC)

"Two employees of Pakistan's atomic energy agency have been abducted in the country's restive north-western region abutting the Afghan border, police say.
The technicians went missing on the same day as Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, was reportedly abducted in the same region.

'The technicians were going for some geological survey in the area when they were kidnapped at gunpoint along with their driver,' Romail Akram, a senior police official, told Reuters news agency.

Their vehicle was intercepted by masked gunmen in the Dera Ismail Khan district, a stronghold of local militants."

2008-02-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

Glenn Beck - Sarah Connor (radio show clip)

"I hate, hate, hate when women say, 'I'm just a mother.' I hate it. And here's why. I believe that we are facing the most perilous times quite possibly in human history and I really, truly believe that...mothers of this country need to start viewing themselves as Sarah Connor and start preparing your children and teaching your children right and wrong, black and white, good and evil, how to be strong, how to survive in all ways because we've so screwed this country up that our children are going to be left with just a mess on their hands and we need...more [John] Connors,and Sarah Connors are the ones that are going to do it and those are the mothers of today."

2008-02-10T20:34:00.000-07:00

British Olympians forced to sign no-criticism-of-China contract (WorldNetDaily)

"British athletes who want to compete in the summer Olympics will be required to sign a contract promising not to make statements critical of the communist regime's human rights record or they will not be permitted to travel to China, according to a 32-page document prepared by the British Olympic Association.

'There are all sorts of organizations who would like athletes to use the Olympic Games as a vehicle to publicize their causes,' Simon Clegg, BOA's chief executive, told the London Daily Mail...

According to BOA, any athlete who refuses to sign the contract will not be allowed to travel to Beijing, and any competitor who signs it and later makes statements critical of China will be immediately put on a plane back to the UK...

'Imposing compulsory vows of silence is an affront to our athletes, and in China it will be viewed as acquiescence.

'Each year 8,000 executions take place in China, political and religious opinion is repressed, journalists are jailed and the Internet and overseas broadcasts are heavily censored. For our athletes to be told that they may not make any comment makes a mockery of our own country's belief in free speech' [said Lord David Alton]."

2008-02-09T14:08:00.000-07:00

Mark Steyn - "McCain can sure sound like a conservative"

"When Mitt stood up and warbled, they didn't like his tune. They wanted something meaner and rawer and tougher, and there was John McCain... [I]t should be noted that the defining McCain moment came back in the fall when he responded to Hillary Clinton's support for public funding for a Woodstock museum. If you're under 70 and have no idea what 'Woodstock' is or why it would require its own museum, ask your grandpa. But McCain began by saying he was sure Mrs. Clinton was right and that it was a major 'cultural and pharmaceutical event.' Which is a cute line. And McCain wasn't done yet: 'I wasn't there,' he said of the 1969 music festival. 'I was tied up at the time.'

And the crowd roared its approval. It's not just a joke, though it's a pretty good one. It's not merely a way of reminding folks you've stood up to torture and you can shrug it off with almost 007-cool insouciance. But it also tells Republican voters that, when Sen. Clinton offers up some cobwebbed boomer piety, you know a piñata when you see one, and you're gonna clobber it.

And that's the music a lot of Republican voters want to hear. For a certain percentage of voters, McCain is tonally a conservative, and that trumps the fact that a lot of his policies are profoundly unconservative. He won New Hampshire because if you stuck him in plaid he'd be a passable Beltway impersonation of the crusty, cranky, ornery Granite Stater. The facts are secondary that, on campaign finance, illegal immigration, Big Pharma and global warming, the notorious 'maverick's' mavericity (maverickiness? maverectomy?) always boils down to something indistinguishable from the Democrat position."

2008-02-09T13:59:00.000-07:00

MSNBC's Chelsea Comment Angers Clinton (Associated Press)

"A distasteful comment about Chelsea Clinton by an MSNBC anchor Thursday could imperil Hillary Rodham Clinton's participation in future presidential debates on the network, a Clinton spokesman said.

In a conference call with reporters, Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson Friday excoriated MSNBC's David Shuster for suggesting the Clinton campaign had 'pimped out' 27-year old Chelsea by having her place phone calls to Democratic Party superdelegates on her mother's behalf. Wolfson called the comment 'beneath contempt' and disgusting.

'I, at this point, can't envision a scenario where we would continue to engage in debates on that network,' he added.

Clinton and Barack Obama are scheduled to participate in an MSNBC debate Feb. 26 from Ohio, which holds its primary March 4. The Clinton campaign has pushed hard for as many debates as possible with Obama, but Wolfson said the Feb. 26 debate could be jeopardized."

I find it hard to believe that a Clinton is offended by the term "pimped out." I think that Hillary, despite her supposed eagerness to debate with Obama, knows that the more she talks, the further she drops in polls, and sees this as a good excuse to get out of debating.

2008-02-07T05:49:00.000-07:00

Michelle Malkin - "Quo vadis, conservatives?"

"'Quo vadis,' conservatives? It's the ancient, apocryphal question the apostle Peter asked Jesus while fleeing persecution in Rome. Where are you going? Where do we go from here?

The contest for the GOP presidential nomination is over. The conservative movement is not. Sen. John McCain's campaign resurrection and Super Tuesday victory leave a diverse group on the Right—from the libertarian Club for Growth to First Amendment defenders to immigration enforcement proponents—dispirited. But the failure to nominate a true Republican unifier does not spell ideological defeat.

On Wednesday, wielding his olive branch like a schoolmarm's ruler, Sen. McCain told conservatives to 'calm down.' My advice is exactly the opposite: Get fired up.

Some on the Right advise their readers and listeners to vote Democrat or sit home. My advice is exactly the opposite: Get off the couch and walk the walk for conservative candidates and officeholders who need all the help they can get defending free markets, free minds, and secure borders—no matter who takes the White House in November.

Dissatisfied with the flawed crop of GOP candidates who lacked the energy, organizational skills, and ideological strength to carry the conservative banner and ignite your passions? Then pay attention to the next generation of Republican state legislators who do vote consistently to lower your taxes, uphold the sanctity of life, defend marriage, and cut government spending. Support their re-election bids. Reward them for standing with you instead of their Democrat opponents and the liberal media."

Sticker worth a thousand words

2008-02-05T15:41:00.000-07:00

From CNN's site: Stickers from a polling place in San Francisco. 'Nuff said.

2008-02-04T14:47:00.000-07:00

Hillary Weighs Garnishing Wages to Pay for Universal Health Care (ABC News)

"Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., this morning left open the possibility that, if elected, her government would garnish the wages of people who didn't comply with her health care plan. 'We will have an enforcement mechanism, whether it's that or it's some other mechanism through the tax system or automatic enrollments,' Clinton said in an appearance on 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos'.

Clinton went on to say, though, that such mechanisms would not include penalties. 'They don't have to pay fines & We want them to have insurance. We want it to be affordable. And what I have said is that there are a number of ways of doing that. Now, there's not just one way of getting to that.'"

Geez, won't socialism be great, folks?

2008-02-04T14:32:00.000-07:00

Mark Steyn - "A McClinton Consensus"

"Democracies get the political leaders they deserve, and that's particularly true in the United States, where the primary system allows rank-and-file citizens to choose not merely which party to vote for (as in Britain, Canada and Europe) but also which individuals will be the candidates of those parties. True, it helps to be wealthy — up to a point. But it wasn't enough for John Edwards, the curiously unconvincing 'angry populist' muttering darkly that 'they' would never stop him telling the truth about nine-year old girls shivering without a winter coat because daddy had been laid off at the mill. 'They' didn't need to stop him. The champion of America's mythical Coatless Girl laid himself off last week. High on a hill, the Lonely Coatherd suddenly realized he was yodeling to himself.

Yet Senator Edwards can't even claim the consolation prize of Most Inept Candidate of 2008. The Rudy Giuliani campaign went from national frontrunner to total collapse so spectacularly that they'll be teaching it in Candidate School as a cautionary tale for decades to come. As each state's date with destiny loomed, Giuliani retreated, declining to compete in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina. 'America's Mayor' turned out to be Hizzoner of a phantom jurisdiction — a national frontrunner but a single-digit asterisk in any state where any actual voters were actually voting....

[John McCain] is an eloquent defender of the U.S. armed forces. A President McCain will not permit a military defeat in Iraq. But it's not clear to me he has much of a strategic vision for the ideological struggle, for the real long-term battlefield in the mosques and madrassahs of Pakistan and Indonesia and western Europe. McCain's lead is no evidence of popular commitment to 'the long war,' and, absent any surprising developments, this will not be a war election."

2008-02-01T23:55:00.000-07:00

Third undersea Internet cable cut in Mideast (CNN)

"An undersea cable carrying Internet traffic was cut off the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, officials said Friday, the third loss of a line carrying Internet and telephone traffic in three days.

Ships have been dispatched to repair two undersea cables damaged on Wednesday off Egypt.

FLAG Telecom, which owns one of the cables, said repairs were expected to be completed by February 12. France Telecom, part owner of the other cable, said it was uncertain when repairs on it would be repaired.

Stephan Beckert, an analyst with TeleGeography, a research company that consults on global Internet issues, said the cables off Egypt were likely damaged by ships' anchors."

2008-01-31T15:27:00.000-07:00

Abortion provider must turn over files (LA Times)

"One of the nation's few late-term abortion doctors was ordered Wednesday to turn over about 2,000 patient medical records to a Kansas grand jury investigating his practice.

Abortion opponents hope that the records will lead to further criminal charges against Dr. George Tiller, who already is facing 19 misdemeanor counts stemming from late-second and third-trimester abortions at his clinic in Wichita...

Tiller has reported aborting more than 2,600 viable fetuses in the last decade at his clinic, Women's Health Care Services, which draws patients from across the country.

Under Kansas law, aborting a viable fetus is legal only if two doctors certify that continuing the pregnancy could kill the woman or cause 'substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.' The Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear that the woman's mental as well as physical health must be taken into account...

According to court records, Tiller has approved abortions for some patients after diagnosing them with anxiety or an episode of 'major depressive disorder.' Abortion foes contend that these are not valid reasons for late-term abortions under Kansas law, because they don't equate to 'substantial and irreversible impairment' of the woman's health."

2008-01-31T15:22:00.000-07:00

John Stossel - "Who's afraid of prosperity?"

"Should we worry that the people of China, India and other undeveloped countries are getting richer? Apparently so, according to the newspapers and the 'experts' they quote. They don't come right out and say that global prosperity is bad for us. Instead they say, as The New York Times recently said, 'As development rolls across once-destitute countries at a breakneck pace, lifting billions out of poverty, demand for food, metals and fuel is red-hot, and suppliers are struggling to meet it. Prices are spiraling, and Americans find themselves in what amounts to a bidding war with overseas buyers for products as diverse as milk and gasoline...'

So media handwringers suggest we should worry about the poor becoming rich.

Actually, we shouldn't. It would be a sad world if one person's economic success depended on another's failure...

The media lap it up, apparently believing that no one will produce unless our wise leaders create an inducement. Nonsense.

The market would deliver the goods if government doesn't impose crippling regulations and tax away everyone's capital to fund its coercive utopian schemes. I like what Henry David Thoreau once said: 'This government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of the way.'"

2008-01-30T14:56:00.000-07:00

Maternity units turn away British mums as immigrants' baby boom costs NHS £350m (Daily Mail)

"Maternity wards are being forced to turn away expectant mothers because they cannot cope with soaring demand from immigrants.

One hospital even had to shut its maternity ward for two months because its staff were needed elsewhere to deliver babies from foreign-born mothers.

An investigation has found the cost of providing maternity services for immigrants has more than doubled in only a decade to £350million a year...

According to an investigation by the BBC's Ten O'Clock News, one baby in eight was born to an immigrant mother in 1997.

Now, the figure is almost one in four.

Spending on NHS maternity services has increased from £1billion to £1.6billion a year.

But this has not been enough to cope with increased birth rates."

2008-01-30T14:53:00.000-07:00

William Kristol - "The Next 12 Hours"

"[A]bsent any dramatic developments this week, McCain is likely to put it away next Tuesday...McCain isn't a prohibitive favorite, but he's a strong one...

[T]he most likely game-changer, if there were to be one, would be tonight's debate. It's likely to be Romney's last direct shot at McCain. If Romney were to land a really telling blow, it could shape the narrative for the rest of this week. If not, if this debate follows the course of almost all its predecessors and has no decisive moment, then all attention turns to Clinton-Obama, and McCain should have a pretty clear path.

The Romney camp has twelve hours to come up with a startling factoid, formulation, or revelation. The McCain camp has twelve hours to prepare for any such eventuality. If McCain does well tonight, he should be the GOP nominee."

2008-01-29T09:07:00.000-07:00

Obama takes big risk on driver's license issue (San Francisco Chronicle)

"Sen. Barack Obama easily won the African American vote in South Carolina, but to woo California Latinos, where he is running 3-to-1 behind rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, he is taking a giant risk: spotlighting his support for the red-hot issue of granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

It's a huge issue for Latinos, who want them. It's also a huge issue for the general electorate, which most vehemently does not. Obama's stand could come back to haunt him not only in a general election, but with other voters in California, where driver's licenses for illegal immigrants helped undo former Gov. Gray Davis."

2008-01-29T08:50:00.000-07:00

George Will - "Staying The Coarse"

"[L]ast week, came the radio ad that even South Carolinians, who are not squeamish about bite-and-gouge politics, thought was one brick over a load, and that the Clintons withdrew. It was the one that said Obama endorsed Republican ideas (because he said Republicans had some ideas). The Clinton campaign also accused Obama of praising Ronald Reagan (because Obama noted the stark fact that Reagan had changed the country's trajectory more than some other recent presidents -- hello, Bill -- had done).

This was a garden-variety dishonesty, the manufacture of which does not cause a Clinton in midseason form to break a sweat. And it was no worse than -- actually, not as gross as -- St. John of Arizona's crooked-talk claim in Florida that Mitt Romney wanted to 'surrender and wave a white flag, like Senator Clinton wants to do' in Iraq because Romney 'wanted to set a date for withdrawal that would have meant disaster.'

Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, the Clintons should bask in the glow of John McCain's Clintonian gloss on this fact: Ten months ago Romney said that President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki should discuss, privately, 'a series of timetables and milestones.' That unremarkable thought was twisted by McCain, whose distortions are notably clumsy, as when Romney said, accurately, that he alone among the candidates has had extensive experience in private-sector business. That truth was subjected to McCain's sophistry, and he charged that Romney had said 'you haven't had a real job' if you had a military career. If, this autumn, voters must choose between Clinton and McCain, they will face, at least stylistically, an echo, not a choice."

2008-01-28T14:54:00.000-07:00

LDS Church President, Gordon B. Hinckley, dies (Time)

"Gordon B. Hinckley, the longest-serving president of the Mormon church who presided over one of the greatest periods of expansion in its history, died Sunday, a church spokesman said. He was 97.

Hinckley, the 15th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died because of complications from age and was surrounded by his family.

Hinckley, a grandson of Mormon pioneers, was president for nearly 13 years. He took over as president and prophet on March 12, 1995. He oversaw one of the greatest periods of expansion in church history.

The number of temples worldwide more than doubled, from 49 to more than 120 and church membership grew from about 9 million to more than 12 million."

2008-01-28T14:47:00.000-07:00

McCain asked about Juan Hernandez at Florida campaign event (Hot Air)

"[John McCain's Hispanic Outreach Director] Dr. Hernandez is on the record, on his own web site no less, favoring the free flow of people between the United States and Mexico. The following quote is set off in large red letters on Hernandez’s web site:

'We must not only have a free flow of goods and services, but also start working for a free flow of people.'

Hernandez is also on the record advocating a 'Mexico first' policy for Mexican-Americans who have been living in the US for generations. The Soros-connected former Mexican cabinet officer is also on the record as seeing the US, Mexico and Canada as a bloc or region within which there shouldn’t be borders. Unless those policies sync with McCain’s, Hernandez does not agree with McCain’s policies. He might be on the senator’s staff for some other reason, but policy agreement isn’t it. Unless, of course, McCain agrees with Hernandez’s policies. And if that’s the case, the voters ought to know about it."

2008-01-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

Mark Steyn - "First, they came for Piglet"

"Here's another news item out of Britain this week: A new version of The Three Little Pigs was turned down for some 'excellence in education' award on the grounds that 'the use of pigs raises cultural issues' and, as a result, the judges 'had concerns for the Asian community' – i.e., Muslims. Non-Muslim Asians – Hindus and Buddhists – have no 'concerns' about anthropomorphized pigs.

This is now a recurring theme in British life. A while back, it was a local government council telling workers not to have knickknacks on their desks representing Winnie-the-Pooh's porcine sidekick, Piglet.

As Martin Niemoller famously said, first they came for Piglet, and I did not speak out because I was not a Disney character and, if I was, I'm more of an Eeyore. So then they came for the Three Little Pigs, and Babe, and by the time I realized my country had turned into a 24/7 Looney Tunes it was too late, because there was no Porky Pig to stammer 'Th-th-th-that's all, folks!' and bring the nightmare to an end.

Just for the record, it's true that Muslims, like Jews, are not partial to bacon and sausages. But the Quran has nothing to say about cartoon pigs. Likewise, it is silent on the matter of whether one can name a teddy bear after Muhammad.

What all these stories have in common is the excessive deference to Islam. If The Three Little Pigs are verboten when Muslims do not yet comprise 10 percent of the British population, what else will be on the blacklist by the time they're, say, 20 percent?"

Hey, Mister! Ya got change?

2008-01-25T22:53:00.001-07:00

I'm really scared of the kind of CHANGE some of these candidates will bring about, myself...

2008-01-24T13:01:00.000-07:00

Afghan journalist gets death for insulting Islam (Telegraph)

"The Taliban-style intimidation of Afghan newspapers came to the surface after a journalist was sentenced to death for distributing an article deemed to have 'insulted Islam'.

Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh's crime was to have passed around a piece taken from a website questioning why Muslim women cannot have multiple husbands in the same way as their menfolk can legally take four wives...

On Tuesday, a court found him guilty of "insulting Islam" and sentenced him to death...

But campaigners believe that the court's real motive was not protecting the honour of Islam. Mr Kaambakhsh's brother, Yaqub Ibrahimi, also works as a journalist and has written a series of reports on atrocities committed by senior politicians in northern Afghanistan."

2008-01-24T12:59:00.000-07:00

Hans Bader - "Welfare + Discrimination = 'Stimulus Package'"

"The White House and Congressional leaders have reached an outrageous agreement to increase the deficit to pay for rebates that discriminate against married people, reward out-of-wedlock births, and give out welfare to non-taxpayers — all in the name of fighting a recession.

They’re giving out rebates, but if you are a middle-class taxpaying family in a high-living cost region, you’re out of luck. The rebates only go to single people making less than $75,000 per year or married couples making less than $150,000.

For the crime of being married to me, my wife, who made less than $75,000 last year (she recently quit her job to take care of our new baby daughter), will be denied her refund, because our combined household income is just a hair over $150,000. If we lived together 'in sin,' she’d get a rebate, but because we’re married, she won’t.

If she weren’t married to me, she’d receive a rebate for our daughter, too! Too bad our daughter wasn’t born out of wedlock. Then we’d qualify.

By contrast, non-taxpayers — people who currently pay no federal income taxes and actually get an earned income tax credit back — will be eligible."