Real Estate Fairy visits pols who believe

The Real Estate Fairy and Obama bought adjoining property. The Real Estate Fairy paid the asking price for his parcel; Obama paid less than the list for his and, presto, Obama had a home in Kenwood and a nice vacant lot next door.

Obama said that if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn't, since it didn't look right, perhaps because all of political Illinois knew that Rezko was by then toxic, infected with federal grandjuryitis.

A picture tells a 1000 words

"Check out this photo from our mess hall at the US Embassy yesterday morning. Sen. Kerry found himself all alone while he was over here. He cancelled his press conference because no one came, he worked out alone in the gym w/o any soldiers even going up to say hi or ask for an autograph (I was one of those who was in the gym at the same time), and he found himself eating breakfast with only a couple of folks who are obviously not troops."

Al Qaeda Sends a Message to Democrats

Zawahri calls on the Democrats to negotiate with him and Osama bin Laden, not others in the Islamic world who Zawahri says cannot help.

As quoted by ABC:

"The first is that you [Democrats] aren't the ones who won the midterm elections, nor are the Republicans the ones who lost. Rather, the Mujahideen -- the Muslim Ummah's vanguard in Afghanistan and Iraq -- are the ones who won, and the American forces and their Crusader allies are the ones who lost,"

A possible ambassadorship for former President Clinton or Carter?

Who really cares?

A new book, titled "Who Really Cares" by Arthur C. Brooks examines the actual behavior of liberals and conservatives when it comes to donating their own time, money, or blood for the benefit of others. It is remarkable that beliefs on this subject should have become conventional, if not set in concrete, for decades before anyone bothered to check these beliefs against facts.

House Ethics Report Finds No Rules Broken

Elections over, holidays coming up, time for every good MSM reporter to tidy up their desks:

"Hmmm, whats this stack?"

"Foley. Name doesn't ring a bell. Hey Don, can I borrow your trash can, mine's already full."

"Let's see, what can we cook up for 2008?"

Father of Chelsea's Boyfriend in Prison for Fraud, Scams

More for the reader comments than the story itself:

But then, says Zauzmer, Mezvinsky began to steal from clients and even his own mother-in-law to raise the money to try yet another scheme.

"He was always looking for the home run. He was always trying to find the business deal that would make him as wealthy as all the people in his social circle," said Zauzmer.

Former Aide Parts With Carter Over Book

That criticism is the latest in a growing chorus of academics who have taken issue with the book, including Alan M. Dershowitz, professor of law at Harvard, who called the book “ahistorical,” and David Makovsky, director of the Project on the Middle East Process at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Did George W. Bush Kill JFK?

That’s what makes us so smart. We know that JFK was actually assassinated by a 17-year-old George W. Bush in order ensconce fellow Texan Lyndon Johnson in the White House, thus laying the historical background necessary to facilitate Lady Bird Johnson’s highway beautification scheme years later—a scheme that encourages oil consumption by brainwashed pleasure drivers entranced by the wafting aroma of beautiful mind-controlling uber-poppies. Oh, and Halliburton.

Great article.

The Giant, Helpless, Pitiful Democratic Majority

In the Senate, there is no such thing as a majority. Ever since the elder Bush's administration, the filibuster has become routine. No longer reserved for civil-rights issues or for egregious legislation, it now is used to counter even motions for recess and adjournment. Members of the Senate are no longer subjected to the indignity of standing on their feet and reading a telephone book. Rather, the gentlemen’s filibuster applies.

Clinton Won Easily, but Bankroll Shows the Toll

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 — She had only token opposition, but Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton still spent more on her re-election — upward of $30 million — than any other candidate for Senate this year. So where did all the money go?

Same place all your tax money will go if she gets to be Pres. Dems are not provably better than Repubs at keeping their hands out of the public trough. They are better at increasing the size of the trough though.

Democrats Target Wealth Gap Democrats Target Wealth Gap And Hope Not to Hit Economy

Divide Between Rich and Poor Continues to Widen; Spurs 'Robin Hood' Plans

Surprise!

December 7, 2008

"The failure of many Americans, including many of the leading Democrats in Congress, and some Republicans, to fully appreciate the persistent, long-term threat posed to America's liberties and survival, and to the future of Liberal Democracies everywhere, by an Islamic Resistance Movement that envisions a world dominated and defined by an Islamic Caliphate of religious totalitarianism, and which will fight any war, make any sacrifice, suffer any hardship, and pay any price to achieve it, may prove to be the kind of blunder upon which the fate of America turns, and falls."

Rubin's Tax Gambit

By the way, how does Mr. Rubin continue to dodge any historical accountability for the dot-com bust of 2000 and the recession that followed? In the liberal economic narrative, we are supposed to believe that the Clinton Administration somehow ended in 1999, and that Mr. Bush is to blame for everything that followed. Yet the Nasdaq peak came in the spring of 2000 and the third quarter of that year recorded negative growth. The shallow recession began in March 2001, with slower-than-average growth continuing until the tax cuts on dividends and the top marginal income rate passed in 2003 and the expansion moved into high gear.

One wonders.

Brilliant

Peace mom Sheehan arrested in Washington

WASHINGTON - Activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested Wednesday as she led about 50 protesters to a White House gate Wednesday to deliver anti-war petitions she said were signed by 80,000 Americans.

Better get the publicity now Cindy. The old act won't show so well now.

The Left, Glad to be Hoodwinked

Honesty is not just therapeutic. Fiscal honesty is a practical necessity. A New Direction for America rightly denounces the staggering fiscal irresponsibility of Republican leaders and duly promises "pay-as-you-go" spending. But in the entire document there is not one explicit revenue raiser to balance the many new spending programmes and tax credits.

Michael Kinsley is glad he voted before he found out the Dems have no fiscal plan. Now we know what sort of thing we are dealing with in the mainstream media: "Don't confuse us with the facts."

But it has been pointed out that the Left has no plan for months, years. No plan for Iraq either, by the way. With the attention span of MTV junkies, our country, like Nicaragua, will swing left again and hope to somehow eliminate poverty and disease overnight. Good luck.

It is our continued good fortune to watch Europe and parts of South America try socialist experiments over and over again and fail. In their case, that, coupled with the fact that their "Mexicans" are also Jihadists is going to be an irreversible disaster. Maybe someday, only after much of western civilization is wiped from the history books, someone will learn from these experiments. It doesn't look like it will be us though, or if so, not soon.

If there were a rocket ship to go to some desolate planet to get away from you loonies, I most certainly would be booking passage.

The Dems embrace an anti-war hoaxer

John Kerry's "botched joke"/habitual troop slander has soaked up most of the blogosphere and MSM's attention the past week. But under the radar screen, another embarrassing controversy involving the Democrats and the military has been brewing.

But the video at the end of the story seems even more incredible.

As frequently as the left uses the word "lie" you would think they would check the "facts" that support their theories a bit more carefully.

October Surprise in November, From Surprising Source

Is it Christmas already? Here is another related link.

I guess with American attention span becoming so short these things have to be put off as long as possible.

Could there yet be a "Day of election surprise"?

Kerry's '72 Army Comments Mirror Latest

During a Vietnam-era run for Congress three decades ago, John Kerry said he opposed a volunteer Army because it would be dominated by the underprivileged, be less accountable and be more prone to "the perpetuation of war crimes."

Priceless

AARP's Tax Trap

Translation: AARP was hoping to use its candidate survey to nail down enough support to raise taxes on Social Security and to defeat private investment accounts if Mr. Bush pushes for reform again next year. But now that its scheme has been exposed and is hurting its Democratic pals in tight races, AARP leaders want to deny that this is what they meant. Let's hope Republicans remember this AARP double-dealing, which resembles what the lobby did in endorsing a drug plan for Medicare in 2003 only to call it inadequate now.

... But I ONLY joined for the free stuff!

Deaf School's Leader Ousted Amid Protests

I've been hearing and reading this story for weeks and I still don't know what the issue is. Like so much protest these days all you hear about is the immediate objective, and often, as in this case not even the whys and wherefores of it all. What exactly was wrong with this woman? One report said that it had to do with WHEN she learned sign language. That's IT? According to one of the stories here that's not it at all. So, what IS it?

Is this a failure of the MSM to get to the bottom of the story, or is there perhaps no bottom to it?

I have a sneaking suspicion that this is all drummed up by "professional" protesters who no doubt have made or are about to make a buck or two off this whole thing. this protest will launch a career or two, and it has nothing to do with who gets the job of president. Several years from now you will hear about some new head of the DNC or some such organization and they'll be saying that person got their start by organizing this protest.

You are witnessing a new job class finally surpass lawyers in caring more about winning than in the actual effects of the outcome.

Hurray for our side. Now what?

The Non-Contract With America

As a campaign strategy, this may well pay off. But if they do win, Democrats will have to fill their campaign vacuum with something, and the best clue to what that would be is what they've already proposed. We've taken some time to inspect these policy priorities and thought we'd share a few of the highlights, if that's the right word. (Warning: Keep sharp objects away from drug-company and Wal-Mart shareholders.)

A New Campaign Tactic: Manipulating Google Data

Indeed, if all campaigns were doing it, the playing field might well be leveled.

Mr. Bowers said he did not believe the practice would actually deceive most Internet users.

But of course for the left, it's OK to try deception, while admitting that it might not work. Ever wonder why? Whether it is a stunt like this, or a misleading Oreo cookie analysis of the economy, or a parade of misleading victim testimonials on TV, the left will do anything to get their full power back.

Their goal: to trade the principles that made this country great for the principles that caused the Soviet Union to collapse. Oh, but to paraphrase John Kerry, they'll do it better than the Soviets.

Now when I confront a liberal with that comparison to the Soviets, there is always a denial that the goal is anything like Communism, or even Socialism. But what other label fits? "Progressivism" is meaningless, describing a state of perpetual change rather than an actual ideal state of being. Look at the specific goals:

To marginalize all religious practice and engender a total reliance on federal government solutions to every problem.

To bring down those filthy capitalists who run billion dollar companies (the rhetoric always leaves out what should be done about top sports and move stars and somehow you get the notion that its OK for them to make big bucks).

To take away almost any freedom of choice in personal matters (with the sole exception of course of those things that go on in the bedroom).

To install political correctness as the primary state sanctioned religion. This is thought control in as blatant a form as ever envisioned by George Orwell. they do it in their campaigning (as this stunt is a perfect example) and they'll carry the notion to its conclusion if empowered to do so. You can bet that the "Ministry of Education" will simply instruct Google and other such providers where certain search terms should take you. No need to "Google bomb".

The air-head actors of Hollywood threatened to leave the country when Bush got elected, but as far as I know none of them did. Of course they had plenty of places they could have moved that were closer to their ideal of an all-powerful central government, Canada simply being the closest, while the countries of Europe being more ideal. Why didn't any of them leave?

Where will you go when there is no freedom of thought (at least not that can be expressed openly) in America? Will there be pockets of such freedom in such places as Australia? Don't count on it.

Marx understood that for his theories to work, all avenues of escape must be cut off. World Communism wasn't just a nice goal, it was an absolute necessity for the system to succeed. There are those among us who have the same idea regarding our countries founding principles. They don't like states rights, which are all but gone thanks to judicial activism. States rights allow pockets of freedom to shine forth and attract those who love it. The existence of private (to their way of thinking) schools makes it impossible to make public education work, just as the existence of medical people who opt out of government subsidies make their ideal of health care impossible to achieve.

Where will you go after the revolution?

Not Facing Reality

In his interactions with both secularists and Christians after writing his first book, he notes "my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world … despite abundant evidence to the contrary, liberals continue to imagine that Muslim terrorism springs from economic despair, lack of education and American militarism.

"I don’t know how many more engineers and architects need to blow themselves up, fly planes into buildings or saw the heads off of journalists before this fantasy will dissipate."

and

The one group which speaks with moral clarity about the war in the Middle East is the religious right, Mr. Harris notes, while admitting he disagrees with that group over almost every other political issue.

"Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies," he concludes.

Prosperity Amid the Gloom

Nancy Pelosi vows that if Democrats capture Congress they will "jump-start our economy." A "jump-start " is administered to a stalled vehicle. But since the Bush tax cuts went into effect in 2003, the economy's growth rate (3.5 percent) has been better than the average for the 1980s (3.1) and 1990s (3.3). Today's unemployment rate (4.6 percent) is lower than the average for the 1990s (5.8) -- lower, in fact, than the average for the past 40 years (6.0). Some stall.

John Stossel: Health Insurance Isn't All It's Cracked Up to Be

Great, let's bankrupt America even faster! Medicare already has an unfunded liability of $32.1 trillion — that's how much more money the politicians have promised versus the amount the Treasury has to pay for it. The Medicare Trust Funds report says expenditures "are expected to increase & at a faster pace than either workers' earnings or the economy overall."

Can We Talk? Apparently Not

The real issue, however, is neither heterosexual or homosexual, and it extends even beyond the important question of the best interests of the child.

The larger question for American society is, as Joan Rivers has often said: "Can we talk?"

Political bigwigs in San Francisco say "No." They are demanding that Pete Wilson resign. In San Francisco, no one is supposed to criticize anything done by homosexuals.

Couldn't Resist

A Party Without Principles

"If Democrats cared about poor women and minorities, they would be clamoring to reform Social Security. But instead they get a childish gratification out of stamping their feet and refusing to discuss the subject. They can't muster the courage to block the suspension of habeas corpus. But when it comes to blocking entitlement reform, the Democrats ride out to battle."

Even lifelong liberals get it every now and then.

Funny thing, the article started with the phrase: "After years of single-party government, " and the first thing that popped into my mind was the period from 1952 to 2000. For most of that time the Repubs were a minority, at times very much so. They continued to work for their ideals and worked to block things they were against without simply rejecting anything that the Dems came up with. For the most part, the Republicans are STILL making concession after concession to the Democrats as if they (the Republicans) were still the minority.

And let's not forget the left still controls the media via which most of you are being brainwashed without even knowing it. The trick is not slanted coverage (although there is plenty of that too) but mostly a slant in picking what to cover. The news you never see is what the left is all about. Why else would they be so concerned about the occasional exception such as Fox News? For their slant to work, they need exclusivity. Not a foreign notion after all, as any Socialist will tell you, their system works best when the Capitalists have no place to escape to.

THE ASSOCIATED (WITH TERRORISTS) PRESS

"Let me repeat that: An Associated (with terrorists) Press journalist gets caught with an alleged al Qaeda leader and tests positive for bomb-making materials. That. Is. News. How does a news organization explain away its decision to sit on it for five months? Like this: "The AP has worked quietly until now, believing that would be the best approach."

The best approach to journalism? No. The best approach to suppressing a damning connection to terrorists.

The mainstream media enjoys mocking bloggers as journalistic wannabes who don't do any "real" reporting and have no concern for the "public interest." But as in the case of the Reuters photo-faking debacle this summer, it is bloggers in their little home offices -- not the professionals on the ground thousands of miles away -- who smoked out a war story with profound national security implications."

Media Clowns

"One of the biggest media figures boycotting the Plame story has been MSNBC host Chris Matthews who has yet to mention the scandal at all since the Armitage report broke, a dramatic contrast to the 27 times he mentioned the "scandal" in the five months leading up to it."

Back in the USSR

And they say Bush has dictatorial aspirations!

Snow Should Grant Hothead Newsman's Wish

Newsman to Tony Snow: 'Don't Point Your Finger At Me!' said apparent member of the loopy left David Gregory, who doesn't like having his bias pointed out.

Why can't the MSM just fire these guys? With all the party-school fodder being turned out of journalism schools these days, replacements should be a dime a dozen. It would go gentle on that bottom line too. Is this the kind of publicity you need NBC?

I suggest for starters, Tony Snow honor his request and never point to him again. That should pretty much end his need to attend the White House press conferences in the first place. Leave the rest to NBC.

One more from the gang that can't shoot straight...

"Armitage's involvement in the matter does not fit neatly into the assertions of Bush administration critics that Plame's employment was disclosed as part of a White House conspiracy to besmirch Wilson by suggesting his Niger trip stemmed from nepotism at the CIA. Wilson and Plame have sued top administration officials, alleging that the leak was meant as retaliation."

Theya-culpa

Gore isn't quite as green as he's led the world to believe

Unless you count "green with envy" of George Bush.

"Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself."

WSJ.com - Socialism in Reverse

"This week Robert Poole and other scholars at the Reason Foundation released the 20th Anniversary Edition of their annual global privatization report. It chronicles this sweeping economic trend that began in Margaret Thatcher's England, spread to the U.S. under Ronald Reagan, then to China and the former communist nations of Eastern Europe. A 2005 World Bank report also finds that, from 1990-2003, governments around the globe have generated $410 billion in privatization proceeds."

Capitol Hill Blue - Screwing the pooch

"With the help of 'Bill' and some other volunteers who held the intervention Monday that helped me see the light we've gone back through the databases and removed quotes from unverified sources and eliminated stories that didn't fit the criteria I claimed to follow but did not.

The stories we have removed from the database include:

* Bush's erratic behavior worries White House aides (June 4, 2004)
* Bush's obscene tirades bother White House aides (Aug. 25, 2005)
* Dangers of a drunk Dubya (Sept. 22, 2005)
* Bush's Increasing Mental Lapses and Temper Tantrums Worry White House Aides (Nov. 2, 2005)
* White House keeps dossiers on more than 10,000 political enemies (Nov. 8, 2005)
* Bush on the Constitution: It's just a 'goddamned piece of paper' (Dec. 9, 2005)
* Secret Service agents say Cheney was drunk during shooting incident (Feb. 22, 2006)
* Bush just can't stop lying (March 22, 2006)
* The decider-in-chief: Drunk with power (July 22, 2006)


There will be others. It takes a long time to go through three different databases from the three different publishing systems we've used over the years to try and correct too many mistakes."

WSJ.com - Osama in Genevaland

"Mr. England's memo overturns a 2002 Justice Department memo that ruled explicitly that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to members of al Qaeda or the Taliban, a policy change the White House confirmed late on Tuesday. For an Administration that has fought so hard, and in our view rightly, to protect its executive powers, this is being heralded as an embarrassing reversal. It also has the smell of a bureaucratic fiasco, since we can't recall another situation in which Presidential power was so freely handed away."

12 DOWN: TOP SECRET WAR PLANS, 36 ACROSS: TREASON

"What if, instead of passing information from the government's secret nuclear program at Los Alamos directly to Soviet agents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg had printed those same secrets in a newsletter? Would they have skated away scot-free instead of being tried for espionage and sent to the death chamber?

Ezra Pound, Mildred Gillars ('Axis Sally') and Iva Toguri D'Aquino ('Tokyo Rose') were all charged with treason for radio broadcasts intended to demoralize the troops during World War II. Their broadcasts were sort of like Janeane Garofalo and Randi Rhodes on Air America Radio -- except Tokyo Rose was actually witty, and Axis Sally is said to have used a fact-checker."

Auditors: FEMA Paid $1 Billion In False Hurricane Claims

"Included in that is $10 million in housing assistance that went to 1,000 convicted criminals who already had housing -- in prison.

'FEMA's fraud detection and prevention controls were so weak or nonexistent that these fraudulent applications were never detected, let alone prevented,' said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.

The hearings left some members of Congress exasperated because FEMA's top officials never showed up to answer questions. That left a 20-year civil service FEMA employee to field the brunt of representatives' wrath.

'Why weren't these steps taken?' one congressman asked.

'Sir, I think that's a very difficult question to ask a career person,' the FEMA employee answered."

The irony being that it is the career people, and not temporary appointees who should have the best handle on the workings of FEMA and every other Federal agency

Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe

"But it becomes smaller still. Among experts who actually examine the causes of change on a global scale, many concentrate their research on designing and enhancing computer models of hypothetical futures. 'These models have been consistently wrong in all their scenarios,' asserts Ball. 'Since modelers concede computer outputs are not 'predictions' but are in fact merely scenarios, they are negligent in letting policy-makers and the public think they are actually making forecasts.'

We should listen most to scientists who use real data to try to understand what nature is actually telling us about the causes and extent of global climate change. In this relatively small community, there is no consensus, despite what Gore and others would suggest."

What if it turns out that, as one study suggested, reduced amounts of soot and other light blocking pollutants has actually caused more heat generating light to hit the ground and is thus responsible for what we call "global warming"? Would Gore and his followers suggest then that we all go back to burning coal in our fireplaces rather than using natural gas or electric heat?

Like many politicians, he can only operate in an environment where there is a "boogyman" to be overcome. Let's turn our collective boogyman field glasses on the destructive power of simplistic Powerpoint presentations as a substitute for true substantive debate. The left made a surprisingly stupid mistake when they tried to make the Bush academic record a campaign issue, inviting comparisons with Gore's record. Gore was the type of guy you loved to have in your class to bring the curve down. View the movie as a comedy, if you must see it. We really are dealing with a conspiracy of dunces here. Real scientists hopefully won't be distracted from real work on the issues by all the needless media attention created by the Duncmaster General.

Hurricanes and Global Warming

"Now there’s a few modelers around who know something about storms, but they would like to have the possibility open that global warming will make for more and intense storms because there’s a lot of money to be made on this. You know, when governments step in and are saying this – particularly when the Clinton administration was in – and our Vice President Gore was involved with things there, they were pushing this a lot. You know, most of meteorological research is funded by the federal government. And boy, if you want to get federal funding, you better not come out and say human-induced global warming is a hoax because you stand the chance of not getting funded."

Not news, but news to me.

Impact of Inevitable Sanctions on Iran

According to the WSJ, maybe not so bad...

"For oil-importing countries, even though Iran exports roughly 2.7 million bbl/d in petroleum, a complete cutoff of these shipments could be offset in large measure by increased OPEC and non-OPEC output, greatly diminishing the dreaded prospect of $100-a-barrel oil. Saudi Arabia has the most untapped capacity, in the order of 1.3 million to 1.4 million bbl/d. Other OPEC members, according to the International Energy Agency, have spare capacity of 1.1 million bbl/d, not including Iraq's estimated 700,000 bbl/d. With a total of 2.4 million to 3.1 million bbl/d in idle capacity, OPEC alone could offset a loss of Iranian exports. Furthermore, global oil consumption is anticipated to grow in the range of 1.4 million to 1.6 million bbl/d this year, while new supply is expected to increase by 1.2 million to 1.3 million bbl/d. Much of the imbalance is expected to be covered by OPEC exports of LNG."

WSJ.com - A Beautiful Sunset

"Ronald Reagan used to quip that the closest thing to immortality in this life is a government program. We'd add one modern caveat, which is that under Beltway budget rules tax cuts automatically expire after five or 10 years, but spending programs and tax increases live forever.

The latter would change, however, if a group of House Republicans led by Texan Jeb Henserling and Mike Pence of Indiana succeed in pushing new rules to sunset out-of-date federal programs. Under their proposal that has been promised a vote this summer, Congress would have to reauthorize agency budgets every five years, or they would die. The legislation would also create a sunset commission to recommend program terminations, and Congress would vote up or down on the package. This procedure is modeled after the successful military base closing commissions."

Sounds like something worth writing your congress person (and everyone else you know) about, doesn't it?

Mr. Murtha's Rush to Judgment

"A year ago I was charged with two counts of premeditated murder and with other war crimes related to my service in Iraq. My wife and mother sat in a Camp Lejeune courtroom for five days while prosecutors painted me as a monster; then autopsy evidence blew their case out of the water, and the Marine Corps dropped all charges against me ['Marine Officer Cleared in Killing of Two Iraqis,' news story, May 27, 2005]."

Unstoppable Drones

Crazy talk? Maybe not.

Cops: Kennedy Was Under Influence - May 5, 2006

Or as one pundit put it: It's 3AM, do you know where your Kennedys are?

USNews.com: Despite a troubled history, police across the nation are keeping tabs on ordinary Americans

"The outfit stumbled in 2002, when two of its agents were assigned to follow around the county executive. Their job: to determine whether he was being tailed--not by al Qaeda but by a district attorney investigator looking into alleged misspending. A year later, one of its plainclothes agents was seen photographing a handful of vegan activists handing out antimeat leaflets in front of a HoneyBaked Ham store. Police arrested two of the vegans and demanded that they turn over notes, on which they'd written the license-plate number of an undercover car, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is now suing the county. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial neatly summed up the incident: 'So now we know: Glazed hams are safe in DeKalb County.'"

VOTE.COM - ROUSING THE ISOLATION GENIE

"This withdrawal from globalism is a predictable consequence of the quagmire of Iraq. Bush has spent the constructive energies unleashed by Sept. 11 on his bid to make Iraq a stable democracy. Whether he has squandered our national vigor or simply invested it wisely will only become apparent in the next few years, but what is glaringly obvious is that our patience is over.

Republicans criticize Democrats for not proposing new solutions to the Iraq war, but the GOP misses the point that their opponents don’t have to do so. The wind of isolationism is at the Democrats’ back, propelling them onward to the likelihood of massive victories in 2006 and 2008."

“‘Just War Theory’ vs. American Self-Defense” by Yaron Brook and Alex Epstein

The reason is that, despite their claims that they will do whatever is necessary to defend America, our leaders believe that it would be wrong—morally wrong—to do so. They believe this because they consistently accept a certain moral theory of war—one that has come to be universally taught in our universities and war colleges. This theory is accepted, at least implicitly, not only by intellectuals, but by our politicians, the leadership of our military, and the media. And while the American people are not explicitly familiar with this theory, they regard the precepts on which it is based and the policies to which it leads as morally uncontroversial. The theory is called Just War Theory. To understand today’s disastrous policies, and to reverse them, it is essential to understand what this theory holds.

Putting the cuckoo in our clocks�

"In other words, it isn't 1975 any more; we've made one or two technological advances since then; and did anybody stop to think that people might actually take advantage of the daylight by driving their gas-burning cars to more places? "

Director Rob Reiner resigns from Calif. commission

"Legislators from both political parties said Reiner, an outspoken Democrat, improperly spent $23 million of commission funds to highlight preschool when he was promoting a referendum for the June 2006 ballot that would guarantee preschool for 4-year-olds."

Meathead!

Man Overboard

"Mansfield writes that he wants to 'convince skeptical readers -- above all, educated women' -- that 'irrational manliness deserves to be endorsed by reason.' Sorry, professor: You lose. What this country could use is a little less manliness -- and a little more of what you would describe as womanly qualities: restraint, introspection, a desire for consensus, maybe even a touch of self-doubt."

Correction: You lost. And you will continue to make us laugh at your inability to recognize that fact. Better save all your propaganda/analysis for 2008. You're gonna need it.

The right to abandon your child�

"The feminists may well be stumped by this argument. After all, they've based their abortion advocacy as a matter of women's reproductive rights. Is it logical to claim women have reproductive rights that men lack? Yes, a woman has to carry an unplanned pregnancy for nine months and give birth. But Mr. Dubay, and many other men, are saddled with 18 years of child support. That's a pretty substantial inhibition of one's 'reproductive freedom.' "

Former Soviet Dissident Warns For EU Dictatorship | The Brussels Journal

"No, they did not. Look at Denmark which voted against the Maastricht treaty twice. Look at Ireland [which voted against the Nice treaty]. Look at many other countries, they are under enormous pressure. It is almost blackmail. Switzerland was forced to vote five times in a referendum. All five times they have rejected it, but who knows what will happen the sixth time, the seventh time. It is always the same thing. It is a trick for idiots. The people have to vote in referendums until the people vote the way that is wanted. Then they have to stop voting. Why stop? Let us continue voting. The European Union is what Americans would call a shotgun marriage."

Funny. Tax referendums work that way too don't they? Congress votes over and over for new spending programs until they pass. then we spend the next 50 years debating how to pay for it.

At what point to ordinary citizens say "ENOUGH!"

We have to look to the former Soviet Union for examples. We're not quite there yet.

WCPE - Great Classical Music 24 Hours a Day

With local radio stations under largely deserved pressure to do something useful, an unfortunate outcome is that many marginal specialty stations are going under, or worse, changing format in the unlikely hope that having just one more top-40 broadcaster per square mile might make them slightly profitable again.

I can see myself soon totally weaned of the need for radio stations at all. Living now beyond the outskirts of much of anything the "scan" button on my radio has trouble finding a signal strong enough to stop at. Just the opposite of the problem I used to have where the stations were so close together it stopped at every single frequency (making it mostly indistinguishable from the up-down tuning buttons).

By some miracle though, I have a fast Internet connection, and various means of listening to "Internet Streaming Radio" (I'm not sure if there is an official term for this, so I made that up). I can listen directly, using one of several computers, but after I got used to this notion I wanted that music piped out of my moderately fancy stereo system as well, so I got an Apple Airtunes gadget and have been using it for coming up on two years I think. More recently I caught These Things on sale for $99 (well more, if you wanted the nicer display) and decided to try one (and then another). Being able to tune into an Internet radio station without the need to be sitting at a computer (as was the case with Airtunes) or even have a computer turned on, is really liberating. Having two going at once in different rooms is also nice, even if the sounds are a bit out of sync. More expensive devices can cure this problem too, but this one is good enough for my needs, namely being able to go from the living room to bedroom without losing continuity.

Now if I want to listen to my own music collection rather than someone else's, this devices connects (in a more user friendly way than Apple hardware) directly to my iTunes setup, and it will also connect to several other music server programs (including one that runs on Linux, a big bonus for me), but I haven't yet gotten over the convenience of having such a large selection of music (and with database search capability rather than that mere up-down tuning mode of an actual radio) so other than to prove it works, my local music collection is sitting idle for the time being.

Finally though, this is about revenge. Revenge for one thing against all those top-40 stations which seem to be coming and going monthly around here so that you can no longer keep the presets on your radio programmed properly for any length of time. Do you hear me top forties?! I'M NOT LISTENING! But this is also revenge against some of those marginal stations, that, rather than do more to leverage whatever specialty market they are in, and rather than do the graceful thing of just going out of business, instead embarrass themselves and their listeners by making sweeping death spiral changes to their programming switching from classical to religious, from religious to country, from country to talk, from talk to top-40 and then finally closing their doors after wearing out whatever audience they had.

Locally, here in the middle of nowhere, there was only one station that played classical music, a college station, and they did a fairly good job of it too, using two different frequencies, one of which I could receive in my concrete silo, the other I could only receive in the car. For some reason they decided that the farmers in this area do not include enough old-time Communist sympathizers, so they have switched one of the two stations to 24-hours of NPR programming. Guess which one? So at home, there is now no reception of classical music, and on the station that such reception used to exist there is a constant demand that I send them money. They are barking up the wrong tree. I spent my donation money on a new Internet radio and now I'll be listening to this:

theclassicalstation.org

among others. Maybe the connected world only needs a few of these, and I'll be sending them a check to let them know I appreciate their efforts. In the mean time, I wish the local stations were more imaginative. But they aren't. So there.

Sen. Clinton Says Rove Obesses About Her

"'He spends more time thinking about my political future than I do,' Clinton said, noting that Rove and other White House aides have met regularly with her possible opponents in November's 2006 Senate race."

No es possible.

WSJ.com - Daughter of Islam

"After 9/11, many Americans assume that the radical Islamic agenda is to destroy the U.S. The reality is that attacks on Western targets are designed to function as brutal propaganda coups that will attract recruits to the cause of violent revolution. The main goal of ideologues like Osama bin Laden is to topple the governments of Muslim countries, including, most famously, the Wahabi royal regime of Saudi Arabia. But the real strategic plum, Ms. Wahid says, would be her native Indonesia and its 220 million citizens -- with the largest Muslim population on earth."

Andrew C. McCarthy on Port Security on National Review Online

"You may recall, however, that, upon election, President Clinton proceeded to get tough with Beijing for, oh, about ten minutes. After that, there was no transfer of precious technology and no national security secret that couldn’t be had for the right price. Oh, and guess who now controls several port operations on the West Coast? And has for years? Well, whaddya know? It’s China.

Indeed, Chinese infiltration of U.S. ports would have been even more pervasive if Senator Clinton’s husband had had his way. In 1998, the Republican Congress (led by Senator James Inhofe (OK) and Congressman Duncan Hunter (CA)) had to stop him from turning over management of a 144-acre terminal at the former U.S. Naval Station in Long Beach to the Chinese Ocean Shipping Company — a subsidiary of the People’s Liberation Army linked to arms trading to Iran, Iraq, Syria, North Korea, Pakistan, Cuba, and even the street gangs of Los Angeles."

A Failure of the Press - By William J. Bennett and Alan M. Dershowitz

"We two come from different political and philosophical perspectives, but on this we agree: Over the past few weeks, the press has betrayed not only its duties but its responsibilities."

2006 Democrat Contract With Al Qaeda

"This 2006 Congressional Democrat Contract With Al Qaeda lays out what the Democrat Party promises to do if they are given majorities in Congress this fall:"

In government we trust

"Hillsdale College Economics Professor Robert Murphy cites some of FEMA's stupid responses to Hurricane Katrina, which include 'delaying firefighters two days in Atlanta hotels to receive sexual-harassment training and watch videos on the history of FEMA while people were dying in New Orleans.'
By contrast, private firms like Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and Home Depot had trucks on the road right after the hurricane. "

Alec Baldwin Blasts 'Chicken-Bleep' Dems

"Hollywood Democrat Alec Baldwin is blasting his party's Senators for failing to block Samuel Alito confirmation to the Supreme Court, saying he's appalled that Sen. Ted Kennedy and other liberals could muster only 25 of the 41 votes needed mount a successful filibuster."

Funny, I thought he had left the country. Whatever could be holding him back?

BREITBART.COM - La. Turned Down Feds' Help, Documents Show

"Two days before the Aug. 29 storm, HHS was told by the state's health emergency preparedness director that the help was not needed, according to an e-mail released Monday by a Senate panel investigating the government's response to Katrina.

The state official, identified in the Aug. 27 e-mail as Dr. Roseanne Pratts, 'responded no, that they do not require anything at this time and they would be in touch if and when they needed assistance,' wrote HHS senior policy analyst Erin Fowler."

Flourishes and flubs - R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. on "Alioto" Hearings

"I cannot rid from my mind the name Alioto, Judge Samuel Alioto. That is the name of Judge Samuel Alito as pronounced by the delightful Sen. Edward Kennedy, or is it Eduardo Kennedino?

No, it is simply Teddy, and he is as entertaining as any U.S. senator since the days of the soused Southerners, who would tipple their way through the dreamy days on Capitol Hill, rousing themselves for histrionic oratory in the midafternoon and then slumping back into their seats, awaiting the late afternoon hour when they would all gather in one or another's chambers for a 'restorative' -- then on to dinner. "

WSJ.com - The Wages of Leaks

'I believe, I accept, your explanation that you didn't want to hurt the United States, that you are a loyal American,' Judge Ellis said in sentencing Mr. Franklin. But 'it doesn't matter that you think you were really helping,' the judge said. 'That arrogates to yourself the decision whether to adhere to a statute passed by Congress, and we can't have that in this country.'

Triumph of the Redistributionist Left | csmonitor.com

"Republicans' capture of both Congress and the White House was, understandably, a demoralizing blow to the left. But the latter can take solace that 'Republican' is no longer synonymous with spending restraint, free markets, and other ideals of the political right."

Amen

The Barrett report by Robert Novak

"The long-awaited final report by Independent Counsel David Barrett, to be released today [Thursday], was severely censored by court order but not enough to sufficiently obscure its importance. As long forecast, it alleges serious corruption in the Clinton administration's Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The question is what was contained in 120 pages removed by the judges."

FORK REPLACES DONKEY AS DEMOCRATIC PARTY SYMBOL

"Andrew Jackson, the father of the Democratic Party, may have had some unpalatable goals, but at least they were big ideas. Wipe out the Indians, kill off the national bank and institute a spoils system. Love him or hate him, he never said, 'I'll be announcing my platform sometime early next year.' The Whigs were formed in opposition to everything Jackson stood for.

The Republican Party emerged from the Whigs when the Whigs waffled on slavery. (They were 'pro-choice' on slavery.) The Republican Party was founded expressly as the anti-slavery party, which to a great extent remains their position today."

CNN banned from Iran for nuclear translation gaffe

"He said a restoration of CNN's right to work in Iran would depend on an assessment of the broadcaster's future coverage of the Islamic state."

If only we could do the same thing here!

OPENING ARGUMENT: The Case of Alito v. O'Connor (01/09/2006)

Brilliant!

Media Report Miracle Mine Rescue -- Then Carry the Tragic Truth

"The Washington Post story by Ann Scott Tyson, which appeared on the front page, opened: 'A dozen miners trapped 12,000 feet into a mountainside since early Monday were found alive Tuesday night just hours after rescuers found the body of a 13th man, who had died in an explosion in an adjacent coal mine that was sealed off in early December.'"