Ok, here is my most interesting Halloween story. When I was in high school my best friend (Diane) and I decided to make the rounds of the various haunted houses around the city. We were having a blast just joking around in line (I don't remember what we were dressed up as) when this guy behind us in one of those creepy old men mask said in this deep strange voice, "Well, hello pretty ladies. Should you really be out alone?" That was kinda weird, but we laughed it off.

After that house we drove about 20 minutes to another one. As we were waiting I glimpsed someone in the crowd that looked like the creepy old man mask. I told Diane, but she never saw him. She started kidding me about it and making jokes about how he was some Halloween killer. (The very first "Halloween" movie with Jamie Curtis had just come out) We finally went to the last haunted house way out in the country, but nearer my house. While we were IN that house walking around in a strobe lighted room I SAW THE CREEPY OLD MAN MASK AGAIN! Well, I sorta freaked out and told Diane were leaving NOW. On the way home I kept checking my rearview mirror. I was a nervous wreck. Diane just kept making fun of me getting scared.

When we got home, we got ready for bed. My room was on the second story, but there was another roof below the window in my room from a lower floor addition. I had had the window open because of the nice weather, but I decided I was so creeped out that I would close it. So I went to close it..AND THE GUY WITH THE CREEPY OLD MAN MASK POPPED UP!!! On reflex I screamed and pushed with both my hands the window screen and the guy with all my might. The guy went tumbling down the roof and on the ground. Diane screamed my name. I turned to Diane to say something, but she was flying out of my room down the stairs. I was totally confused so I went after her yelling for my Dad the whole time.

My Dad and Mom came running out and I was trying to tell them what happened but Diane had already run out the front door!!!! Turns out, it was Diane's cousin. They had planned the whole thing to scare the beejees out of me (And it did!) But they didn't expect me to push him off the roof! She had run to see if he was ok. He had broken his arm and we had to take him to the hospital. My Dad wasn't happy. Her cousin wasn't happy. The hospital staff thought my version of the story was hilarious and I thought the whole thing was funny LATER.

It turns out the creepy old man was actually a pretty cute 19 yr old who I got to date a bit before I went off to college.

Oh yeah, one more little funny thing. He loved to tell people how his "girlfriend" broke his arm. Heh.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Ok, it's really Friday right???..;-)

I'm going out! Tonight and tomorrow night. I will be with actual adults. No kids in sight. I will not talk about politics. I will drink wine (or witch's brew) and have some fun!

This is an open thread. It can be about anything but tell me your most interesting Halloween story and I will tell you mine when I get back.

Interesting Double Standard.

NEW YORK -"Vice presidential adviser I. Lewis "Scooter' Libby Jr. was indicted Friday on charges of obstruction of justice, making a false statement and perjury in the CIA leak case."

So basically Libby supposedly lied to a FBI agent on where he heard about Valerie Plame. He is also accused of that same lie to the grand jury.

Ok, now that is wrong. And if he did it, he should be punished. That whole "do not lie" thing really really is a good creed to go by. Why anyone EVER in Washington would do that, I cannot fathom. But as goldeneagle pointed out in my comments, there is a bit of double standard going on here:

NewsMax reminds us of this:

Here's a short list of potential criminal violations for which prosecutors decided not to file indictments during the Clinton administration.

� Lying under oath to a federal judge - a crime U.S. District Court Judge Susan Webber Wright determined that President Clinton committed in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. Legal resolution: No criminal indictment.

� Lying under oath to a federal grand jury - as Independent Counsel Ken Starr found President Clinton had done in the Monica Lewinsky investigation. Legal resolution: No criminal indictment.

� Lying under oath both to Congress and to federal investigators - as Independent Counsel Robert Ray concluded that Mrs. Clinton had done in the Travel Office probe. Legal resolution: No indictment

� Hiding evidence from Starr's Whitewater investigation - as the Senate Banking Committee concluded Mrs. Clinton did in the case of her missing Rose Law firm billing records. Legal resolution: No criminal referral, no indictments.

� Trading presidential pardons for financial contributions - which President Clinton allegedly did in the Pardongate case. Legal resolution: No indictments.

� Trading presidential clemency for votes in a federal election - as President Clinton allegedly did with village elders in New Square, NY - which backed Mrs. Clinton's 2000 Senate candidacy 1400 to 12. Legal resolution: No indictments.

� Nuclear missile guidance technology allegedly traded by the Clinton administration to China in exchange for campaign contributions. Legal resolution: No indictments.

� The Illegal gathering of confidential FBI files on political opponents - as the Clinton White House did in the Filegate case. Legal resolution: No indictments.

� Misusing the IRS to audit political opponents - as the White House allegedly did with numerous conservative organizations, as well as with witnesses against the Clintons. Legal resolution: No indictments.

� Hiring private detectives to intimidate and/or smear potential witnesses in the Starr investigation. Legal resolution: No indictments.

� Illegally leaking Linda Tripp's confidential personnel file to the press. Legal resolution: No indictments.

Who should be the next nominee?

This sounds good to me. One always has to take into consideration the inevitable smearing the Democrats are now known for. I don't think they can smear this one too well.

Since I have so many of these commenting on my blog....

Perhaps they would like to read about themselves.

Star Trek.

Going where... well, I guess where a lot of men have gone before.'Mr. Sulu' has come out of The Starship Enterprise closet as being gay.

A Quick Look.

Fox News is reporting that Rove won't be indicted, but Libby Scooter might. But for lying to a grand jury. So it looks like no one will be indicted for "outing" a "covert agent."

I suppose the Kos/Dem talking point and stupid phrase "Merry Fitzmas" will have to be put away until they can come up with other juvenile phrases to use.

Harry Reid blames the far right for the withdrawal of Miers as does the blather coming from the rest of the left. HELLLOOOO!!! All of us on the "far right" here thought she was great. She satisfied me being pro-life for sure. It was the more moderate conservatives that opposed her. Especially the elites. Democrats just say things they WANT to be true. Dobson loved her, Kristol didn't. Do we see the difference here?

So hey Dems, let's drop that talking point too.

You have probably heard...

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that 'Israel must be wiped off the map.'

Here is some reaction. What can one say? Iran HANGS girls who have sex before marriage. What can we expect from this barbaric and backwards nation? The danger here is obvious. As one commentator pointed out Israel might be justified in attacking Iran.

Why must man hate each other so?

Growing Galloway Garbage.

TimesOnline has the scoop. I look at his estranged wife and think she probably deserved every penny that was snuck into her account. I can't imagine...uhhh....'living' with this guy.

Eww.

Just eww.

h/t Jill

I'm such a doofus.

I was thinking that today was Friday. I guess I was HOPING it was. Anyway, I will be posting tomorrow, the fun won't begin until later. Dang it.

I'm off for some Halloween fun this weekend! Consider this an open thread! (But I WILL be checking in!)

Miers Withdraws.

ABC News has this:

"Miers told the president she was withdrawing at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. In her letter dated Thursday, Miers said she was concerned that the confirmation process "would create a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interest of the country."
She noted that members of the Senate had indicated their intention to seek documents about her service in the White House in order to judge whether to support her nomination to the Supreme Court. "I have been informed repeatedly that in lieu of records, I would be expected to testify about my service in the White House to demonstrate my experience and judicial philosophy," she wrote.
"While I believe that my lengthy career provides sufficient evidence for consideration of my nomination, I am convinced the efforts to obtain Executive Branch materials and information will continue."

I say nominate a hardcore conservative and take the gloves off.

It's time to show those Democrats who is in charge here. They got Ruth Bader-Ginsberg, we get who we want.

Hippie funk and Taco Bell --- a lethal cocktail.

Just some kids that didn't have dinner with Grandma because they were stoned. Nothing to see here. Just move along...

Is that a scene from the Million Morons March?

It's happened: They've finally whined themselves to death.

via Caption This!

Hannity vs, Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY)

And Hinchey, as my teen's might say, got told. (this is from last night)

HANNITY: I’m listening to what you’re saying. So you’re saying when the President told the nation that Saddam’s nuclear threats are a real grave danger to America and Saddam’s WMDs are a threat to America, you’re saying that George W. Bush purposely lied to America? Is that what you’re saying?

HINCHEY: I’m saying whoever wrote that speech gave false information to the Congress. Whether or not the President knew it when he gave the speech, I’m not sure. Whoever wrote that speech certainly did.

HANNITY: The only problem is, Congressman, the words I just said to you were John Kerry’s words. John Kerry said that to America. You voted for John Kerry. Now I’ll ask you, did John Kerry give false information to America?

HINCHEY: John Kerry, I think, made a mistake and voted for the resolution —

HANNITY: Oh, he made a mistake and Bush is a liar.

Heh. NRO’s got the video.

via LST

Unfreakinbelievable.

If this were any other black Democrat official the N.A.A.C.P., Al Sharpton, Russel Simmons, Kanye West, and Jesse Jackson would be stumbling over each other to get in front of the cameras to express their outrage and everybody reading this knows it.

Who is afraid of the Pig?

Just read it. Too weird to be believed.

h/t BigDog

More on Elites.

No, not liberals. I realize there are many liberals who are patriotic and love our country. Michael Barone of U.S. News and World Report gives us an insight on the true elites:

"But not all of us cherish ties to past traditions. "America's business, professional, intellectual, and academic elites," writes Samuel Huntington in his 2004 book Who Are We? have "attitudes and behavior [that] contrast with the overwhelming patriotism and nationalistic identification with their country of the American public. . . . They abandon commitment to their nation and their fellow citizens and argue the moral superiority of identifying with humanity at large." He believes that this gap between transnational elites and the patriotic public is growing. Huntington knows whereof he speaks: He's been at Harvard for more than half a century."

But Democrats would do well to notice this trend:

"This gap between transnational elites and the patriotic public has reverberations in partisan politics. Americans in military service and those with strong religious beliefs now vote heavily Republican. Americans with strong patriotic feelings are more closely split between the parties, but the growing minority with transnational attitudes vote heavily Democratic. Which doesn't necessarily help the Democratic Party."

Read the rest.

HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Southpark lampoons the overhyped coverage of Katrina. It's the main excerpt, not long. Video excerpt available in Real orWindows Media. My favorite line? "George Bush doesn't care about beavers!" Heh.

h/t BigDog via PW

The Best Summer of My life.

I spent the summer I was nineteen going to the University of Hawaii. I took art photography and history. Have you ever had a time in your life where when the time ended, you just knew that nothing like that would ever happen to you again? Where you knew that that kind of moment would never be better? That is how I felt when I said goodbye to Hawaii.

It was the best summer of my life.

I went alone, but from the moment I stepped on the plane, I was never alone the rest of the summer. Other kids were on their way there too. Everyone from snotty SMU girls to good ole boys from Oklahoma.

My luckiest moment came when I was trying to teach myself to surf and a guy who was born and raised in Hawaii took pity on me and offered to help. Not only did I finally get to feel the strength of a wave under my tanned legs, but he showed me the islands in a way no tourist really gets to see.

I saw the most beautiful sunsets you can imagine with colors not yet named. I played tag football on black beaches and slept on orange beaches. I stood on top of a volcano. I saw a waterfall so perfect it seemed like a dream. The lush earth surrounding it made me imagine I had been thrown back to the beginning of time to the Garden of Eden. I jumped off a small cliff into a pool of the bluest water I had ever seen and the water was so deep I never touched the bottom. I came face to face with eels while snorkeling. (it is possible to scream underwater)

I met people from all over the world for the first time. I met teenagers from Australia, England, Brazil, and Japan. We laughed at each other's accent. One boy from Germany told me that my accent sounded like music. I have never forgotten that. It is probably the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.

I watched a rich boy from Dallas, who had decided to just buy a used Volkswagen Beetle while he was in Hawaii instead of renting a car, just hand the keys to a guy on the street (who looked like he could use a car) and tell him the car was his. The boy drove off in a taxi and left the man staring at the keys in his hands. We had to go over and assure him that he could actually have the car. That was one happy guy.

I took pictures of prostitutes for my art photography class, which turned into quite the adventure. (hint: never go to a bad part of town in an open air jeep)

I had dinner with the family of the boy from Hawaii and had food that I can't remember the name of, but won't soon forget the taste. They told me to use an English accent to ask directions. For some reason the locals loved to give the mainlanders wrong directions.

It just so happened that I had just finished a play, "The Importance Of Being Earnest" and I thought I had my English accent down pretty well. The locals bought it, but at a club one evening using my accent for fun, a guy from England came over with a smirk asking which part of England I was from. I was busted.

On the plane home watching Hawaii fade through the clouds, I knew that nothing would ever be as fun as that summer. I was young. I was happy. I had no worries, no children, no lovers, no responsibilities. Nothing would ever be as easy as it was that one summer.

The best summer of my life.

Did LIberal Elites Ruin The Power of Britain?

Johnathan V. Last from the Weekly Standard thinks so. What can we learn from the history of England?

Does this sound familiar?

"These elites could see evil only at home. The French intellectual Simone de Beauvoir did not believe that Germany was a "threat to peace," but instead worried that the "panic that the Right was spreading" would drag France, Britain, and the rest of Europe into war. St"afford Cripps, a liberal Labor member of Parliament, feared not Hitler, but Churchill. Cripps wrote that after Churchill became prime minister he would "then introduce fascist measures and there will be no more general elections."

Read the whole thing. Good Grief, history really does repeat itself.

h/t Jeff

Never forget who we fight.

Bruce Thornton enlightens us regarding this fight with our enemy. He reminds us of who we are fighting and how we need to get over our own delicate sensibilities in this war (ie: making more of a big deal over the burning of dead Taliban bodies than the atrocities committed by those same people):

"Remember what type of people the Taliban are? Like the jihadists we are fighting in Iraq, they are murderers whose religious beliefs warrant any kind of brutality and atrocity against the “infidel.” These are the people who, when they ran Afghanistan, tortured and murdered their own citizens in a soccer stadium built with Western money. These are the people who behead and murder, the people who kill women and children. And these are the people whose corpses we are supposed to worry about mistreating, whose religious beliefs, the ones that justify murder, we are supposed to be respecting."

He goes on:

"We need to get over the peculiar arrogant belief that everything the enemy does is a mere reaction to what we do, as though these people don’t have their own motivations for their actions. They know that we rescued the Muslims of Kuwait, the Muslims of Bosnia, and the Muslims of Iraq. They know that we are sacrificing our own citizens to create an ordered society that will allow Muslims to worship in peace and prosper in freedom. They know that Muslims are killing Muslims all over the world, that the greatest threats to the safety and well-being of Muslims are other Muslims, as we currently see in Sudan. They know all these things, but they don’t care, because what’s important is the jihad against the infidel, the divinely sanctioned struggle to compel the people of the world to accept Islam, live as second-class citizens, or die."

He ends with this:

"All means cannot justify all ends, but some means can justify the right ends. Every war this country has fought employed terrible means that none of us would want to choose, but that were justified by the rightness and goodness of the end. If we truly believe that our goals in Iraq are just enough to kill and die for, then we should stop undercutting and second-guessing our troops in the field who are laying their lives on the line to achieve those noble ends. And if we don’t really believe in those goals enough to grit our teeth and do what must be done, as our fathers and grandfathers did in World War II, then we should pack up right now and go home."

He has a point. Read the whole thing. It's good.

h/t Jeff

Priceless....

Mudville has The Salt Lake Tribune report that 80% of Utah National Guard troops intend to reenlist - a number similar to retention rates nationwide.

1Lt Bruce Bishop, a Salt Lake County firefighter and Afghanistan veteran who's currently deployed to Louisiana gives us his reason why:

"because as I look around at the state of this nation and see all of the weak little pampered candy-asses that are whining about this or protesting that, I'd be afraid to leave the fate of this nation entirely up to them."

Heh. I love it.

via Ace

Open thread on Valerie Plame.

This is all I know. The editor of the NY times is saying that Plame lied to them about her source. Mona Charen is implying that Plame slept with Scooter Libby (they are both married)

To be honest, I don't even understand what this is all about. I read that Rove might have leaked that she was a covert agent, but she wasn't at the time (?) I read that everyone knew anyway. I read that Rove was called by the reporter, not the other way around.

I truly don't even see why this is a big deal. And I would say that even it were a Democrat administration.

Ya'll fill me in please.

Rosa Parks, R.I.P.

Rosa Parks died yesterday at the age of 92. Her arrest for not sitting in the back of the bus in 1955 caused a black boycott of the buses in Montgomery Alabama for 381 days.

As the article mentions, there have been theories that she was a plant of the N.A.A.C.P, since she was a part of that organization, but I say, "So what if she was?" The law was wrong and it needed someone willing to stand up to that law. Remember, the N.A.A.C.P. was not always the liberal leftwing democratic hack organization it is today. Back then it was a determined honest organization committed to civil rights for blacks.

This is what we have forgotten. Civil disobedience isn't about holding up profane signs about our President or showing up nude to protest. It isn't about violence or using crude language. It is about peacefully disobeying a law that you feel is morally wrong and be willing to go to jail for that belief.

Rosa Parks will always be remembered to me as someone who used her "celebrity" in a dignified manner and never tried to make it about herself, but about a greater cause.

She serves as an example of how all of us should approach those things that we feel are wrong. Let that be the lesson she leaves us.

And a great lesson it is indeed.

I never had relations with the food for oil scandal!

Remember the truly obnoxious George Galloway, former Labour Party British MP, testifying before Congress with his deliberate indignant pronouncement of never having anything to do with the food for oil scandal? He was as adamant and sincere as Clinton's famous finger wagging denial of an affair with Lewinsky.

Now, it's looking like he is as good as an actor as Clinton was.

He is denying it of course. We shall see if the paper trail ends up being his blue dress.

UPDATE: A bit more information.

"But the report provides bank account details tracking payments from an oil company through a Jordanian middleman to Mr GallowayÂ’s now estranged wife, Amineh Abu- Zayyad, and his Mariam Appeal fund."

UPDATE 2: I just heard Christopher Hitchens reaction. The best quote:

Referring to Galloway as a -"Prostitute of Iraqi fascism."

Chris has a way with words, doesn't he?

Say What?

I suppose you have heard the latest Howard Dean rant. Here is the quote that stands out:

"I'm tired of the ayatollahs of the right wing," Dean said. "We're fighting for freedom in Iraq. We're going to fight for freedom in America."

Everyone seems to be focusing on the first part, but wait a second! Is Dean admitting that we are actually fighting for freedom in Iraq????

Welcome aboard Howard!!!!

Looks like the comments are working again!

Go for it!

The Media's bias on Iraq.

Brent Bozell brings us this:

" On Saturday, (the 15th) millions of Iraqis walked with determination to the polls to vote for a new constitution. The turnout was high. The violence was down dramatically from the triumphant elections of January. But the network found all this boring. On the night before the historic vote, ABC led with bird-flu panic. CBS imagined Karl Rove in a prison jumpsuit. NBC hyped inflation."

Bozell goes on:

"A massive new study by Rich Noyes of the Media Research Center reviews every Iraq story on the evening news programs of ABC, CBS, and NBC from January through September of 2005. That"s 1,388 news stories. He titled it "The Bad News Brigade," because 61 percent of the stories were negative or pessimistic, while only 15 percent of the stories were positive or optimistic - a four-to-one ratio. The trend in coverage has also become increasingly negative during 2005, with pessimistic stories rising to nearly three-fourths of all Iraq news by August and September, with a ten-to-one ratio of negative stories over positive ones."

TEN TO ONE!!!! That is an incredible number. What it becomes is not news, but propaganda, in my opinion. We here in the tiny world of the blogosphere, can read Michael Yon (who has a new post on the elections btw) or any of the milblogs and get the real deal. The journalists can as well of course, and probably do. They just don't want to report that part of the war because it doesn't fit their agenda.

And the most sickening of all the left leaning media stories involve our soldiers themselves:

"Noyes found that 79 stories focused primarily on allegations of wrongdoing by American forces in Iraq, including this year's Abu Ghraib hangover stories, compared to only eight that focused on the heroism of American soldiers. Is that still a story? Sure. But what about positive stories about the military? There were only eight stories that focused on the heroism of American soldiers, and only nine on soldier acts of kindness or generosity. The TV news titans not only suggest the mission in Iraq is a waste of money and lives, they are painting our soldiers as a big problem there, not a part of the solution."

Did you get that number? Out of 79 stories only a total of 17 showed our soldiers in a positive light. That is especially shameful since it is easier now more than ever for the journalists to get positive stories straight from the soldiers themselves via the milblogs.

If that isn't left wing propaganda, I don't know what is.

Wonders never cease.

Anne Rice finds God. No more vampire novels, folks.

I tried to read her, but I found her novels too dark. I might have to read the next one though.

via Drudge

UGH!

Free Speech? It makes you wonder, doesn't it? But then, everything is allowed, right?

Like I said, ugh.

via Drudge

I want to add something here. We must keep in mind that as disgusting as these girls are, We should be just as disgusted with people like Kanye West and his lie about Bush hating black people and the recent rantings I quoted of Louis Farrakhan. All are bigoted and do nothing but separate us.

The Prozac Nation (warning! Religious Alert!)

As I have mentioned many times, I sorta checked out of the political and cultural scene in the 90's. Clinton was President, which made me literally sick to me stomach and this was way before Lewinsky. My husband's family is from Arkansas, so we knew all about Bill and Hillary. I was busy with 2 small children and I had two more in the 90's. I had my hands full and I wanted to concentrate on what was the most important thing in my life, raising these children right.

If Jack Kemp had been the Republican nominee in 92' instead of Dole, I would have worked hard to get him elected. I had campaigned for him in 88' and I still think he is a wonderful man who would have made a great President. His 'empowerment zone' idea, which was later put through in a very watered down form, would have truly changed things for those stuck in the vicious cycle of poverty in this country. Just like so many good people, I think Kemp saw that it wasn't worth it to stay in public life. It was too mean. And that is a crying shame for all of us.

Anyway, I missed the national bestseller "The Prozac Nation" by Elizabeth Wurtzel. It was made into a movie as well. If you hadn't read it , it is an autobiography of Wurtzel from childhood to her late 20's and her struggle with depression, drug abuse, her father's desertion, being sexually used, and suicide attempts. As you might expect, not an easy read. I had been meaning to read it forever and I finally did this weekend.

Even through her decidedly pathetic and sad personal life, she manages to graduate from Harvard. When she wrote the book in her early 20's, even she was shocked by the reaction to it. She had been one of the first to be on Prozac when it came on the market. Just a few years later 6 million people were on Prozac. Now there are 20 million of Americans on some type of anti-depressants. She has an "afterword" in her paperback about how shocked she was by the number of depressed people in the country. She wonders (as I do) how many are truly clinically depressed and how many are just sad about life.

As I read about her childhood and life, I kept thinking that if my Dad had left me and ignored me for most of my life and I had the kind of life she had, I would be depressed too. Not to downplay her real depression, but I wonder if it would have developed if not for her circumstances? She does touch on some subjects of her experiences with broken kids from broken homes. She sees a pretty clear connection between the broken home and the broken child. At one point she miscarries without even knowing she is pregnant. She brings up abortion and how she would of course had one if she hadn't miscarried, but she says that saying it is a "choice" is a lie. She feels that for women like her, there really is only one choice. A sad telling statement. We live our lives in such a way where we see no other choice but that which we know to be awful. So isn't the choice made long before we become pregnant?

Anyway, let me get to the heart of my point here. At the same time I was reading this book, I heard a homily where the Priest was speaking of the sin of adultery. What he said touched me deeply. He said that when Christ came upon the woman about to be stoned for adultery, he did not condemn her, he did not tell her she was going to hell. He said to the crowd, "You who are without sin, cast the first stone." Christ himself could have cast that stone, because he was without sin. But he didn't. He didn't because he knew that what the woman had been looking for was love. He knew she had been looking for Him.

I see that in so many people. They are looking for love, and as the country song goes.."in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many faces..." When the one face that they will find that love, THE LOVE, they ignore. They ignore because the culture makes it seem as one has to be like Pat Robertson or TammyFae Baker to love Christ. But that isn't true. It is a false picture of Christianity.

So my heart went out to the little girl that Elizabeth Wurtzel had been. The pain she felt as her father ignored her most of her life. My heart broke for the teenager and young woman she became, so damaged and hurt by life that she turned to drugs and sex and fell into the pit of despair. When the Father she had been looking for and needing was right there all along.

Toward the end of the book, she is in England and at the end of her rope. Her soul is twisted with despair and grief. She feels she can hardly hold on any longer. She meets a couple who are going to Israel for Passover and she asked them to leave a note for her in the Kotel, in the cracks between bricks of the Wailing Wall, because she had been taught that God answers all prayers that are deposited there. She scrawls on a piece of paper, "Dear God, Please send me a miracle that gets me out of this depression because I can't go on this way."

She doesn't believe in God, but she reaches out this way in her desperation. Almost as soon as she returns to Harvard from England, her Doctor decides to try and give her this new drug called Prozac that finally, after a lifetime of sadness, lifts her out of the black wave of depression. But for some reason, she doesn't seem to make the connection that God had answered her prayer in the Wailing Wall.

And that, to me, was the saddest thing of all.

The Colbert Report.

Have ya'll seen The Colbert Report on Comedy Central yet? It comes on after the Jon Stewart show and it stars Stephen Colbert, one of the "reporters" on the Stewart show. It is obviously a parody of the O'Reilly Factor.

I watched the first show and thought it wasn't working. I thought maybe he needed Stewart as the straight guy for his routine. But the 2nd and 3rd shows have been much funnier and he is finding his comedic way.

Jon Stewart is hilarious and a hard act to follow. Yes, he leans more toward making fun of the right in his comedy, but there is enough slams on democrats to keep it fair. After all, the Republicans are in charge, so there is more material there. I think Stewart is always pretty nice to his rightwing guests too. But he practically melts when the big leftys come on. But I do laugh at most of his stuff. He is just a great comedian. I wish he were on our side.

Anyway, I would suggest you checking out The Colbert Report. It is funny to see the way he makes fun of O'Reilly's "talking points" for example. He makes it "My Word." If you can't see it at night, they replay it in the morning.

What Ronnie Earle wanted so much finally happened. Delay's mugshot. You have to give Delay some credit for smiling here like he doesn't have a care in the world. Because you know inside he is seething. Delay was fingerprinted, photographed and released on $10,000 bail on conspiracy and money-laundering charges today.

Now remember, Texas prosecutor offered DeLay a deal to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and save his job as majority leader, but DeLay chose to fight felony charges instead.
Now Delay may be many things, but stupid aint one of them. It seems he felt pretty confident that he hadn't done anything wrong, or why not take the misdemeanor charge?

This is like something out of a bad Texas B movie. Delay is the big powerful Republican Washington politician and Democrat Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle (who just seems like a little rat, doesn't he?) is the man determined to bring him down.

In plain language, a Texas political action committee started by DeLay sent corporate money to the Republican National Committee in Washington -— and that the RNC sent the funds back to Texas for the legislative candidates.

That's it.

Doesn't this happen ALL THE TIME? People send money in to the DNC or the RNC and know that those guys are get the money back to the candidates in their home state in some way. How could that be illegal?

Maybe it is. It seems it wasn't when Delay did it, but who knows? It's still the wild wild west out here in so many ways. I keep expecting Earle and Delay to meet at noon for a gunfight.

Poem blogging...

Sorry, but an IM friend sent me this poem and I think it is just one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. So I am sharing it. Enjoy.

Lullaby

Dorothy Parker

Sleep, pretty lady, the night is enfolding you;
Drift, and so lightly, on crystalline streams.
Wrapped in its perfumes, the darkness is holding you;
Starlight bespangles the way of your dreams.
Chorus the nightingales, wistfully amorous;
Blessedly quiet, the blare of the day.
All the sweet hours may your visions be glamorous-
Sleep, pretty lady, as long as you may.

Sleep, pretty lady, the night shall be still for you;
Silvered and silent, it watches you rest.
Each little breeze, in its eagerness, will for you
Murmur the melodies ancient and blest.
So in the midnight does happiness capture us;
Morning is dim with another day's tears.
Give yourself sweetly to images rapturous-
Sleep, pretty lady, a couple of years.

Sleep, pretty lady, the world awaits day with you;
Girlish and golden, the slender young moon.
Grant the fond darkness its mystical way with you;
Morning returns to us ever too soon.
Roses unfold, in their loveliness, all for you;
Blossom the lilies for hope of your glance.
When you're awake, all the men go and fall for you-
Sleep, pretty lady, and give me a chance.

I think...

the Miers nomination is not long for this world.

Beginning the surreal trial of Saddam, the Judge asked Saddam his name and Saddam answered, "You're an Iraqi, you know who I am." Wouldn't it have been sweet if the Judge had said, "Why yes I do. You are an evil sick murderer who use to spend the money meant for food for our people on weapons and self indulgence. Now sit down and shut your pie hole."

This needs captioning as well.

This is what all the cool dudes in New Zealand will be wearing this spring. Feel free to caption.

Able Coverup???

This story doesn't seen to be getting the attention I think it deserves:

"Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Penn., told United Press International that officials at the Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA, had "conducted a deliberate campaign of character assassination" against the whistleblower, retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer.

Shaffer has said that a highly classified Pentagon data-mining project he worked on, codenamed Able Danger, identified the ringleaders of the Sept. 11 terror attacks as linked to al-Qaida more than a year before they hijacked four planes and crashed them, killing nearly 3,000 people."

I heard some Of Weldon's speech on C-span. I have never seen a congressman so honestly upset. I have not found this news story anywhere else. Isn't this important?? Why would the DIA be going after Shaffer like this? Weldon said Shaffer has lost his pension and health care. He said that Shaffer has served 24 yrs and the only spot on his record was when he was 15 and he stole some pens from the Pentagon and they are using that against him!!

UPDATE: I did find this story. It has more details.

I tell you, something weird is going on here. There is something the DIA doesn't want known. Something about knowing who the hijackers were before 9-11. This should be a bigger story.

You have to love blogging...

If for nothing else, the milblogs. Forget the news on the war. Get it straight from the horse's mouth. Here is Warriorsvoice:


Insurgents Died Last Night...Plain And Simple

"Some of you might have read or heard about the recent airstrike on insurgents in the Ramadi area of Iraq. Of course the MSM is reporting that "civilians" died in the attack. They are not reporting that the cowards who place IEDs on the sides of roads died. They are not reporting that the aircraft saw weapons and they hardly mention that the Cobras where shot at. Yahoo has a very interesting slant and of course it is pretty much wrong with the exception of one small portion.

The military said a group of gunmen opened fire on a Cobra attack helicopter that spotted their position. The Cobra returned fire, killing about 10. The men ran into a nearby house, where gunmen were seen unloading weapons before an F/A-18 warplane bombed the building, killing 40 insurgents, the military said.

This statement is about the only factual statement in the whole article. The area where this particular strike took place is a more rural area. It is across the river from Ramadi proper. The roads are lined with IEDs and it is a known area where foreign fighters kick the locals out of homes inorder to move in. These insurgents are also known to use real civilians as human shields during sniper attacks. IED triggermen will hide among civilian crowds prior to detonating their road side bombs. They know that we are always on the look out for triggermen and if seen we engage. Insurgents know that we are reluctant to fire into a crowd of civilians.

I did not provide terminal control of these aircraft but I know the man who did. The squadrons have emailed us the footage from the attacks. You can see the insurgents with weapons. Please trust me when I say it was a clean kill and many believe this attack might have adverted a major strike by the insurgents. These aircraft were "Cleared Hot" by men on the ground who deal with the insurgents day in and day out. The warriors on the deck and the warriors in the air worked as a team to ensure the safety of real civilians and the destruction of these terrorists."

Get this.

This guy doesn't get tenure at the Univ. Of Chicago because of.....blogging!

via Reasoned Audacity

Arrest Warrant for Tom Delay.

JunkYardBlog has some thoughts.

Who needs tracking devices?

When you have color printers.

h/t JD

Time to start the final round of voting for...

King of Cotillion

(also known as "Cotillion Beefcake")

We have the top four candidates in the final round, ready for objectification! Some of the photos will have changed at their request, as you will see, but you can still ogle check out the pictures from last week HERE.

Let the objectification begin!




First, we have MacStansbury, my co-writer here at MVRWC and proprietor of the excellent MacStansbury.org blog. MacS hates this picture because he was exhausted and "covered with sand," but I like that he was showing his USM pride in the middle of a live combat area:






Next up, and also dashing in his desert camo, is Thunder6 from 365 and a Wakeup, beamed in from the front lines in Iraq where he is now. In this photo he sits with a little Iraqi girl who is waiting at the medical clinic:

border="0" alt="Thunder6 in Iraq - from 365 and a Wakeup K of C photo
gallery" />


B.C. didn't dig up his photos with him in his flight suit from his days in uniform, but he provided a more current photo, this one showing him enjoying the good life--beer-drinking on a boat--and looking not so torturous away from the Imperial Dungeon™ at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler:






Also in a sunny paradise is Bullwinkle from Random Numbers. Bullwinkle may be a big ol' moose, but he likes little furry animals other than just squirrels. Here he's feeding a baby coati mundi that he rescued, now just a couple weeks old.

---

There you go, y'all! The Final Four! Now go on over to their sites, poke around, and most importantly, VOTE (in the sidebar)! You can only vote for ONE this time, but you can still vote every day. Voting will close on SUNDAY NIGHT again, around midnight (Central time), and the winner will be announced and crowned King of Cotillion / Cotillion Beefcake? on TUESDAY.

Thank you from all of us in Cotillion to all the guys who participated last week--we consider all of you our Princes for participating and for supporting us!

Check it out!

Waco Kid did a cartoon of me! Is this cool or what?

Thanks Dude!

Condi soon to be VP?

Rumors fly.

h/t Jeff

A Day In The Life of...............

Some of the lefty blogs have been running A Day In The Life of Joe Republican.

So someone came up with A Day In The Life of Jane Democrat.

I think the difference in the two are interesting. The Democrat one focuses almost entirely on Government control and the the Republican one focuses on getting away from that control. (*note: I don't like the use of the word "rag-head" even if it is describing a terrorist)

h/t nicnerd

I Will Not Stand By.

This aint your daddy's black panther party.

More here and here. The man quoted in these links died in 2001 of a brain aneurysm. But by 1985 until 1993 he was Minister Louis Farrakhan's most trusted advisor in the Nation of Islam. h/t to KD

The leader now is Malik Zulu Shabazz. Read about him here. He is just as bad.

Muhammad first shocked everyone in a speech he gave at New Jersey's Kean College in November 1993. He referred to Jews as "bloodsuckers," called for the genocide of white people, and demeaned both Pope John Paul II and homosexuals. In February 1994, Congress issued a denunciation of Muhammad, condemning his speech as "outrageous hatemongering of the most vicious and vile kind." Farrakhan responded to Muhammad's speech by removing him from the Nation Of Islam's hierarchy, although he took issue only with the form, not "the truth" of Muhammad's remarks.

Despite Farrakhan's supposedly reaching out to a more diverse group, here are some of his recent remarks:

Remarks at Shelter for Hurricane Katrina Victims, Charlotte Coliseum, Charlotte, North Carolina, 9/12/05

"I heard from a very reliable source that under that levee there was a 25 foot hole, which suggested that it may have been blown up, so that the water would destroy the black part of town, and where the whites lived, it would be dry."

Power Center, Houston, Texas, 9/11/05

"FEMA is too White to represent us and so is the Red Cross."

Saviour's Day: Chicago, 02/27/05

"Listen, Jewish people don't have no hands that are free of the blood of us. They owned slave ships, they bought and sold us. They raped and robbed us. If you can't face that, why you gonna condemn me for showing you your past, how then can you atone and repent if somebody don't open the book with courage, you don't have that, but I'll be damned, I got it."

For more quotes go here.

A commenter suggested that we should get use to Farrakhan because whether we like it or not, Farrakhan represents a great many black people.

No. I will not get use to it. I will not accept it. I will not stand by quietly and watch a bigot lead young African Americans into this sort of hate and separation. Nope. I am not going to do it. I will write about it, talk about it, write newspapers about it, and write Congressman about it. But I will not be quiet about it.

I didn't grow up watching brave black men and women get hosed and beaten and having dogs snarling and tearing at them as they fought for equality, to watch some insane bigot teach their grandchildren to hate as their grandparents were hated, to separate as their grandparents were separated.

No. I will not get use to it. I will not.

The Millions More Poor March.

When Minister Louis Farrakhan isn't having some vision on a mothership where he meets Reagan or suggesting that Bush blew up the twin towers on 9-11, he is speaking at the 'Millions More' march in Washington. Demanding, among other things, the end to "the biological and chemical warfare perpetrated against our people."

Right.

As I have pointed out many times on this blog, the root of most of the societal problems in the black community is single motherhood perpetuated by the welfare state. A child that is born out of wedlock is 30 times more likely to live in poverty than a child that was born in a marriage and whose parents stayed married.

But let's look at the good news for blacks. More than 75 percent of African-Americans are middle or upper class in 2005. In 1995 the poverty rate for married couple black families was about 8 percent.

In other words, if we wish to fight poverty in the black community, (as well as every other race) we must encourage marriage. This is the foundation of our society. This, above all things, most determines a child's future in my view. Among the blacks who make up the 24.7 percent in poverty, the overwhelming majority are unmarried women and their children.

When I volunteered at the Astrodome after hurricane Katrina, I was shocked at the number of women and children there. There were very few men. This is at the heart of the problem in 9th ward, and it has nothing to do with Farrakhan's imagined "chemical and biological warfare" and his many other perceived problems in the black community.

Yet hundreds of thousands of black men listened to this false message. Why? Because not enough black leaders (or white for that matter) are willing to stand up and say the truth.

And keep saying it until someone listens.

Data and quotes from Townhall.com (Mona Charen)

If you have ever wondered....

what it is in Karl Rove's garage, (and you KNOW you have!) well, here it is!!! via LST

Weird.

(I got the pic from Drudge this morning)

Will Hillary lose the 'kooky left' vote?

From Cindy Sheehan's diary:

"I would love to support Hillary for President if she would come out against the travesty in Iraq. But I don't think she can speak out against the occupation, because she supports it."

via Atlas Shrugs

Interesting. I never thought about how the Cindy Sheehan side of the Democrats would be against Hillary. I don't see how Hillary can really change their minds. In order to get the mainstream voter she has to look tough militarily. Especially since she is a woman. That may be unfair, but that's the way it is.

So will Cindy Sheehan actively campaign against her? Or will that crowd bite the bullet so a Republican won't be elected again.

It seems both sides are going to have to bite the bullet to get their own elected. We will just have to see HOW MANY on each side actually do the biting. (McCain haters, I am looking at YOU)

Everything you wanted to know about the Iraqi vote....

Mudville has every link you could want, from our soldiers in Iraq to the Iraqis themselves. There are links about the media coverage of the vote as well. Skim through and read a few. Very enlightening!

You just gotta hate the media....

The AP has this about the vote in Iraq yesterday:

"Sunnis Appear to Fall Short in Iraq Vote"

I think Ace puts it best:

"Yeah, they fell short all right. They wanted a bloody civil war, but all they got was a democratic constitution guaranteeing human rights.

Maybe they should make that into a T-shirt slogan or something!

How about, "My father died fighting infidels but all I got was this lousy constitution."

Oh look!

Al Queda's hair stylist is arrested.

Sorry. I know this is probably important, but it seemed kinda funny to me.

via Drudge

A Woman President?

Rice says she has no intention of running for President. You gotta know that Elizabeth Dole is going..."Heeelllooooo!!!!!"

Historic Vote.

Voting Photos from Baghdad.

Iraqi The Model has stuff too.

JeffG has the world's headlines and blurbs on the vote. Interesting to see the different takes.

It seems the terrorists didn't do much considering. I am amazed by the high voter turnout. People risking their lives to vote. I am impressed.

Not much blogging this weekend. Kind of busy. Keep checking back though!!!

A serious look at Harriet Miers...

Ok, not really. But this post does about as much good as the rest on the blogosphere and it's a lot funnier.

h/t Cotillion e-mails

More Michael.

Michael Yon is back in Iraq and he caught up with Dr. Farid Ayar, the spokesman for the Higher Independent Electoral Commission, and one of its eight commissioners. I want to point out that this man literally puts his life on the line every day. The terrorists would love nothing more than him dead. Here is what Michael wrote about their brief meeting regarding the historic elections tomorrow in Iraq:

"Dr. Ayar expressed confidence in the upcoming referendum, saying that with 30,000 polling stations, and many Arab Sunnis having agreed to vote, turnout was expected to be strong. He said the Sunnis have several problems with the Constitution as proposed. They do not accept Federalism, and they want to see a statement in the Constitution denoting Iraq as an Arab country. They are also against wording stipulating Former Regime Ministers are not allowed to share power in the new government. Yet, despite their ongoing differences, he pointed out, most Sunnis have agreed to vote.According to Dr. Ayar, there are 15.5 million eligible voters, and the commission expects about 11 million of them to vote, saying this would be an even better turnout than the January election results. The number seemed optimistic, but Dr. Ayar said that with a high Arab Sunni turnout, it might actually happen."

I don't think most Americans realize the scope and importance of these elections. It is an amazing thing. Truly. The Iraqi forces will be in charge this time. Our forces will be there for backup. It is an important test for the Iraqi forces I think.

There is no doubt that terrorists will do anything they can to disrupt these elections. No matter how one feels about the war, I think we all hope that these elections happen and that no one is killed or harmed.

This is big and this is dangerous. Take a moment and offer up a prayer if you can.

Go Astros!

My sports obsessed 8 yr old (and baseball fanatic) made me watch the playoffs last night.

I'm glad baseball players stopped wearing the pants that end below the knee and those stupid looking socks.

When did baseball players stop shaving?

So yeah...Go Astros.

Heh.

How to tell if it's a male worm.

You never see this stuff on the Discovery Channel.

Halloween Post 1

How to make a creepy head in a jar.

Pretty creative actually.

via boing boing.

Terrorist Attack in Russia

MOSCOW - (KRT) - Militants unleashed a deadly wave of attacks on the city of Nalchik in Russia's restive North Caucasus region Thursday, commandeering police stations and taking hostages in a coordinated siege that killed at least 85 people.

Gateway Pundit has all the updates with pictures.

via Ace

Check It Out.....

Good news from Iraq. It's brief and it's worth reading. Go.

Awww...look at the cute lil dolly......

Yeah. right. Check out the picture and read up on a slice of the good news in Iraq.

Sad.

This from Miss Mabrouk of Egypt:

In Egypt, 94 percent of women thought it was acceptable to be beaten, as did 91 percent in Zambia. In Ethiopia between 94 and 91 percent of women between 15 and 49 years have been beaten and believe wife-beating is justified for at least one reason. As many as 70 per cent of married women in India between the age of 15 and 49 are victims of beating, rape or coerced sex. In Australia, Canada, Israel, South Africa and the United States, 40-70 percent of female murder victims were killed by their partners
I can't IMAGINE 94% (!) of women ANYWHERE would think that being beaten is ACCEPTABLE!

If there is one thing this war in the Middle East has opened my eyes to, it is the animal like treatment of women around this world. I remember years ago hearing Jay Leno's wife give a passioned speech on women's rights in these countries. (it has long been a cause of hers) But I never imagined the scope of the problem. Is it any wonder these women feel powerless in these countries?

When Karen Hughes recently went to Saudi Arabia she was told by the women there (who were supposedly more progressive) that they felt no need to drive or vote and such. Well, I suppose I would say that too if I knew a fist was waiting for me back home.

Disgraceful. Can these winds of change in the Middle East change any of this?

God. I hope so.

h/t Jeff

BOO!!!

LST had posted their scariest website for Halloween, but this is mine.

Matt Forge at LST as this take on PETA:

"I came up with this idea whilst perusing the PETA website. It’s funny how they condemn humans doing the very thing animals "naturally" do to each other.

There are five other illustrations/slogans available on CafePress. My personal favorite is "No Taunt!".

A Telling Letter.

The letter from Al-Zarqawi to Al-Zarahiri makes one thing clear. American military leaving Iraq will not end the bloodshed or the desire of Al-Zarqawi to rule with his perverted Islamic faith.

"And it is that the mujahedeen must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and then lay down their weapons, and silence the fighting zeal. We will return to having the secularists and traitors holding sway over us. Instead, their ongoing mission is to establish an Islamic State, and defend it, and for every generation to hand over the banner to the one after it until the Hour of Resurrection."

via MSNBC (full letter)


It is clear that we simply cannot tuck tail and run. We must finish this fight.

Convenient Suicide

Times UK:

The Syrian Interior Minister has apparently killed himself in his Damascus office, days before a UN report on the assassination of a senior Lebanese politician.

Ghazi Kanaan, 63, was the head of Syria's military intelligence in Lebanon between 1982 and 2003 and had enormous influence over the running of Syria's small neighbouring country. He was promoted to the job of Interior Minister a year ago.

His death comes not long after a UN team investigating the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, interviewed Kanaan and a number of Syrian figures. The UN report is due out in two weeks' time.

The car bombing of Hariri in Beirut on February 14 led to a popular uprising in Lebanon, nicknamed the Cedar Revolution, as many Lebanese protested about Syria's stranglehold over its internal politics.

Hariri, a billionaire businessman, was an opponent of the extent of Syrian influence in government. Thanks to the protests and international pressure, Syria withdrew its troops from Lebanon in April for the first time since the end of the civil war.

Hours before he died, Kenaan contacted a Lebanese radio station and gave it a statement defending Syria's role in the Lebanon. He ended with the words: "I believe this is the last statement that I could make." He asked the interviewer to pass his comments to other broadcast media.

Syria and its allies in Lebanon have been blamed by many for masterminding the Hariri murder, something Damascus has denied.

In June, the US Government froze KanaanÂ’s assets for his alleged involvement in corruption and support for terrorism.

via The Jawa Report

It seems no one is really buying the "suicide" story. Geeze. Sometimes I feel like we are all just watching a really long James Bond movie.

But Mommeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

I want to play airport security!

Seriously, could that be any more stupid?

via the Buzzmachine

Twilight Zone Time.

"The West Wing has tapped veteran newsman Forrest Sawyer to moderate Nov. 6's "live presidential debate" between candidates Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda," the NY Post says."

via mediabistro

We have crossed over. We are through the looking glass. Fake anchors and real anchors, there is no difference anymore.

A Love Story.

One beautiful day a moonbat met a wingnut in the park.

They were very attracted to each other so they started dating.

Soon, though, the moonbat discovered that the wingnut was a wingnut and the wingnut discovered the moonbat was a moonbat.

And they argued and fought and yelled and screamed.

Then one day they decided to stop calling names and sit down and discuss things in a calm rational manner. And they didn't fight anymore.

So they got married and soon had a baby and they named that baby..............blog.

Keep Voting!

If you haven't voted in the King of The Cotillion contest. Go over to my sidebar and do so!

Where Is Dick Cheney?

I was reading on some lefty blogs that were wondering where Dick Cheney has been lately. There is a rumor going around lefty blogs that Cheney and Bush have had a falling out. Then I read at NRO that Cheney was suppose to come the National Review's 50th anniversary party. They were wondering where Cheney was as well.

Now, I know Cheney got out of the hospital at the end of September after he underwent surgery to treat aneurysms behind both knees. They implanted tubes to help blood flow. Has anyone seen him since then? I am wondering if he is having complications. Wouldn't the press be on that?

Just bloggercurious.

Look! It's Former Prostitute Barbie! Oops! I mean My Scene Bling Bling Barbie Doll, but that's just marketing. via NRO

But First, Do No Harm.

The Supreme Court took up the case of assisted suicide last week in Gonzales v. Oregon. Read this article and tell me if you are as horrified as I am that we are even considering this. I find it funny in a creepy way how the law states the patient must ask a Doctor to kill him THREE times, like some macrabre Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz trying to get home to Kansas.

Asking Doctors to kill terminally ill patients is so wrong on so many levels. Not only going against what Doctors are there to do, but opening the door to so many ways to push elderly bothersome relatives out the door, so to speak.

"Now remember Grandma, ask him THREE times, ok? Today, tomorrow, and the next day. This hospitalization is killing us here. Think of your family."

Does anyone reading this think that wouldn't happen? Of course it would. Especially if there is ANY money involved. Just like in all end of life issues (including abortion) it tears apart the natural bond between those that love each other.

I have seen wonderful hospice situations. I know wonderful doesn't sound like the right word. But when a loved one is being looked after and cared for by someone who loves them, and then the time comes when they are about to die, there is something soothing there that gives the person who is left behind some comfort in the knowledge that they gave love in the end. That that was their last and most precious gift to that person. I am convinced that it helps the one left behind to move forward and accept the death.

To ask a Doctor to kill the patient is not giving love, it is giving up. Which is easy to do and we have gotten use to doing that in this society. We don't see the value in sacrifice. We don't see the value in what helping someone to die naturally gives to us. We only think of the easy way out.

No one wants their loved one (or themselves) in pain. I have talked to many nurses in the hospice field and they tell me that all pain can be managed. Sometimes towards the end, in order to manage the pain, the pain medicine does put one in a deep sleep. But the nurse knows when this will happen, so the family can say goodbye before the sleep happens. I realize that seems like semantics. What is the difference in the deep sleep that is followed by death and the forced death? One is a natural death, even though medicated for pain, and the other is a deliberate killing that both the patient and the doctor and the family are aware of. Not to keep bringing abortion into it, but it is like the difference between an abortion and a miscarriage.

Just as in assisted suicide, one breaks a precious bond and the other brings us natural grief.

I don't know if assisted suicide will become legal in this case, but I know that it will happen in my lifetime. I have always said it was a matter of time. There are simply not enough of us to fight those who see the value of human life only in terms of their own convience.

Assassination of Bush plot.

It was an American too. Why? Israel, of course.

Another Open Thread.

I liked the other one. I think I will make it a regular feature. Whenever.

Anti-American? You decide.

I had a commenter ask me for some anti-American quotes from celebrities. I don't really listen or focus on celebrities so, believe it or not, I had not read most of these quotes. I picked out my "favorites" and I have to say I was pretty appalled. I thought you might enjoy seeing them together and you decide if they sound "un-American." I didn't even post the quotes slamming just Bush (except maybe the quote from Julia Roberts & Michael Moore) since you can certainly do that in a free country, but that was pretty appalling as well.

1)"“For example, new rule: No more whining about the French. At least they're standing up to the Bush administration, which is more than I can say for the Democrats! And, by the way, it doesn't make me un-American to say I'd rather live in Paris than in places where cheese only comes in individually-wrapped slices."--Bill Mahr

link:http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20030224.asp#3

2)"I would like to apologize for referring to George W. Bush as a 'deserter.' What I meant to say is that George W. Bush is a deserter, an election thief, a drunk driver, a WMD liar, and a functional illiterate. And he poops his pants"-Michael Moore

* The motivation for war is simple. The U.S. government started the war with Iraq in order to make it easy for U.S. corporations to do business in other countries. They intend to use cheap labor in those countries, which will make Americans rich.-Michael Moore

* There's a gullible side to the American people. They can be easily misled. Religion is the best device used to mislead them-Michael Moore-

3)" I mean, George Bush is not Hitler. He would be if he fu--ing applied himself."-Margaret Cho

4)"To Canadians about government incentives for filmmaking, "It"’s to your credit that you do that for your country," he said. "We don"’t do a damned thing in our country, because we are pigs."-Ed Asner

5)"The real terrorist threats are George W. Bush and his band of brown-shirted thugs."-Sondra Bernhard

6)"No. First of all, I'm not liberal. I'm just about (being) anti-United States. I don't like the way this country operates. I think we've ruined this place. And I think it's largely because of businessmen. And businessmen are not liberals. So if that makes me a liberal, then that's just an association. It's not a choice."-George Carlin

7)"I believe he thinks this [war against Iraq] is a war that can be won, but there is no such thing we can't beat anyone anymore."-George Clooney

8)"America is dumb, it's like a dumb puppy that has big teeth that can bite and hurt you, aggressive."-Johnny Depp

*"I was ecstatic they re-named 'French Fries' as 'Freedom Fries'. Grown men and women in positions of power in the U.S. government showing themselves as idiots"-Johnny Depp

9)"Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."-Dixie Chicks

10)"I don't know if a country where the people are so ignorant of reality and of history, if you can call that a free world."-Jane Fonda

11)"Our country is founded on a sham: our forefathers were slave-owning rich white guys who wanted it their way. So when I see the American flag, I go, 'Oh my God, you're insulting me."-Janeane Garofalo

12)"America has never paid any attention to other people, so it's absurd for Bush to say that it's all in the best interests of the Iraqi people."-Richard Gere

13)"Sometimes I'll be walking down the street and I'll hear some American and I'll just go, 'Of course they hate us, of course they can't stand us.' We're the most annoying, boisterous creatures in the world. I mean we come in and we eat mounds of food, and we're like, 'Where's the kaachup [sic] for our French fries.'-Kate Hudson

14)"I worry about bringing up a child in America. At the moment there's a weird, over-patriotic atmosphere over there, like, 'We're No. 1 and the rest of the world doesn't matter." -Gwyneth Paltrow

15)"One of the main purveyors of violence in this world has been this country, whether itÂ’s been against Nicaragua or wherever...I'’ve been an advocate for peace my whole life. But one of the main purveyors of violence in this world is this country."-Danny Glover

15)"Who the **** are we to say whether theyÂ’re better off? We have a dictatorship in this country. Our government is presently the greatest threat to our people."-Sean Penn

16)"He's embarrassing. He's not my president. He will never be my president."-Julia Roberts

Link:http://www.celiberal.com/showCeliberal.php?id=65

King of The Cotillion.

Beth at MVRWC is hosting this contest. Go over to MY side bar and vote. You may PICK MORE THAN ONE, but don’t click every single one, OK?
Next Tuesday, we will have FINALISTS, at which point you can vote again. Next Tuesday, you’ll be doing the final vote for King of Cotillion!

Here are their pictures. My first reaction was, "What's up with all the guns?" Then I saw that the Masked Menace tempered it with a kitten on his shoulder. Heh. I'm thinking that Thunder6 has a bit of advantage, being in uniform and all. (I do love a man in a uniform) But I have a soft spot for Mark and Patriot Xeno because they comment here regularly. (plus, they aren't bad to look at) ;-) Bullwinkle has been known to pop in here too.

Anyway, Go vote. Yeah, even if you are a guy. Just vote.

Miers. The Readers Digest Version.

I've been reading about the controversy over Miers nomination. Some are saying that the "elitists" are only against her because she didn't go to an Ivy league school. They are saying she doesn't have the hefty intellectual background.

Beldar, a well respect trial lawyer here in Houston has at least a dozen posts on Miers. All them very informative if you want to wade through them all. He clearly believes she has the background. Here he compares the histories of Miers and Roberts.

The Volokh Conspiracy best sums it up between what he calls Gods vs Geeks. In other words, religious conservatives vs intellectuals, (not that many aren't both, of course) with Dobson and Santorum supporting the nomination, and Will, Frum, and Kristol harshly criticizing the President for having nominated Miers in the first place

"In sum, the two groups aren't disagreeing, but rather answering different questions. The commentators are ruminating on process, while the politicians and political leaders are focusing on the bottom line vote."

Once again conservatives fight when we can easily win. Our inhouse bickering just brings us down and it is unproductive. The left just sits back for the show They don't want Miers anyway because they strongly suspect she is pro-life (the bottom line for them) and they would gladly see her sink.

Given the heat of the conservative opposition, that may well happen. This Stanford Professor thinks the nomination will be withdrawn before a vote because of Arlen Spector. An interesting take.

I don't see that happening though. unless Miers gets so frustrated by this whole process and people start smearing her personal life in some way. Scalia himself said yesterday that he would not want to go through the process of confirmation today. The "borking" of Robert Bork began this whole ugly personal smear process and the Clarence Thomas hearings brought us where we are today. Thomas was tough. He put up with more than most of us would have from those smear merchants. I am not sure Miers could. In her case, I don't think it will be so much about her personal social life (but it could, of course, if anything interesting comes up), but about her personal faith. I wonder if Ruth Bader-Ginsburg's faith was ever discussed? Did anyone ever question what synagogue or church she attended? I don't think so. It only matters if you are Republican.

With Roberts, his intellectual capabilities were so obvious that all those smart guys in the Senate who were Democrat had to think that Roberts was so smart that he couldn't possibly let his faith interfere with his thinking process. But with Miers, they are afraid she isn't the brain that Roberts is and might actually let her faith be a consideration. For the conservatives that oppose her, they think that she isn't smart enough to be a strong strict constitutionalist. Because, amazingly enough, it isn't all about abortion to Republicans, as it is to Democrats. It's about a lot of issues from property rights to gun rights to state rights. Those conservatives think she might be wishy washy on those issues and feel she will be compelled to go with Kennedy and Souter out of deference to their experience.

I still trust Bush. He knows what was needed on the court. The elites can bleat all they wish, but from what I have read about her, she seems more than qualified to me. But then, I am just a simple woman.

So if you were wondering what all the fuss was about. That is the way I see it.

I saw Dick Morris on Fox News this morning and he made some interesting points about a race for President between Condi and Hillary.

He said that over 60% of white men vote Republican no matter what. He said it is the white women that swing the vote. They should be split. Then we have the black vote. The black vote goes almost 90% Democrat, but he said after talking to many black political leaders, he says that they believe that Condi would receive at least half of the black vote because it would be so historic to have a black President that they would cross over. He said in that scenario Condi wins by 12 million votes. An interesting take that seems pretty right on to me. I still think that a McCain/Rice ticket would do just as well. The black vote would still want a black Vice President.

I can tell you one thing. We will not able to win by bashing Hillary. The white women swing vote just won't look kindly on any kind of smear on Hillary. Like it or not, white women who aren't into politics tend to like Hillary and see her as one of them. Bashing her will be bashing them. So it will be a hard enough road right there. We need to choose our candidate carefully. We need to put our differences aside and come together to beat what could be the worst man made disaster we have ever known.

And please don't try and tell me that Hillary might not get the nomination. You are completely naive if you believe that.

It's all their fault....

The Joooooosssss!!!!!

via NRO

Schumer rides the no. 4 train to his office after a press conference in Union Square yesterday.

Doesn't the man beside him look excited???

Feel free to caption.

This was too funny to resist.

Wake up call to Democrats!

In this interesting post and comments over at Protein Wisdom , it begins as a post about the mistreatment of women in Saudi Arabia, but ends with the left turning it into something else. Two commentes had very interesting things to say. The first is a Democrat who voted for Bush and why:

"I am left of center politically. I could list all the lefty positions I believe in, from Abortion to Zebra-protection, but the reason I vote (Federally at least) for Bush & the Rep’s is that the Dem’s have gone to far to appeasing their base & seem willing to simply let the terrorists kill & win if it hurts Bush. At this time in history with the new facists trying (yet again) to take over the world, I don’t have time for that garbage.

So in a few dozen years, when the facists are defeated, I will go back to pushing for my progressive values. Until the Dem’s can honestly offer to fight against those facists, I will go with those that will--even if I think their social views are wrong or even when they screw-up carrying out the war-- ‘cause at least they are willing to fight to keep the freedoms that this country has.

Until that freedom is safe, the interesting fight about, oh say, putting ‘In god we trust’ on the money being the moral equivlent of the Taliban’s stoning of the gays seems rather stupid & trival.

The next is a former Democrat:

"That is a good example why I view my former comrades on the left as damaged goods. Seems to me that it would be easy for people to find the common ground on which they both stand and move forward together. Most, I would think, agree that raping and beating women is bad. Most would agree that people should have the right to vote. Most would agree that people should live as free as possible as long as they’re not hurting anyone. There’s a great deal more that all Americans agree upon than disagree upon. The hurting begins when we get more hung up on the minor differences than the greater similarities.

The simple fact is that the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq would have been heralded by both sides of the political divide if the president had a “D” after his name insteads of an “R”. The discourse of “yes, but” would not happen if some on the left weren’]t searching hard and fast for reasons to be against something they should clearly be for."

UPDATE: Redstate has more.

I can't stop!

This is a funny and interesting take on Intelligent Design. This guys says ID will win out. Here is his take on the pro-Darwin crowd:

"Ewww…intelligent design people! They're just buck-toothed Bible-pushing nincompoops with community-college degrees who're trying to sell a gussied-up creationism to a cretinous public! No need to address their concerns or respond to their arguments. They are Not Science. They are poopy-heads."

There. I just saved you the trouble of reading 90% of the responses to the ID position. Vitriol, condescension, and endless accusations of bad faith all characterize far too much of the standard pro-Darwinian response to criticism. A reasonable observer might note that many ID advocates appear exceptionally well-educated, reasonable, and articulate; they might also note that ID advocates have pointed out many problems with the Darwinist catechism that even pro-Darwin scientists have been known to concede, when they think the Jesus-kissing crowd isn't listening. And yet, even in the face of a sober, thoughtful ID position, the pro-Darwin crowd insists on the same phooey-to-the-boobgeois shtick that was tiresome in Mencken's day. This is how losers act just before they lose: arrogant, self-satisfied, too important to be bothered with substantive refutation, and disdainful of their own faults. Pride goeth before a fall."

Trust me. The guy is a hoot to read. I do this to make The Commissar and Andy go nuts. It's so much fun!

Beer....

has now proven evolution.

via Deans World.

Terrorists worry over bad PR.

The title of this article says it all...."Al-Qaida tells terror chief to kill people less brutally"

I figure al-Zawahiri is thinking, "People aren't digging the whole beheading thing. It's getting to where we look kinda bad. Leaving headless bodies everywhere just isn't working well for us. Let' stick to bullets. Not nearly as messy. That will be cool with everyone. Good. Praise be to Satan...oops.. I mean Allah."

Say What??

Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund is set to be broadcasting on national television next week a campaign advertisement in Belgium that features smurfs playing and singing and then....."the blue-skinned cartoon characters' village is annihilated by warplanes."

"Tiny Smurfs scatter and run in vain from the whistling bombs, before being felled by blast waves and fiery explosions. The final scene shows a scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably, surrounded by prone Smurfs.

The final frame bears the message: "Don't let war affect the lives of children."

uhhh.....ok. Could this be any weirder?

via Garfield Ridge

Open Thread.

Talk about anything you wish. Just play nice. Suggestions and praise is welcome. Criticism.....not so much.

We are shocked!

Shocked I tell you!!!

More Grief.

The massive earthquake that hit Pakistan brings us yet another massive tragedy. So many tears on this earth lately. Sometimes I wonder if natural disasters will force all of us to grab on to one another and then perhaps the man made disasters and wars that plague us will end.