Feste...a foolsblog

Asshat Roundup #2

Chrenkoff the Incorrigible is Back with a Vengance.

Alas?!

The "what can one expect?" tone of this news item from the Hindustan Times is infuriating and sad :

Lanka’s tsunami sensor not repaired since 2003

The tsunami-warning equipment gifted to Sri Lankan by Japan had been out of order since August 2003, and the authorities had not bothered to repair it, says disaster management expert Dr Ranijth Premalal De Silva.

"Sri Lanka does not need new equipment. It already has the necessary equipment at the University of Peradeniya in Kandy, gifted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency. But the equipment had broken down in August 2003, and not repaired since then. A power failure had corrupted the software. But this could have been set right in a week's time. That, alas, was not done," he said.

Dr De Silva told Hindustan Times that Sri Lanka could have got two to two- and-a-half hour's warning if the equipment was working.

How many thousands could have simply walked away from the low-laying shoreline areas in two hours and survived?

A related item; this Tsunami photo gallery page from Matichon, a Bangkok news/media company provides local coverage and a glimpse of the overwhelming recovery/rebuilding task ahead. (text in Thai characters)

Which makes this item from Hindrocket all the more disgusting:

A first-hand report from one of the diplomats at Diplomad:

This Embassy has been running 24/7 since the December 26 earthquake and tsunami. Along with my colleagues, I've spent the past several days dealing non-stop with various aspects of the relief effort in this tsunami-affected country. That work, unfortunately, has brought ever-increasing contact with the growing UN presence in this capital; in fact, we've found that to avoid running into the UN, we must go out to where the quake and tsunami actually hit. As we come up on two weeks since the disaster struck, the UN is still not to be seen where it counts -- except when holding well-staged press events. Ah, yes, but the luxury hotels are full of UN assessment teams and visiting big shots from New York, Geneva, and Vienna. The city sees a steady procession of UN Mercedes sedans and top-of-the-line SUV's -- a fully decked out Toyota Landcruiser is the UN vehicle of choice; it doesn't seem that concerns about "global warming" and preserving your tax dollars run too deep among the UNocrats.

Sitting VERY late for two consecutive nights in interminable meetings with UN reps, hearing them go on about "taking the lead coordination role," pledges, and the impending arrival of this or that UN big shot or assessment/coordination team, for the millionth time I realized that if not for Australia and America almost nobody in the tsunami-affected areas would have survived more than a few days. If we had waited for the UNocrats to get their act coordinated, the already massive death toll would have become astronomical. But, fortunately, thanks to "retrograde racist war-mongers " such as John Howard and George W. Bush, as we sat in air conditioned meeting rooms with these UNocrats, young Australians and Americans were at that moment "coordinating" without the UN and saving the lives of tens-of-thousands of people.

Karma

Capt'n Ed posts a terrific story:

Thirteen years ago, a natural disaster in the South Pacific killed hundreds and left thousands more homeless. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo created an emergency for Filipinos and the American dependents of the servicemen and servicewomen station in the Philippines. George Bush (41) sent the US Navy to provide disaster relief and to evacuate Americans from the area, in a manner similar to what we are doing with tsunami relief today.

One of the people sailing to the relief of the tsunami victims understands exactly what they have experienced -- because she was rescued from Pinatubo by the same ship she serves now:

Standing in the hangar bay of this mammoth aircraft carrier, Seaman Joviena Kay looks across the waves toward the devastated coast of Sumatra, remembering a time 13 years ago when she huddled on the same deck with evacuees from another great Asian disaster.

Joviena was 6 years old then, a refugee from a volcano. The Filipino-American eventually joined the U.S. Navy, and she is serving on the ship that rescued her as its sailors help the survivors of an earthquake and tsunami.

As Ed suggests, read the whole story.

I wish to hell Colin Powell would keep his frickin' pie-hole shut. He is such a thin-skinned sap, all the left or the MSM need do is take a jab at the administration's relief policy and he leads with his chin. Video of Powell strolling around with officals signing autographs as this unfolds, makes my skin crawl.

We're not in South Asia to win Muslim hearts and minds. I can't imagine any of us who recoiled in horror and leap to donate money, goods and/or time ever stopped to consider the politics for a nanosecond. I can't speak for you, but my reaction was OHMYGOD!!! Not, Oh goodie! A political opportunity. Jeebus. What sort of crimped soul views a natural disaster as a PR exercise?

Would I rather that a man receiving a food packet from a US Navy helo not be wearing a UBL t-shirt? Damn straight, and perhaps, just perhaps, he will remember who was there when he needed help most and turn away from radical Islam, if and when they come to call, but it cannot and should not be our immediate concern nor a condition of our assistance, explicit or implied.

We're there because human beings, like the 6-yr old Joviena, are in extremis. Period.

Do The Right Thing

Baldilocks posts this anecdote:

"Can you let your hatred of George Bush end for just one minute? There are people dying! And what are your countries doing? Amazon.com has helped more than France has. [sic] You all have a role to play in the world, why can't you see that? Thank God for the US Navy, they don’t have to come and help, but they are. They helped you once and you should all thank God they did. They didn’t have to, and no one but them would have done so. I'm ashamed of you all..."

Jools remarks:

The second most difficult part is to realize, yet again, how much the Europeans have wiped American largesse—even to its former enemies--from their collective memory. The third most difficult part to note was the cluelessness of the average European as to the capabilities of a competent military.

Will the Americans have to come to the aid of Europe again? If it becomes necessary--and we are able--we will. And no one, outside of the most rabid and marginalized isolationist, will protest.

It's obvious that we Americans do not extend our massive resources in times of need in order to obtain love and acceptance or in order to reciprocate any love and acceptance that has been shown to us previously.

We do it merely because it’s the American thing to do.

Indeed.

More Please

The Dems continue their march into the long night of irrelevancy and minority status as they once again display a tin ear and prove they are out of step with the American public.

• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) risked a case of whiplash by leaping so quickly in front of the media to politize a natural disaster of bibical proportions. One wonders if how high the body count must rise before Pelosi finds such a manuveur unseemly?

• Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) rose to protest the Ohio election results and Rep. Maxine Waters of California, said she was "ashamed to say" that Mr. Blackwell(Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell) is black. Mrs. Waters, who is also black, said "their ancestors would be rolling in their graves". ?! When will it occur to voters allegedly disinfranchised that it is Democrats who control local government in the Blue wards and districts, thus their polling places?

  Mrs. Boxer had objected to counting Ohio's 20 electoral votes, citing reports from that state of long lines and too few machines at Democrat-leaning polling places, voters leaving without having a chance to vote, disparities between counties in the percentage of provisional ballots counted and standards for voter-registration forms.

  Democrat-leaning? Jeebus, can the MSM get anymore up the Dem's butt?

• However the Clueless Award of the very short year must go to Senator Edward Kennedy, who is reputed to have the smartest staff on the hill, for this exhange at the Gonzales hearing:

  KENNEDY: Now, the Post article states you chaired several meetings at which various interrogation techniques were discussed. These techniques included the threat of live burial and waterboarding, whereby the detainee is strapped to a board, forcibly pushed under water, wrapped in a wet towel and made to believe he might drown. The article states that you raised no objection...

  KENNEDY: Could you just -- I want to point out, if it's true, as the Post reported, that you held several meetings at which the legality of interrogation techniques, such as threat of live burial and water boarding were discussed...

  KENNEDY: Well, just as an attorney, as a human being, I would have thought that if there were recommendations that were so blatantly and flagrantly over the line in terms of torture, that you might have recognized them. I mean, it certainly appears to me that water boarding, with all its descriptions about drowning someone to that kind of a point, would come awfully close to getting over the border, and that you'd be able to at least say today, There were some that were recommended or suggested on that, but I certainly wouldn't have had a part of that, as a human being.

  In an aside, The Washington Post seems to have missed part of the dialog or is blatantly editing the exchange:

  Gonzales acknowledged under questioning from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) that he took part in discussions about the legality of high-pressure interrogation techniques. But he said it was not his "job to decide which methods of obtaining information from terrorists would be most effective" or whether such methods are prohibited by a 1994 law barring torture.

  "That would be a job for the Department of Justice, and I never . . . influenced or pressured the department to bless any of those techniques," he said.

  Kennedy responded that "just as an attorney, as a human being, I would have thought that . . . if there were recommendations that were so blatantly and flagrantly over the line in terms of torture, that you would have recognized them."

Rove and Melman couldn't make this up.

Stupid IS Forever

Continuing a meme, Arthur Chrenoff posts The 12 most stupid tsunami quotes

Number 5 will leave you speechless.

What the hell is wrong with these people?

Innocence Lost

Glenn links to a chilling set of eye-witness tsunami photos. These unfortunate people had no idea of the danger they were in, smiling and laughing as they flee the breaking wave they expected to fall back into the sea.

It's not just Third World naivete, American shores have been impacted by tsunami as recently as the 1940's, 50's and 60's as well and one wonders just how prepared our coastal communities are for a 20 or 30 ft tsunami. Hawaii, the US Western Seaboard and Mexico may be inviting disaster just as did South Asia with extensive waterfront/shoreline development.

I recall news reports from the 1964 Alaska quake and the resulting devastation left by the tsunami in Alaska and Cresent City, CA, and the 1960 Chilean Earthquake which generated a massive tsunami that struck Hilo Hawaii with devastating results. This eerie photo shows the power of the Chilean tsunami 15 hours later. Hilo was previously struck by a destructive tsunami after the 1946 Aleutian Trench earthquake as well, however, both pale in comparison to the massive loss of life and devastation in South Asia.

If only one positive effect emerges from this disaster, thanks to satellite telecommunications and broadcasting, there will be few corners of the globe where people will innocently run to the shore to watch surf surge now that a heightened awareness of tsunami exists. Perhaps governments have taken a lesson in disaster warning systems, preparedness and building contraints as well.

Aussies Step Up

Australians are always there when needed...God Bless 'em.

Even tiny Tasmania with a population of 300,000 ponied up AUD$150,000 thus far.

Hell's Bells, Scott Ott's readers managed to find $3,081 in loose change.

We may be just a bunch of Crackers and Ockers, but we got heart. Snotty Eurotrash, pandering half-a-Commie Pols and their media toadies can kiss my uncouth ass.

Tsunami Satellite Images

DigitalGlobe has a stunning gallery of satellite images of the tsunami on Kalutara Beach, Sri Lanka.

Living above the San Andreas fault and working a few blocks from the bay these images drive home the crap shoot I'm living. Break out the wallets folks, it could be any of us along the West Coast. Really.

The Command Post has an extensive link page of how you can help.

Unintended Consequences

Smash tells it like it is, one wonders where Paredes new friends will be in five years?

An Open Letter to Pablo Paredes

Check out Understanding Ukraine written by Smash's Ukrianian friend Eric...it's a great instant primer on the situation and debunks much of the mis-information the MSM is peddling. Pity the media doesn't find this story compelling, we haven't witnessed a real people's revolution since the Czechs or the Poles challenged the Soviet bear.

BEAR? The secret word!

Ta Da!

Here's where l shamelessly beg for a donation: Spirit of America.

Hey Dude...

...your mother's outside.

Mom Trucks Thanksgiving Meal to GI Son

HARTLAND, Mich. (AP) - Yvette Boulton wants her son to get a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal before he's deployed to Iraq - so she's trucking the feast 761 miles to Fort Bragg, N.C.

Boulton will be on the road 13 hours so she can feed her son, Army Cpl. Jordan Keilman, 22, and 14 of his friends.

The soldiers must remain within an hour of base so they could be called to Iraq, where many already have served once. Keilman fought in Iraq from September to February.

``I said `I'll cook, and you boys sit around and watch the football game. Just pretend you're at home,''' said Boulton, 47, who is an assistant for a law firm.

On Tuesday night, Boulton packed pots and pans, turkey-shaped plates and napkins, serving dishes, homemade ravioli, freshly baked breads and cookies into the bed of a red Ford F-150 pickup lent to her by a cousin.

Boulton and daughters Kristen Keilman, 20, and Charlene Boulton, 9, planned to be on their way before dawn Wednesday.

The Fort Bragg holiday dinner was conceived a few weeks ago when Boulton called her son to tell him she would be bringing him dinner. She suggested he ``invite a few friends.''

Ukraine:The Revolution WILL be blogged

Chrenoff has a good handle on the Polish view of the Ukraine's Orange Revolution.

And another good link via Glenn: A Fist Full Of Euros' Ukranian update

Sue has this: Yuschenko Appeals to Armed Forces

Will Yanukovich dare fire upon his countrymen?

UPDATE: From Discoshaman at Le Sabot Post-Modern

Here is some breaking news we've received:

-Authorities have begun violent action against peaceful protesters near the Presidential Admin building. 2 buses of special ops police units drove up and have moved on the demonstrators.

- The tent city has now reached as far as the Central Department Store on Kreshatik Street.

- The pro-Yanukovych tent city seems to be bleeding people at a quick rate. They either can't take the cold, or the heat. :)

- Provocateurs planted an "explosive" device in our tent city. Snipers were called in.

- There are reports of tanks approaching the city. This is still unconfirmed, and I'm skeptical about this one.

Scroll down for eye-witness commentary on the protest .

107th Big Game

Is that the scent of roses wafting over Strawberry Canyon?

UPDATE: No. 4 Bears Crush Stanford, 41-6

Go Bears

Here's a great page of Big Game trivia for those of you interested in such things...the history of the The Axe, pranks and the kidnapping of both mascots enliven a genial cross-bay rivalry where many families have Red and Blue members. (heh)

The only time in recent memory that real partisanship reared its head was after the historic 1982 Big Game when in the last 31 seconds of the game Cal pulled off the mother-of-all Hail Mary's, giving Cal a 25-20 win. Led by John Elway, Stanford takes a 20-19 lead on a 34-yard field goal by Mark Harmon with 4 seconds left. On the ensuing kickoff, Cal scores on a five-lateral, 57-yard run that ends when the Bears' Kevin Moen runs through the Stanford band and knocks over trombonist Gary Tyrrell in the end zone.

Forever known locally as "The Play" (video file Realplayer Req'd) local radio sportscaster Joe Starkey (wav file) goes nuts calling play-by-play coverage over the roar of the stadium in of one of college football's most memorable plays. I doubt there will ever be another Big Game like it.

Liberal Bigotry

Perhaps the Left doesn't understand that there is no difference between this and this...but I think they know exactly what buttons they are pushing and it's as ugly as it gets.

What is Slate and the MSM thinking? What message are liberals sending to their children? That it's okay to hate and ridicule minorities who disagree with their point of view? Is this not dangerous ground to sow? Haven't we been there, done that, and have hundreds of years of hatred, misery and too many graves to prove it?

Winfield Myers at The Democracy Project gathered a sample of what the left considers appropriate and clever political fare. The venomous and meanspiritedness of the racial slurs and the volume of hateful black imagery in the MSM aimed at conservative African-Americans is a little shocking in that it comes from those who claim tolerance, racial equality and harmony as a foundation of their political and personal philosophy.

Shame. on. them.

UPDATE:This link is for the Liberal apologists who think racial caricatures are harmless.

UPDATE II: More enlightenment and tolerance from the uber-sophiscated European Left.

(a hat tip to Glenn)

Madame Secretary

About damn time Bush appointed a SecState with cajones.

Wonder how long before the Leftie print MSM unleashes more bigoted nappy-hair, buck-toothed cartoons?

One suspects our weasely "friends" in Europe aren't any too happy today...which IMO is a side bennie.

Baldilocks likes Condi's appointment too, and has an intriguing suggestion for Education Secty.

Peterson Verdict

Scott Peterson found guilty of 1st degree murder of wife Laci, 2nd degree for baby Conner with extenuating circumstances. Jury to reconvene for penalty phase on Nov 22nd. Oddly Peterson attorney Mark Geragos was not in court, nor was his father Lee Peterson.

Perhaps the Rocha and Grantski families were served a little justice today, not that it will mend their heartache, but those who harm pregnant women will face double jeopardy thanks to their efforts.

Sharon Rocha watches as President Bush signs the Unborn Victims of Violence Act during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on Thursday. Standing behind Rocha is her husband, Ron Grantski. The legislation makes it a federal crime to harm a fetus during an assault on a pregnant woman.

One Less Terrorist

A Dreamer Who Forced His Cause Onto World Stage

Gah. Have these people no shame? This is why red country looks at the MSM and blanches.

This is the product of Arafat's dream:

Suicide bombing of Egged bus no. 19 in Jerusalem January 29, 2004

Victims:
- Avraham (Albert) Balhasan, 28, of Jerusalem
- Rose Boneh, 39, of Jerusalem
-Hava Hannah (Anya) Bonder, 38, of Jerusalem
- Anat Darom, 23, of Netanya
- Viorel Octavian Florescu, 42, of Jerusalem
- Natalia Gamril, 53, of Jerusalem
- Yechezkel Isser Goldberg, 41, of Betar Illit
- Baruch (Roman) Hondiashvili, 38, of Jerusalem
- Dana Itach, 24, of Jerusalem
- Mehbere Kifile, 35, of Ethiopia
- Eli Zfira, 48, of Jerusalem

Liberal License

Sweet Jeebus. You have to read this one to believe it.

US Rewards Ally

Macedonia, was officially recognised by the U.S. today...much to the displeasure of age-old antagonist Greece...who has blocked Macedonian recognition for a decade.

GA Resolution 47/225 (1993)28 admitted Macedonia to UN membership subject to the acceptance of the following points: (i) Macedonia was to be referred to by the provisional name ‘the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ for all purposes within the United Nations, and (ii) it was to negotiate with Greece over its name.

Since modern Macedonians claim Bulgarian ancestry, not Greek, this is a very big deal in the Balkans and pokes the EU and UN squarely in the eye.

Row as U.S. 'recognizes Macedonia'

Greece 'summons U.S. ambassador'

The United States has recognized the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia as "Macedonia," the name strongly disputed by Greece for the past 13 years, a senior Macedonian government official said.

"Yes they have recognized Macedonia by its constitutional name," the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
In Athens, Greece's Foreign Minister said it had urgently called in the U.S. ambassador Thursday to explain reports that Washington plans to recognize Greece's northern neighbor with the disputed name.

Greece has opposed the adoption of the name since the republic won independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Until now it had the support of all NATO allies, except Turkey, for refusing recognition.

Greece's Foreign Minister said in a statement that Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis has also abruptly cancelled a visit to a European Council meeting in Brussels over the issue.

"There actually is this information and the Minister has cancelled his trip to Brussels for the European Council," the statement said.

Macedonia is also the name of Greece's northern province, birthplace of Alexander the Great. The two neighbors have been involved in U.N.-led talks for an acceptable name for both sides for over a decade.

Macedonia is a member of the U.S.-led military alliance in Iraq.

I suspect we will see more of this sort of thing, small, but meaningful rewards, as Bush shores up our alliances.

Compassion Fatique

This is so predictable:

Nobel peace laureate claims HIV deliberately created

Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, today reiterated her claim that the AIDS virus was a deliberately created biological agent.

"Some say that AIDS came from the monkeys, and I doubt that because we have been living with monkeys (since) time immemorial, others say it was a curse from God, but I say it cannot be that.

"Us black people are dying more than any other people in this planet," Ms Maathai told a press conference in Nairobi a day after winning the prize for her work in human rights and reversing deforestation across Africa.

"We invaded Iraq because we believed that Saddam Hussein had made, or was in the process of creating agents of biological warfare," said Ms Maathai.

"In fact it (the HIV virus) is created by a scientist for biological warfare," she added.

"Why has there been so much secrecy about AIDS? When you ask where did the virus come from, it raises a lot of flags. That makes me suspicious," Ms Maathai said.

Africa accounts for 25 million out of the estimated 38 million across the world infected with HIV, and the vast majority of infected Africans are women, according to UNAIDS estimates.

The United States on Friday congratulated Ms Maathai on winning the Nobel Peace Prize, but tempered its praise over her claims about AIDS.

"She said (HIV/AIDS) was invented as a bio-weapon in some laboratory in the West," a senior State Department official said.

"We don't agree with that."

The official pointed to a report of those comments published in August in Kenya's daily Standard newspaper, in which Ms Maathai was quoted as saying that HIV/AIDS was created by scientists for the purpose of mass extermination.

The Nobel Peace Prize has become little more than a platform to bludgeon the West, which is code for the US. Apart from the sheer sophistry of such an argument, the West would hardly need to invent an uncontrollable disease such as AIDS if they were bent on germ-warfare/genocide in Africa. Any number of containable biological agents would would be far more effective.

Maathai fails to mention that childhood and communicable diseases, long controlled or exterminated in the West, kills millions of Africans because of a lack of vaccinations, clean water or sanitation.

Did the West invent e-Coli? Hepatitis? Cholera? Typhoid? Malaria? Schistosomiasis? Ebola? West Nile?

I am sorry if this sounds callous or harsh, but in a world where an African heads the UN, which repeatedly ignores or participates in corruption, slavery and genocide, it seems a little disengenious to blame the "West" for the plight in which Africa now finds itself.

Maathai doesn't mention cultural issues that faciliated the spread of AIDS, such a male taboo or aversion to condom use. AIDS has been indentified as a communicable disease with known risks and means of transmission/prevention for more than a decade.

AIDS is also pandemic in Southeast Asia and Russia spread by poverty, the sex industry, an unscreened blood supply, a lack of prevention and IV drug use, not a plot hatched by racist Westerners.

Africans cannot hope to have the means to control endemic diseases or begin to address the root causes as long as their wealth is siphoned off or wasted by their political classes. Until educated Africans such as Maathai comes to grip with the massive corruption within their society and hold their leaders accountable, no amount of blame laid, aid or assistance from the West will cure the myriad of plagues, genocide and economic challenges Africa faces.

Given that Africa needs the West's medical expertise, drugs and financial aid, it seems very foolish to poke us in the eye with nonsensical conspiracies.

Stupid Is Forever

Boo-fuckinghoo.

You're Fired, Again

For the second time in two days, Slingerlands native and "Apprentice" contestant Jennifer Crisafulli was apparently fired Thursday -- this time from her real job -- for remarks she made on the NBC reality show.

An official with the Manhattan firm Prudential Douglas Elliman said Thursday that Crisafulli, a 32-year-old real estate agent with the firm, would not be welcomed back because of comments she made on Wednesday night's episode of "The Apprentice."

Crisafulli, who now lives in Manhattan, made remarks that were perceived by some as anti-Semitic.

"We do not intend to have an individual in our organization who subscribes to this point of view," Steven James, Elliman's senior vice president and executive director of sales, told the Times Union on Thursday night. "They are not wanted. They are not needed."

But was she fired? James would not use the word, citing legal reasons, and Crisafulli said no one from Elliman contacted her Thursday. She did say it appeared she was about to be let go, if she hasn't been fired already.

"I'm so upset," she said. "I mean, my career is gone."

The 1990 graduate of the Academy of the Holy Names was shown on "The Apprentice" Wednesday making disparaging remarks about two women whom she believed gave a negative review to a restaurant her team opened. The team lost and project manager Crisafulli was later fired by star Donald Trump.

"It was those two old, Jewish fat ladies," she told teammates. "Really. They were like the pinnacle of the New York jaded old bags."

You opened your pie-hole Sweetie, and now you must pay the price for a massive display of stupidity on network TV.

Survivor, Big Brother and The Apprentice seem to have an unequal representation of minorities. The Amazing Race has done a better job of balancing race, age, cultural and income demographics. In Race 5's final episode I would bet more of the audience was pulling for the Bowling Moms or Chip and Kim, not the two whiny young couples with anger management issues.

The undercurrent of racism in both Apprentice casts is too obvious to be accidential. It's also too much of a coincidence that the crazy bitch has been a black woman both seasons. Are the producers injecting this dynamic in reality show casts? Perhaps minorities don't apply in equivilent numbers, but I find that hard to believe in our celebrity saturated culture.

One supects they purposely select cast members who will produce racial or gender fireworks and ratings. Maybe I'm overthinking it and since racism exists in the real world you can't avoid it in a TV reality show either...but real life isn't edited. Crisafulli behaved like a spoiled brat from the get-go and was a disaster as team leader, it was unnecessary to edit anti-Semitism into the show.

After seeing the episode, Crisafulli told the Times Union on Wednesday that she was worried about how she would be perceived. "I feel terrible about this. I hope people don't think about me in the wrong way." Crisafulli noted after the show that she has Jewish relatives; she stated as much on-camera, she said, but her comments were edited out. Crisafulli re-iterated the assertion Thursday morning on the "Today" show.

Too little too late, babe, however, this week's editing on The Apprentice was not a credit to NBC, Burnett's or Trump's organizations either.

(Hat tip to Whizbang)

Eh?

A tidbit from *Heard on the Hill:

O, Not Canada! Yet another Member of Congress has uttered the “C” word in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers. And the Canucks, who get very sensitive about this issue, are just as irked as they can be.

This time it was Rep. Rubén Hinojosa (D-Texas), who tied the hijackers to Canada when talking about the need for stronger border security last week. He said the terrorists “entered the United States from Canada on September 11, 2001, using passports that the Canadians accepted as valid despite the fact that the documents were doctored.” He repeated the comments in a press release on his Web site.

Oooh. That really burned some Canadian bacon. Canadian Ambassador Michael Kergin whipped off a letter to Hinojosa on Wednesday telling the Congressman that his statements were false. “None of the September 11th hijackers entered the United States through Canada,” Kergin said.

To back up his assertion, the ambassador quoted Attorney General John Ashcroft, who said, “None of the terrorists from the Sept. 11 carnage came to the United States through Canada to my knowledge.” Kergin also quoted Ashcroft thanking Canada for its efforts in fighting terrorism.

Let’s hope the Canadians’ efforts fighting terrorism are, indeed, as good as their efforts fighting bad press. One day after the ambassador sent his letter to Hinojosa — and shortly after Hinojosa realized that HOH had a copy of it — the Congressman corrected the record.

In a statement provided to HOH, Hinojosa said, “The references to Canada have been stricken from the remarks I submitted for the record. Earlier today, I informed the Canadian Embassy that these steps have been taken.”

Bernard Etzinger, a spokesman for the Canadian Embassy, said that by his count, at least seven Members of Congress have made the same mistake as Hinojosa since the 9/11 attacks.

“It happens all the time. It’s an urban myth,” he said. “There is no mention in the 9/11 commission’s report on any of the September 11th terrorists having entered the United States through Canada.”

(*Roll Call subscription req'd)

Gobsmacked

I'm with The British Pickle on this one.

Black Rock Weasels

CBS news VP to comment via e-mail on Rathergate at noon. Email? Yeah, that'll work. Not. Odds are that CBS will weasel with legalise. Not good enough, even the imperious NY Times ran a front page mea culpa and reorganized when caught cooking stories.

Suzy Rice posts an exclusive interview "Things To Do On CBS When You're Dead" and reminds us that years ago, Dan's big break was hurricane reportage.

I love irony.

Kenneth, what is the frequency?

Whooeee! Quite a week to be missing in action! I am so far behind the curve at this point that for those of you who have been in a coma or fell down a well, I'll just link to Charles Johnson's excellent font sleuthing and Power Line.

AP is now on the story, that doesn't provide much comfort given their recent difficulties. ABC isn't helping much either, they report that CBS noticed the signatures didn't match yet went with the story?

As of a few minutes ago, CBS radio news is still sticking by their story.

One has to laugh when fellow newies attempts at bailing the old media ship are this obvious. One suspects the WaPo was planning to run the material as well. The most ironic part of this story is not CBS's ineptness in fact checking and analysis, but their lack of computer skills and/or familiarity with typewriters. I am sure there are two new terms seared on the CBS hive mind; superscript and kerning.

I always knew Dan Rather would finally lose it on-air, he came close in his anti-Republican rant at the 1996 GOP convention over a purported grand jury leak. Rather might take his own closing remark in the disputed piece to heart

"Too strong or not to say that you are ashamed of it now," asks Rather.

Lileks sums it up nicely

Blogs haven’t toppled old media. The foundations of Old Media were rotten already. The new media came along at the right time. Put it this way: you’ve see films of old buildings detonated by precision demolitionists. First you see the puffs of smoke – then the building just hangs there for a second, even though every column that held it up has been severed. We’ve been living in that second for years, waiting for the next frame. Well, here it is. Roll tape. Down she goes.

UPDATE: Via various radio/TV feeds: A CBS producer hints that the Kerry campaign set them up and Rather gave an interview on the street in NYC stating that he stands by the story and that no retractio or on-air apology will be forthcoming and demands Bush answer the charges. Wha?

BREAKING: Seems the Russkies have produced documented proof that clearly disputes the Swifties.

Wizbang offers yet another document that appears to dispute the authenticity of the disputed Killian memos.

THE MOTHER OF ALL UPDATES: Allah has some interesting links about the IBM SC, Shape of Days has a dialog open with a guy who has a working IBM SC...here's a shot of one. From the description:

The first IBM Composer was the IBM "Selectric" Composer announced in 1966. It was a hybrid "Selectric" typewriter that was modified to have proportional spaced fonts. It is 100% mechanical and has no digital electronics. Since it has no memory, the user was required to type everything twice. While typing the text the first time, the machine would measure the length of the line and count the number of spaces. When the user finished typing a line of text, they would record special measurements into the right margin of the paper. Once the entire column of text was typed and measured, it would then be retyped, however before typing each line, the operator would set the special justification dial (on the right side) to the proper settings, then type the line. The machine would automatically insert the appropriate amount of space between words so that all of the text would be justified.

Ask yourself, why would this particluar TANG unit have such an elaborate, expensive typewriter? For what purpose? Killian's wife and son claim he couldn't type, yet he would write private memos to himself with the above process.

Hugh Hewitt received a series of e-mails from a Professor of Computer Science at Rice University, including the Porfessor's response to Kos.

Jerry Furhman speculates on the origin of the disputed docs.

It occurs to me that we're probably enjoying CBS's implosion way too much...nah.

Golden Eye Candy

//insert your own punchline

Go.

Enjoy.

//end insert

Murder Most Foul

The murder of a promising teen athlete, Terrance Kelly, two days before he departed for a college scholarship, stunned a community inured to crime, violence and teen murderers. What was thought to be a case of mistaken identity in gang-related killing now may be a case of envy.

The Pratchers grew up a few blocks from Kelly in Richmond's Iron Triangle neighborhood. Larry Pratcher and Kelly apparently knew each other from playing pickup basketball games in grammar school, friends said.

The two young men maintained a friendship but drifted in different directions.

Kelly graduated in June from De La Salle, an academically rigorous Catholic high school in Concord. After playing linebacker, tight end and running back, he was named the most valuable player in what is considered to be the top prep football program in the nation.

But Pratcher dropped out of public schools, friends said, and never transformed his playground athletic prowess into success at the prep level.

"Kids go different ways,'' Montgomery said. "Terrance stayed in school, and Larry hit the streets.''

Kelly's father worked two jobs pay for the pricey De La Salle, one cannot help but wonder if a school voucher might have made the difference between a young man going to college, not prison, and his friend to an early grave.

The Chronicle asks the wrong question in a moving editoral today, it's not simply about poverty, or community attitudes/mores, but failed schools.

Richmond is a bleak place, hard against refineries and chemical plants, partitioned by elevated freeways, but there are also good neighborhoods, shoreline parks and caring, hard working people who have had enough. Enough of crime, bad parenting and sub-standard schools. California spends a mandated 40% of the general revenue fund on schools, yet the test scores failed again this year.

Across the state, 1.5 million students remain mired in the lowest ranks of academic performance.

"This is not where we want to be," said California schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell. "I hope that these scores are a wake-up call for all in education."

[...]

Statewide, 36 percent of students scored "proficient" or "advanced" on the English portion, up from 35 percent last year. The remaining students scored below par, at "basic," "below basic" or "far below basic."

In math, proficiency inched up from 40.5 to 41.6 percent of students in grades 2 through 7 since last year. Older students, tested in a variety of math subjects, slipped in algebra and geometry.

Only 20 percent of low-income students were proficient in English, while among wealthier students, 50 percent were proficient. The rates were identical last year.

[...]

Barbara Kerr, president of the California Teachers Association, said things aren't as bad as some believe.

"I think the scores are OK," she said. "When people are looking for a Nordstrom public education on a Wal-Mart budget, teachers should be very proud of what they've been able to achieve, and so should students."

How many more Larry Pratchers and Terrance Kellys must pay the price of such elitist arrogance?

Hurricanes, Windbags and The French

I've gone quiet for a few days as the news cycled into the partisan black hole of August recess and quite frankly I couldn't give a damn, my dear.

Hurricane Charley: I totally agree with Robert Tagorda; it's obviously a Republican plot to skew Florida into the GOP electoral column. The tip off? Cuba.

Outside The Beltway sums it up:
NBC + the Olympics = B-O-R-I-N-G. TV.

Wouldn’t the billion's spent on this relic of the Cold War and network ad fest be put to better use? Two weeks of Couric and crew alternately sobbing over trumped up soap operas or playing the Ugly American condescendingly slurping up an artificial layer of local customs is not my idea of must-see TV.

SwiftVetGate: James Carville and Lanny Davis tag-teaming John O'Neill on CNN's Crossfire capped a week of Cambodia Deja vu, Dem lawyers, bullies and party blow hards running the ad hominem "Ken Starr" gambit only served to make the SwiftVets appear more sympathetic as Kerry's version continues to unravel. What next, parsing what the meaning of "inside" is?

Via Instapundit, The American Thinker offers the most illuminating political posting of the week and one that should give Kerry supporters pause: The roots of French policy.

The thesis begins with an understanding that the post WW II world will be split into a US-dominated bloc and a Russian-dominated bloc. Kojeve called on France to develop a third bloc -- which he called the Latin bloc. This bloc would be composed of groups of nations bordering the Mediterranean and which share a certain cultural sensibility. He advocated for an economic alliance which presciently resembles the European Union. Tellingly, he also called for an accommodation and partnership with Islamic nations, and stated that this unity can be based on a mutual opposition to other trends (the enemy of my enemy is my friend).

In the glorious future he foretold, France would reign over this transnational alliance of nations as primus inter pares. Only this transformation would ensure continued French power in opposition to the Anglo alliance lead by America.

The Chirac Doctrine

Bring bags of cash.

This story up at Newsqueek points out the hypocrisy of the Dem/Kerry rap on Bush's "coalition of the "bribed". We knew Turkey was for sale, now we know their price.

France gives the nod to Turkish membership in the European Union.

What is Paris up to?

"When French presidents invoke "the national interest," often as not it means they've cut a deal they'd really rather not explain. But when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan came courting President Jacques Chirac in Paris last week, hoping the ever-reluctant French would back Turkey's bid to join the European Union, the cash-and-carry policymaking was right out front.

As one senior Turkish official told NEWSWEEK, the intention was to "spread a package of economic benefits" before Chirac that "France could not reject." Sure enough, Turkish Airlines announced it would purchase 36 Airbus planes worth more than $1.5 billion. Erdogan also hinted he might be in the market for France's big-ticket nuclear technology. And just as surely, after years of implicit opposition and fence-straddling, Chirac suddenly decided that support for Turkey's candidacy suits "the national interests" of France."

The bit about "big-ticket nuclear technology" is worrying. How long before the media and the Dems recognise that France is not our ally, but a stealth member of the Axis of Evil? Perhaps their participation in Chinese naval exercises was a large clue?

Tour de Lance

Must See TV

IF THE NUKE STORY WERE TRUE.... [Jonah Goldberg]

A little known codicil in the National Security Act of 1947 would permit Dick Cheney to give Howard Dean, Joe Wilson and up seven other designees a wedgie on the emergency response system created by the FCC and broadcast on all television licensees during prime time.

Man, I'd even pay to see that. Big time.

Poor Pitiful Me

Ronstadt will accept your hard earned money, just don't draw no baby Jesus's on the bills.

"...It's a real conflict for me when I go to a concert and find out somebody in the audience is a Republican or fundamental Christian. It can cloud my enjoyment. I'd rather not know."

Having sat through a god-awful performance in SF a few years ago, Ronstadt should be thankful for any audience she can muster at this stage in her career...which I suspect is now, thankfully, over.

TrouserGate Redux

No...this is not another Clinton bimbo eruption. It appears Kerry campaign advisor and former Clinton National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, may have a paper fetish or a bladder control issue.

Clinton Adviser Probed Over Terror Memos

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sandy Berger, former President Clinton's national security adviser, is under criminal investigation by the Justice Department after highly classified terrorism documents disappeared while he was reviewing what should be turned over to the Sept. 11 commission.

Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI agents armed with warrants after the former Clinton adviser voluntarily returned some sensitive documents to the National Archives and admitted he also removed handwritten notes he had made while reviewing the sensitive documents.

``I deeply regret the sloppiness involved, but I had no intention of withholding documents from the commission, and to the contrary, to my knowledge, every document requested by the commission from the Clinton administration was produced,'' Berger said in a statement to the AP.

Okay that sounds like an honest mistake, much like Hillary mislaying the Rose Law firm billing records in the WH, except for the fact that he stuffed papers down his pants.

Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket and pants, and also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.

Maybe his Depends gave out.

It is interesting to note that the major newspapers buried this story deep inside their National sections. I find it difficult to believe the WaPo didn't have a lead on this story for 10 months. Can you imagine the frontpage banner headlines and outrage if this were Condaleeza Rice? She'd be sitting next to Martha on the bus to a mimimum security facility.

Marketing 101

It's pretty simple really, Sir Elton, it is not very smart marketing to alienate half your potential customer base in an evenly divided electorate. Americans vote with their pocketbooks as well as at the ballot box.

Wonder if Sir Elton considers the industry whispering campaign against Dennis Miller as censorship?

Elton attacks 'censorship' in US
Sir Elton John is currently performing in New York

Elton John has said stars are scared to speak out against war in Iraq because of "bullying tactics" used by the US government to hinder free speech. "There's an atmosphere of fear in America right now that is deadly. Everyone is too career-conscious," he told New York magazine, Interview.

Sir Elton said performers could be "frightened by the current administration's bullying tactics",

The singer likened the current "fear factor" to McCarthyism in the 1950s.

Huh? Did I miss the news that the Administration is preventing entertainers from expressing their opinions and opposition in public? If so, they are doing a really, really bad job.

When these pompous, pampered asshats start believing their press releases, they might do well to remember that fame is based on the tastes of a fickle public, as any number of former "A" list celebrities working casino lounges, car shows and state fairgrounds can attest... we made them rich and famous and we can take it away.

Grrrr....

This is exactly the same ignorant hatred and mob mentality I witnessed in the South in 1965.

Veteran gets rude welcome on Bainbridge

Think about the Seattle area -- Bainbridge Island to be exact -- and you think scenic views and liberal-minded tolerance.

At least the killer views are still there.

The bucolic island's deep reputation for civility got a gut check this week during the annual Grand Old Fourth of July celebration.

That's when Jason Gilson, a 23-year-old military veteran who served in Iraq, marched in the local event. He wore his medals with pride and carried a sign that said "Veterans for Bush."

Walking the parade route with his mom, younger siblings and politically conservative friends, Jason heard words from the crowd that felt like a thousand daggers to the heart.

"Baby killer!"

"Murderer!"

"Boooo!"

Read a little further in the article...it gets worse.

To understand why the reaction of strangers hurt so much, you must read what the young man had written in a letter from Iraq before he was disabled in an ambush:

"I really miss being in the states. Some of the American public have no idea how much freedom costs and who the people are that pay that awful price. I think sometimes people just see us as nameless and faceless and not really as humans. ... A good portion of us are actually scared that when we come home, for those of us who make it back, that there will be protesters waiting for us and that is scary."

On the Fourth, Jason faced his worst fear.

It was such a public humiliation -- home front insult after battlefield injury.

But wait there's more...

The Bainbridge Island Chamber of Commerce, which put on the community celebration, permits freedom of expression at the event but asks that parade announcers not act in a manner that is partisan or prejudicial.

Jason's mother, Tamar, says a female parade announcer locked eyes on her son who was walking behind a pro-Republican group called Women in Red, White and Blue. The group supports President Bush and the troops in the fight against terrorism.

According to Tamar, the female announcer sarcastically asked Jason: "And what exactly are you a veteran of?"

The perceived mocking, the mother adds, set off some people in the crowd, loosing a flood of negative comments, "like a wave... a mob-style degrading."

(Thanks to Misha for getting me really pissed off. Again.)

What He Said

The only bright spot in the daily news cycle is Hitchen's deliciously snide rip on Moore.

Perhaps vaguely aware that his movie so completely lacks gravitas, Moore concludes with a sonorous reading of some words from George Orwell. The words are taken from 1984 and consist of a third-person analysis of a hypothetical, endless, and contrived war between three superpowers. The clear intention, as clumsily excerpted like this (...) is to suggest that there is no moral distinction between the United States, the Taliban, and the Baath Party and that the war against jihad is about nothing. If Moore had studied a bit more, or at all, he could have read Orwell really saying, and in his own voice, the following:

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States …

And that's just from Orwell's Notes on Nationalism in May 1945. A short word of advice: In general, it's highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence. It's also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history.

One can understand why Moore isn't eager to spar with Hitchens.

Distracted, Disconnected and Discouraged

I've had nothing much to say lately, so I've said it.

Wut?

Exactly.

Lileks puts it perfectly in yesterday's Bleat.

...Sometimes the disconnect between the editorial page and the real world is so vast I wonder whether we can ever agree about anything any more. I mean, I’m reading “The Connnection” by Stephen Hayes, the book that spells out all the information and intel about Saddam and Al-Qaeda. I’m old enough to remember when this was conventional wisdom. Why, I even remember back to the end of 2001, when the general mood seemed to favor bold action to forestall future catastrophe. If we hadn’t deposed Saddam, and Bush had won a second term, and there had been a terrorist attack in 05, this book would be the Democrat’s brief for impeachment. BUSH KNEW and did nothing.

And it’s not going to get better. I don’t think the next attack will bring us together like 9/11. Last time a small portion of the nation went straight to blaming us for enflaming poor Mo Atta and his motley crew; the last three years have seen that poison spread and flourish, and blaming America for the ravings of medieval theocrats is now a legitimate argument in polite society. I’d almost venture to say that a third of the country would conclude that a radiological device exploded in Manhattan would be Bush’s fault, because he made the “evil doers” (roll eyes) super-extra-fancy-grade-AA mad.

For the last few weeks I’ve had this gnawing belief that bin Laden got lucky by attacking during Bush’s term. Conventional wisdom says the opposite, because Bush fought back. But he’s the enemy now. I ask my Democrat friends what they’d rather see happen – Bush reelected and bin Laden caught, or Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind. They’re all honest: they’d rather see Bush defeated. (They’re quick to insist that they’d want Kerry to get bin Laden ASAP. Although the details are sketchy.) Of course this doesn't mean they're unpatriotic, etc., obligatory disclaimers, et cetera. But let's be honest. People are coming up with websites that demonstrate ingenious technology for spraying anti-Bush slogans on the sidewalks; it would be nice if they sprayed "DEFEAT TERRORISM" or "STOP AL QAEDA" now and then. Wouldn't it?

Is that too much to ask?

Perhaps this is why I haven’t written much about the subject lately with the usual chest-thumping brio: I think it’s going to have to get much worse before we get clarity. Most days I just don’t know what to say anymore. There are fiends out there chopping off the heads of Americans for their god, and we have cartoonists who think it’s the height of insight to show the Neocon cabal as port-swilling fat men bothered by baggy pants on insolent teens.

I understand the desire to whistle when passing the graveyard; it’s human nature. I don’t understand climbing down into the hole, crossing your arms on your chest, feeling the first few warm clumps of dirt on your face, and puckering your lips for the first few bars of “Happy Days Are Here Again.”

Or "Le Marseillaise."

Indeed.

Farewell To The Chief

The Long Goodbye

Is it just me or has our popular culture gone off the cliff from honoring the dead to creating a maudlin celebration of death?

Now, don't get me wrong, President Reagan deserves the full honors of the country he served, and a farewell from his legion of supporters and admirers, but once again, we've veered off the track of respect into a weird celebration of death, not life. Only the hardest of hearts or harshest of partisans could not have been affected by the sight of a wife laying her head on her husband's coffin, but what prompts people to want to participate in the grieving?

This phenomenon began in earnest with Princess Diana's death and continues with tragic events such as Laci Peterson's murder.

There is something off-kilter in the instant shrines of kitsch that appear and an invasive media peppering grieving families with banal questions that no one has the right to ask or needs to know. People drove hundreds of miles, bringing young, uncomprehending children to place flowers, candles and teddy bears on the Peterson's front yard. Sorry, but to me, that is just weirdness. Does a lack of community or intimacy in their own lives create this need to connect to others with faux death rites?

Perhaps it is simply a side effect of the instant communication effect, the trivialization of sentiment and embrace of celebrity, our insatiable need to witness events as they unfold or the media's need to fill bandwidth. I find it unseemly, but then maybe I'm becoming a fuddy-duddy throwback to other times when privacy was possible and necessary.

A Time For Choosing

"...Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us that they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call this policy "accommodation." And they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he will forget his evil ways and learn to love us.

All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems.

Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one!" Let's set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace...and you can have it in the next second...surrender!

You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin--just in the face of this enemy?--or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard around the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain! Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all.

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance!

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness."

--Ronald Reagan, 1964

Darkness threatens once more, and appeasers tremble in the shadows of a bright day in September when dark forces came calling. We must not waver, because the way is hard, our colonial forefathers and the Greatest Generation did not, are we, their progeny going to live in freedom or fear?

It's our choice.

"When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is itself a choice."

--William James

Outrageous

Another anti-war miscreant slithers out from under his hate-America rock.

Via Citizen Smash:

AN ALERT READER points me to a brand new website put up by someone in the Anti-War movement, called "America’s Dumbest Soldiers.” It shows photos of Coalition soldiers who have been killed in the Iraq conflict, describes how they died, and allows you to vote on them. I’m guessing that we’re meant to vote on who had the “dumbest death."

Is this supposed to be funny?

I saw the name of Army Captain Russell B. Rippetoe, a Ranger who was awarded two Bronze Stars for valor, and was the first soldier killed in Iraq to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

On April 3, 2003, CPT Rippetoe was was manning a nighttime checkpoint near Hadithah Dam in western Iraq when a car approached carrying Iraqi civilians. A pregnant woman got out and ran screaming from the car. Rippetoe stepped toward her, the car exploded, and he and two other soldiers were killed, victims of a terrorist ruse.

The site provides an email address, perhaps the author might like an American opinion or two regarding his taste in humor?

(Note: Due to possible legal issues and my complete lack of forethought, the posting has been archived offline at The Command Post and I've removed the RIPE info.)

Stupid Is Forever

I have been trying to keep the old blood pressure within stroke limits, so have not had much to say about the current media witch hunt and beating of breasts in Washington. How much more proof does one need that the Left doesn't believe we are at war than demanding resignation of the SecDef with 130,00 troops deployed in Iraq? Such massive stupidity boggles the mind, the message sent to those who lurk among us, prepared and waiting is crystal clear.

I thought to myself; how much lower will the Dems stoop to obtain power?

Then this item at Mama Montezz's provided the answer to my question.

It seems St. James the Moor Slayer has been relegated to the relative obscurity of a dusty old museum. He has been taken from his place within a church bearing his name because his presence might upset the "sensitivities of other ethnic groups".

The statue is being replaced by one of St. James the Pilgrim, one of the other titles by which this saint is known. Apparently a saint who's apparition spurred on the Spanish troops and assisted in the overthrow of the Moors after an 800 year occupation is not as PC as the counter-image of the same saint as the man who entered Spain and converted the population to Christianity. Rather like the Spanish equivalent of St. Patrick.

"The Baroque image of a sword-wielding St James cutting the heads off Moors is not a very sensitive or evangelical image that fits the teachings of Christ, he added."

WTF? As Mama points out, whom the hell is going to be offended in a Catholic country? Islamists are combing Spanish churches looking for offense? The Spanish have sincerely lost it. How long before Spain abjectly apologizes, appoints a new Caliph of Andalusia and returns the Iberian Peninsula to Sharia law?

Jesuschristonabicycle.

Wait. What is that sound I hear coming from Spain? Oh...I know. It's the communal wail of the Spanish hiding under their beds crying for their mamas.

A people who will not fight for their freedom will not long have it, and this time around the Marines will not be landing on the beaches of Europe to fight and die for the Spanish or French. That much I can guaran-damn-tee.

UN Shows True Colors

Baldilocks is steamed, I was too when I heard the news:

What international law amounts to:

Sudan won an uncontested election Tuesday to the United Nations' main human rights watchdog, prompting the United States to walk out because of alleged ethnic cleansing in the country's Darfur region.

Millions of non-Muslim black Africans “ethnically cleansed” by the Muslim Sudanese in power in that land and this is their earthly reward?

Sudan's envoy immediately shot back that the U.S. delegation was "shedding crocodile tears," and he accused the United States of turning a blind eye as Iraqi prisoners were mistreated and civilians were harmed in battle.

Welcome to the world of moral equivalence, in which, abuse of a few prisoners by a few members of a vast military and the genocide of millions amount to the same thing.

Americans should be outraged. Read the rest and links in the comments will lead you to material that will make your gorge rise as well as offer an opportunity to add your voice to the protest.

The End

I love irony, don't you? Today, May 1st, The EU officially welcomed the former Soviet states of Eastern Europe into the fold of free nations.

Hundreds of thousands of Hungarians celebrated their former communist country's entry into the European Union with midnight parties in the streets of Budapest as the EU welcomed 10 new states on Saturday.

Fireworks lit up the sky above Heroes' Square in the Hungarian capital as the national anthem was played, followed by Beethoven's Ode to Joy, which is the EU's anthem.

"Hungary has returned to Europe and the values which Hungary has held dear for more than 1,000 years," Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy said as a gigantic eight-meter (25-foot) hourglass was turned over to begin marking the nation's time in the EU.

Hungarians had kicked off celebrations with the tolling of a flower-shaped bell at noon Friday and then took to the streets for evening parties.

"We are finally triumphing over our misfortunes," Medgyessy said at the bell ceremony. "Our integration (into the EU) can be a historic turning point."

"We were the gates of Europe already but now we will be that from the inside," he said.

Misfortunes.

Indeed.

As I read and watch the reports of European celebration arrive on the wires, TV and subscription services, I smile and recall Churchill's remarks in 1942 after Alexander and Montgomery turned back Rommel's forces at El Alamein and the war turned.

"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. "

Little did we know at the time that another forty-seven years of Anglo-American fortitude was required before the walls Churchill aptly dubbed "The Iron Curtain" lifted from Eastern Europe, the Baltic and the CCCP.

A job well done America.

Of course, no one will speak our name today in the EU love fest as the Hungarians, and others join the EU, rightly so, however, it is their choice and they make it freely. That's payment enough in my book, all we can hope to achieve. We spend our treasure, sacrifice our lives and then quietly walk away, satisfied. This celebration today is our best reply to the naysayers and accusers that we are an imperialistic power.

One can't help but point out that John Kerry and the Dems were on the wrong side of history in defeating the Soviets, just as they are now wrong in the War on Terror. If Kerry were President today, not only would Saddam Hussein still be digging mass graves and paying off our "friends", but had Jimmy Carter defeated Ronald Reagan, Hungary might well still be occupied by the Soviets.

In the current war on terrorism, we must draw on our Cold War experiences with the Soviet Union; we must now take a hard-line against militant Islam and terrorist states, while nurturing democratization and alliances within the Islamic world. We can best defend ourselves by fuelling the liberalization of repressive Islamic and despotic Arabic societies. We have unleashed the information genie from its bottle in the Middle East; it will destroy those who seek to suppress it, just as it did in the Soviet Union. Once people see and hear how others live, that others have choices; the pressure from within cannot be withstood. It would be extremely foolhardy for us to disengage now. It will not be easy, but we face the same choice that we did in 1948 in Berlin.

We must look beyond the partisan rhetoric of the political season, and the self-serving and narrowly focused media obsession with appeasement and retreat, for we now face the greatest threat to our existence since an aggressive, nuclear-armed Soviet Union held much of Europe in its iron grip.

Should the war on terror take forty-five years to win, chances are that I will not be here to witness the celebrations across the Arab world, just as much of my parent's generation are not here to witness the end of what they began in 1941. But our children and grandchildren will benefit or suffer by what we do now, that is an inescapable fact.

(Cross posted at The Command Post Op-Ed Page.)

Thank You

A US airman salutes, as four Royal Australian Air Force F/A-18 Hornets perform the “missing man” formation during Anzac Day commemorations at a Middle East air force base.

The Australian War Memorial site features "Captured In Color" an exhibition of orginial WWI photos and the ABC posts a page with a RealAudio commentary of the photos, those of you interested in military history will find the AWM site and the exhibition compelling.

Yes, We Do

Peggy Noonan has her fingers on the pulse of the silent majority in her latest WSJ column. (subscription req'd)

People Have Eyes

Americans dislike Bush's enemies more than they dislike Bush.

I do not know precisely why President Bush's popularity continues high despite a month of the most relentless pounding from partisans, the press, the 9/11 commission and history itself (Fallujah, etc.) No one else knows either. Professionals will read the polls through the prism of their own expertise. Media people will say it's the cumulative effect of Mr. Bush's stirring ads. Those who agree with the president's stand on Iraq will say it's Iraq. Others may argue it's because he put tax cuts at the heart of his economic policy and the economy has begun to rebound. There is probably some truth in all of this. But my guess would be something else.

I think Mr. Bush is admired and liked after three years of war, terror, strife and recession because people have eyes.

They look at him, listen to him, and watch him every day. They can tell that George W. Bush is looking out for America. They can tell he means it. They can see his sincerity. They can tell he is doing his best. They understand his thinking because he tells them his thinking. They think he may be right. They're not sure, but at least they understand his thinking.

They are not shocked that our intelligence system wasn't working very well before 9/11. They would like our intelligence system to be first-rate and the best in the world, and they like to say they expect it to be best in the world. But they also think it comes from Washington, it's government, and so by definition flawed. Mr. Bush has survived not finding of the weapons of mass destruction for two reasons. One is that Americans have come to be sure that Saddam was an unusually bad man and a threat to whatever stability the Mideast enjoys. The other is that Americans believe Mr. Bush himself honestly believed Saddam was a threat. If Bill Clinton, who thought Iraq had WMDs, had invaded Iraq post-9/11 and not found them, he would have been thrown out of office. That's because no one ever believed what Mr. Clinton said, and they wouldn't have believed his explanations. They assumed most of what he did had a cynical and self-serving basis. Mr. Bush doesn't have that problem, because regular people don't think he's a habitual liar. (This is why in presidential elections character trumps everything. It's not some abstraction, it has practical and daily presidential applications.)

Americans do not think Mr. Bush has a persona to dazzle history, they think he is the average American man, but the average American man as they understand the term: straight shooter, hard worker, decent, America-loving, God-loving.

[...]

The implications for the election? We all know a presidential campaign involving an incumbent is in good part a referendum on that incumbent. Which sounds like a one-part process, but it's a two-part process.

If you want to fire the incumbent, you have to have someone to hire in his place. The guy who opposes the incumbent has to seem like a credible president. He has to be a real alternative, a possible president. So far, roughly four months into his national fame, John Kerry has not made the sale. There are people who have Bush-fatigue, but they do not have Kerry-hunger.

So far he doesn't seem like a possible president. He seems somewhat shifty, somewhat cold, an operator. He has a good voice but he seems to use it most to slither out of this former statement or that erstwhile position. It's OK that he looks like a sad tree, but you can't look like a sad, hollow tree. And it looks a little hollow in there. As if Iraq is an issue Kerry feels he has to handle deftly, and not a brutal question we have to solve, together. As if homeland security is an issue, or civil defense, or preparedness. They're not issues. They're life and death. Mr. Kerry doesn't seem to know.

Which is why he isn't gaining traction, or gaining purchase on the president. The Democrats and their nominee say on one day that Mr. Bush ignored terrorism, and on the next that he exaggerated the threat. They say his administration didn't give enough time to planning Iraq, then they say he was obsessed with Iraq. They say he's dimwitted and gullible, then they say he's evil and calculating--he cooked Iraq up in Texas, in Ted Kennedy's phrase.

You know why they can't define what's wrong with Mr. Bush? Because they don't even know what's wrong with him beyond that he is not them, not Mr. Kerry, not a Democrat.

Can the Democrats win this way? No.

The last three grafs are exactly right, the Dems see the election in terms of polls, slogans and the remaking of Kerry's clothes, but we see he wears none.

Lies and the Lying Media That Tell Them

The old media is in full smear mode today, primping and preening on their self-serving gotcha performance last night.

Evan Thomas, of Newsweek, epitomizes the media elite's disdain for Bush this morning on Imus during a give & take about Iraq and the June transition.

Thomas sneered "I doubt Bush even knows who Chalabi is".

::::Clank!::::Shreech!:::: Let's back the truck up Mr. Thomas.

While Thomas has previously remarked on the Imus show that he often doesn't read the print version, which is a rather stunning admission by the Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek, but not surprising given Newsweek's quality level, he may have missed Newsweek's coverage of the story, but I would bet the farm that he reads the WaPo:

Bush Pays Surprise Thanksgiving Visit to Troops in Iraq

The goverrning council members with whom Bush met today were Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader who is this month's council president, Mowaffak Rubaie, a Shiite Muslim physician who returned from exile in Britain, and Raja Khozai, a Shiite who directs a maternity hospital in the southern city of Diwaniya.

The Bush-as-idiot or Neocon/Israeli puppet meme drives much of the old media to absurd lengths. So eager are they to damage or belittle Bush that they insult their readership/viewer's intelligence.

Later in the same broadcast, NBC's David Gregory defended his stupid "have you made mistakes?"question by saying it was his job to challenge the President, not to seek information. That he wanted to elicit a reaction, create a "real moment that revealed Bush's thinking".

What twaddle. How can anyone take journalists such as these or their reporting seriously?

Airhead America

Someone should tell these asshats to stop digging:

WLIB plans to go Black at night

“You remember things like WLIB’s logo ‘Keeping the business in the family,’ ” said Irwin Claire, co-director of the Queens-based Caribbean Immigration Services. “You remember that you used to hear comments like, ‘Rip the knob off your radio, because you wake up and go to sleep with WLIB on the dial.’”

“[That] puts it in perspective,” Claire added as he spoke about the sense of regret and offense many feel about the abruptly announced scheduling changes at New York’s radio station WLIB-1190 AM, which as of March 31 will help launch “Air America Radio,” the new, predominately white, liberal talk-radio network.

“It’s not something where I’m going to get bitter or angry. Businesses make decisions; they have a right to do that for their shareholders. But where they have stopped programming Caribbean shows, they continue to play the music—without saying anything on air about the new changes. That’s not just sticking the dagger in, but slowly twisting it, too.”

After years of building political and cultural rapport in the African American community, WLIB created a strong following among Caribbean Americans with shows that featured music and also made “Island Link” connections with radio stations in Jamaica, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Grenada, St. Vincent, Antigua and St. Kitts.

[...]

“We’re angry that they think they can just turn WLIB into a white talk station and then are arrogant enough to say that the issues they are talking about affect everybody. This is the Democrats,” Law said. “They believe that you don’t really need a Black voice because their [white liberal] concerns are everybody’s concerns.”

In what may be an effort to win back its community standing, Inner City’s general manager, Kernie L. Anderson, this week announced that although Air America has leased broadcast time during the day, March 31 will also initiate WLIB’s 12 a.m. to 5 a.m. overnight focus on Black issues programming. Saturday nights will feature “Moment Creole” with Stanley Barbot, and “Caribbean Cross Culture” will be on every Sunday night. David Dinkins and Rev. Al Sharpton have been offered Sunday morning shows; on weeknights Dr. Carlos Russell will revise his Afrocentric issues show, “Thinking It Through”; and the journalist-author Herb Boyd will host a two-hour call-in news segment, “Conversation with the People.”

Gees...them free-thinkin' white liberals are going to let the black island folk ride in the back of the radio bus. Franken, the Dems et al, should be ashamed and they should immediately offer daytime slots for this community.

Thanks to Baldilocks for the update.

Early News-Opinion Roundup

Having a late lunch...watching The Fox All-Stars ...Brit Hume asked Mort Kondracke how we should handle the Fallujah insurgents.

Kondracke replied that he would take a page from Kerry's playbook, approach it as a police action, gather intel, plan a response and then he'd do what George Bush would do, "Go in and kill the bastards."

Kondrake flashed a sardonic grin he pulls off so well as Jeff Birnbaum twitched and you could see Birnbaum wondering if he heard Kondracke correctly. This sort of against-type commentary is what makes the All-Stars entertaining...Barnes and Birnbaum are predictable, rehashing the daily talking points... but you never know what the hell Kondracke or Krauthammer will say.

Chris Matthews grinds on with his Clarke fest trapping Joe Biden in an incoherent web of Biden's own making. Nothing new here folks, so we'll move along.

This item found at the Media Research Center boggles even this jaded news junky's mind:

Apologize to “Prophetic” French?

Here Comes Da Judge

Blogging from the bowels of the courthouse via wireless/cell phone dialup...it works pretty well...the speed sucks. The security guys groaned when they saw a dozen of us in line with laptops.

I wonder who told the cat-in-the-knit hat that grubby mis-matched sweats with his ass hanging out is appropriate jury attire? Isn't it interesting how a group of strangers sorts themselves out in a public room? Losers and hookers wandering nervously near the door, seniors in the front rows near the loo and managerial/professional types near the windows.

I'd guess that most of us on the window side of the room aren't going to make the cut. I'm waiting for some one to ask what "warblogging" on my questionaire means.

We've been told to pack up the electronics and stow the cells. Looks like we're moving to chambers. Voir Dire is always my nemesis.

Heh.

UPDATE: Didn't make a jury...think the "Nuke France" button put them off?

Non-Sequitur by Wiley

They Blew It...

...and we know they know we know.

No matter how mightily the media twists and turns to put blame on the Bush Adminstration, Neocons (them Joos again), Rummy and the two house slaves...it won't wash. Americans are not stupid and though we may be partisans, we recognise a rat when we smell it.

Is SecState Albright kidding?

"FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE K. ALBRIGHT I can say with confidence that President Clinton and his team did everything we could, everything that we could think of, based on the knowledge we had, to protect our people and disrupt and defeat Al Qaeda. We certainly recognized the threat posed by the terrorist groups. . . .

But I also do know that many of the policy issues that we had developed were not followed up.

And I have to say with great sadness to watch an incoming administration kind of take apart a lot of the policies that we did have, whether it had to do with North Korea or the Balkans, was difficult. So I think you have to ask people that were in the Bush administration as to how they saw things on this particular issue. But I do think, in all fairness, that 9/11 was a cataclysmic event that changed things and that they must have had similar reactions. But clearly there are many issues and many questions now about how they were responding to the terrorist threat and how seriously they took it.

Albright and the Clinton administration were roundly duped by Nth Korea, and the wheels are still coming off the Balkans.

Then there was this admission by SecDef Wiliam Cohen:

Clinton's Secretary of Defense William Cohen defended the administration, noting that Clinton and his top advisers turned aside more aggressive action, such as an invasion of Afghanistan, because they believed the president would be pilloried domestically and overseas in a pre-Sept. 11 climate in which he was accused of pumping up the terrorist threat to deflect attention from the scandals that plagued his administration.

Clinton foolishly indulged his personal weaknesses and was forced to spend his political capital and public good will protecting his ass, not ours. Had he not been embroiled in the Lewinsky scandal he may have acted more forcibly.

The Clinton Administration was warned repeatedly that the airlines were vulnerable, yet he chose to appoint Linda Daschle, an airline lobbyist, as deputy administrator of the FAA, putting her in charge of regulating her once-and-future clients; and she wound up running the agency as acting administrator.

When the FAA was pondering making mandatory a criminal-background check for all airport employees, Linda, who was then running the agency, vigorously opposed this common-sense move — echoing the position of the airline-industry lobby that had previously employed her.

Before 9/11, Senator Daschle pushed through the sleazy deal in the backrooms of Capitol Hill that forced the FAA to buy defective baggage scanners from one of Linda’s other clients, L-3 International (from which Linda’s firm raked in $440,000 in the ’97–’01 period). Under a provision Linda’s husband had slipped into the 2000 budget for the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the FAA was required to buy one of L-3’s scanners for every one it purchased from the company’s competitors. The L-3 scanners were found to be substandard by DOT’s inspector general; FAA tests of the scanners showed high failure rates; and most have not yet been installed because of their defects (the one at the Dallas–Fort Worth airport — another of Linda’s clients — leaked radiation), which is a major reason DOT says it won’t be able to screen all luggage for explosives for years to come.

It was no coincidence that Inspector General for the Transportation Dept. Mary Schiavo was fired and publicly pilloried by the Clintonistas when she would not back down on her scathing critique of airline safety issues.

Stuart Taylor has written repeatedly on this issue:

In 1996, President Clinton put Vice President Al Gore in charge of a White House commission to recommend improvements in airliner security. But from the start, according to The Boston Globe, "debate over the program focused on civil liberties, not effectiveness." The Gore commission declared, "No profile should contain or be based on ... race, religion, or national origin." Accordingly, the Federal Aviation Administration, in unveiling its Computer-Assisted Passenger Screening program, stressed that the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division—an ultraliberal bastion—had certified that the CAPS criteria "do not consider passengers' race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, or gender," or even "names or modes of dress." That left few criteria for flagging possible terrorists other than reservation histories—as any competent terrorist would have known.

So tell me again how the Neocons are responsible?

A Double-edged Sword

Sorry, I just can't get worked up about Howard Stern's yanking our morality chain or his departure...he's so tedious. I certainly agree with Emperor Misha on the slippery slope and reject the concept of a "decency clause" and/or government censorship of public bandwidth. The right-wingnuts clamoring for censorship suffer from an accute case of myopia and possibly a case of morality melvin chaffing. Atheists could use their argument to build a case against Christian radio-TV using public bandwidth ( They will sooner or later).

As His Highness points out; we're on public bandwidth and wouldn't the Left love to shut us up?

Stern's firing wasn't about decency, it was a pre-emptive strike to head off loss of ad revenue. The media companies have another governing concept: the bottom line. That's why it's called "the media business".

Just as Hollywood willingly blacklisted people HUAC fingered in the 50's to protect profits, media companies will scurry from their spideyholes and cover their asses...for a while...then the public forgets what offended them and/or the culture makes another shift and it's back to business as usual.

I find ABC News and NPR's rampant anti-Semitism far more offensive than Howard's juvenile antics or Janet's tit. Yet, I don't want NPR removed or some Fed goon or committee blue-lining their scripts. Just change the effin' channel fer Peet's sake! How hard is this?! There's plenty of choices...make one and STFU.

Follow The Money

A double safe found by a looter in a secret concrete chamber under exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's livingroom contained $350,000 in decomposing U.S. banknotes, including these bills. (bold emphasis added)

Maybe Baby Doc forgot it.

Job Out-sourcing and Silicon Valley

Jobs are more likely to be shipped overseas from Silicon Valley and the nine Bay Area counties than any other region in the nation. The SF Chonicle is running an ongoing series of articles that challenge what we think we know about the issue. Today's in-depth coverage is recommended reading.

Sen. John Kerry, derides "Benedict Arnold CEOs" who send job overseas, yet as this article in today's SF Chronicle Business section proves, his view is not shared by many of Silicon Valley's top executives who are staunch Dem supporters and mega-donors.

LOOKING OFFSHORE

Straight from the mouth: Executives speak out

"You sound like a piano player in the old days when there were 35,000 piano players playing in the front of every movie theater when they had silent movies. You're saying, 'Who's going to employ all of us now that they have sound embedded in the films?' Gang, we've got brains. There will be lots to do. What's an American company? We do half our business internationally. Does that make us an international company or a U.S. company?Global companies grow globally. Shouldn't India be a little upset that we have most of their software programmers here? Who's making the value judgments here? "

Scott McNealy
Chairman and CEO
Sun Microsystems

***
U.S. corporations' first responsibility is to their shareholders. You cannot say, 'I'm going to put national interests ahead of shareholder interests.' That said, well-managed companies are able to balance the interests of their investors, the interest of their employees and the interest of the countries in which they serve. Our company derives half its revenue from outside the United States. And while we are a U.S. company, we have active operations in dozens of other countries. So we have an equal obligation in places where customers provide the underpinning revenue that helps grow our business. "

John Thompson
Chairman and CEO
Symantec Corp.

***
"We're at an interesting turning point on this topic in the U.S. Some well- meaning people argue that we have to take drastic measures and put up various barriers to protect American jobs. My personal view is the facts absolutely refute that. Over a long period of time, increased economic activity in China and India and anyplace else in the world will lead to more opportunities and economic growth - not less. That's the result you want.In the next few years, will (American) jobs be lost? Absolutely. But after all we've been through in the last 30 or 40 years, I'm not sure who in manufacturing in the U. S. in 2003 thinks their job is permanently going to stay in the U.S. "

Marc Andreessen
Chairman
Opsware

***
"This is the big argument I had with Ross Perot on NAFTA (the North America Free Trade Agreement). Perot said, "My God, if we do this, Mexico will get a lot of good jobs."Isn't that a terrible thing? That a poor country like Mexico would get a lot of jobs.Can you imagine, isn't that awful? I think it's great. I think NAFTA is great. Free trade will not only help the United States, but will transform India, China and the world into a more prosperous place. "

Larry Ellison
CEO
Oracle

***
"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore. It's interesting to me that so many people talk about China or India or Russia as being a source of low-cost labor. Truthfully, over the long term, the greater threat is the source of well-educated labor. And if you look at the number of college- educated students that China graduates every year, it's close to 40 million. The law of large numbers is fairly compelling. "

Carly Fiorina
Chairman and CEO
Hewlett-Packard

Another Dem argument-cum-scare-tactic is that our most sensitive personal information is in untrustworthy hands off-shore. An odd sort of diplomacy stance that certainly doesn't match their Kumbayah foreign policy rhetoric (you know how untrustworthy those swarthy foreign types are).

Senator Feinstein recently sponsored a bill to prevent US banks from transferring customer data to out-sourced accounting, debt collection and customer call centers. That horse bolted the gate twenty years ago when credit cards went global and more recently as debit cards, ATMs and cell phones began to dispense cash world-wide. The good senator obviously doesn't shop online either.

Another Dem bugaboo is that our medical records will be pawed by a foreigner and sold for profit. As if our domestic hospitals, HMOs and insurance industry isn't in the data mining business. However, not all are eager to out-source.

"Our medical record information will be done in the U.S. It's not going to be outsourced. It's not going offshore. "

George Halverson
Chairman and CEO
Kaiser Foundation Health Plans and Hospitals Inc

Data collection and analysis by SRI and researchers at UC Berkeley reached a different conclusion about job loss than the Dems class warfare cant and old media's conventional wisdom:

Offshoring's giant target: the Bay Area
Silicon Valley could face export of 1 in 6 jobs -- worst in nation

Despite the growing worker outrage about offshoring, researchers agree it's not the top reason people are losing jobs or having trouble finding new ones. Of the California jobs at highest risk to outsourcing, most of the 200, 000 lost between 2001 and 2003 were casualties of the tech crash, not overseas relocation, the UC Berkeley researchers say.

"Probably more jobs were lost due to normal automation or capital invested that improves productivity, rather than offshoring," said John "Matty" Mathieson, director of the Center for Science, Technology and Economic Development at research institute SRI International.

I would add that worker's comp increases, over-regulation and tax burdens levied by Gray Davis accelerated downsizing and many of the job losses Kerry laments were sent out-of-state to Nevada, Arizona or off-shore by the Dems themselves.

The Chron's economics writer, Sam Zuckerman offers an insight into the economics of offshoring: Economic Arguments.

However the quote that struck me as demonstrative of just how out of touch our elected officals are, and how little they understand real-life economics, is this one:

On Thursday, the Senate voted to prevent federal contractors from using tax dollars to move American jobs offshore, despite the opposition of numerous Republicans. Another federal bill -- backed by Kerry, among others -- would require call-center operators to disclose where they are. ("Good morning, this is Dell tech support in Bangalore.")

BUWHAHAHAHA!

Right. I was totally confused about that.

Senator Kerry, the Indian accent might be a large clue that the call center is not in Kansas. Jeebus, are consumers really that dumb?

Into The Fray

Like many bloggers I've hesitated to enter the gay marriage debate because it is a personal moral and ethical dilemma, but a wedding invitation arrived in the mail yesterday that pushed me off the fence.

No, the invitation is not to a gay wedding, it is the wedding of a lovely young woman I've known her entire life. Her mother is a childhood friend who has a twenty year relationship with her female partner. The young woman was the result of a closeted marriage that ended by mutual agreement. The father remarried and maintained a close relationship with the birth mother and the child received the best of both families.

I know some of you are thinking "So what! another tale of happy lesbians from the wacko Left coast". Well, you would be wrong because this story doesn't have a happy ending.

You see as I sat with the invite in hand the heart of this matter lept out.

The daughter can marry the partner of her choice, but her mother cannot.

This is a civil rights issue. It is not about being gay, or approval of the gay lifestyle, but is about everyone having the same rights under law.

Where we go from here I don't know, there is no easy answer, but we must grapple with the underlying issue of equal rights or we are all diminished.

UPDATE: Juliette of Baldilocks has another viewpoint to consider.

Catching up

What a difference a week makes...whilst I was off pursuing foolish fun much has happened that many predicted would come to pass. Can things get much worse for the left?

Howell Raines resigns from the NYT.

The Guardian begins a massive climb down from the Wolfowitz story.

Martha does the perp walk.

Hillary doesn't drop the other shoe or dime on Bill, contradicts Blumenthal's version of events.

Arafat misses fork in the roadmap.

Chris Muir take down Dowd.

Pontifex notices something rather odd about Salam's blog title.

Finally the best story of the day and a fitting end to my list: Monica is to SUVs as chrome to a '48 Buick.

Moab-in' thru Google

My fav Rummy quote so far this week is his reply to a question after the test of the new weapon MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) at Elgin AFB today.

Asked about the test at a Pentagon news conference, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would not say whether it would be used in an Iraq war, and he refused to discuss its capabilities.

''This is not small,'' he said.

Neither were the burgers. Wut?

My home town had a burger stand called Meal On A Bun (MOAB) that made the best damn broiled burgers smothered in hickory sauce...they were huge...a 1/2 thick patty on a 6" sesame seed bun... veiled with thinly sliced onions, pickles and a boatload of sauce. Yum.

Wasn't the Plain of Moab where Moses died?

The two strongholds of the kingdom of Moab were Ar and Kir. Modern day Karak (maybe of interest to the Possumbloggers) on the Wadi Karak 50 miles South of Amman in West Central Jordan is an ancient walled citadel of the Moabites called Kir Moab in the first millennium BC.

Then of course we got Moab, Utah.

Egads...a biblical weapon...Shhhh...don't tell the Dems...they'll have to medicate Daschle.

UPDATE: Here's today's test video (it's a large download but worth the wait)

_{Thanks to Josh via John Little}

Must be March

There's no fool like a sick fool. Flu bug got me. Will try to catch up this afternoon. Cannot think or form complete sentences. The idiots in Sacramento can't either.

Assembly panel OKs cell phone bill

California motorists would have to use hands-free devices while talking on cell phones under a bill approved Monday by an Assembly committee.

During the first six months of 2002, the CHP found cell phone use contributed to 611 -- or 11 percent -- of the 5,677 collisions linked to inattention factors, according to the study ordered by the Legislature.

The second-leading cause of distraction -- using a car radio or CD player -- contributed to 9 percent, or 519 accident.

So we got over 20,000,000 licensed drivers in California and 611 of them had accidents due to a cell phone...okay...let's pass another law that encumbers drivers with more expense. Given that the CHP will no longer use "pretext stops" to apprehend suspects...they can better use their resources issuing tickets for using a hands-on cell phone.

Stupidity thy name is Politican.

A thoughtful essay

David Sims wrote a well reasoned piece yesterday:

Of Belief and Pragmatism, Self-Interest and NATO.

"We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are perpetual and eternal and those interests it is our duty to follow."

Lord Palmerston, 1848

Correct. And it is time for America to do its duty and follow its interests not for our good alone, but for the good of the world. Because the game has changed and America’s old teammates are woefully unable to play the new one. We’ve gone from a battle of pragmatism to a battle of belief, and belief is one thing Western Europe does not have. Whereas we are still the city on a hill.

We have all the interest in maintaining military “alliances” with the likes of France, Germany and Belgium that a sprinter does wearing an overcoat. NATO was always ever formed for one purpose and one purpose only – to repel a post-World War II invasion of Communists in Western Europe.

As one wag put it, its purpose was to keep “Russia out, Germany down and America in.”

Nobody needs keep Russia out of anything anymore, and EU bureaucracy is doing a far better job keeping Germany down than any army could. Hence there is no reason for America to be in. Hence no reason for NATO.

The Annotated Good, Bad and Ugly

An excellent Quisling source page by Aaron, The Liberal Slayer

Click for full size image.

_{a hat tip to Laurence}