Odds and Sods

Scientists sign petition denying man-made global warming - 31,000 of them.

"It urged the US government to reject the treaty and said: "The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind." "

"It added: "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of ... greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the forseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments." "

"The petition was reissued last year by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, an independent research group, partly in response to Al Gore’s film on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth."

I am sure Gore will get right on that.

Global Warming hoopla will not die easily - there is too much money to be made. Plus, no amount of hyperbole is too innappropriate for some:

"Survivors of sex abuse by Christian clergy today responded with anger and shock to the Church of England bishop who said that everyone who failed to act on climate change was as guilty as Austrian child abuser Josef Fritzl"

"Victims accused the bishop of being "facile and demeaning" towards Fritzl's daughter, who was kept in a cellar for 24 years, raped repeatedly and who had seven children by her own father. "

Facile. Demeaning. Good words. Can't add more to that. Some people have an amazing ability to stick their foot in their mouths. It seems like, increasingly, its the 'politicized clergy', imo

"The Bishop, whose comments come at the same time as the Church of England is publishing a new report complaining about the quality of its clergy, said that was not accusing those who do nothing about global warming of being child abusers. "

Oh. Snap.


Are conservatives more honest than liberals? - Well, I dunno. Conservatives do seem to be more ideologically consistant, and liberals do seem to project their own neurosis on to their political opponents.


Humans can see into the future? Possibly the key to optical illusions.

Researcher Mark Changizi of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York says it starts with a neural lag that most everyone experiences while awake. When light hits your retina, about one-tenth of a second goes by before the brain translates the signal into a visual perception of the world.

Scientists already knew about the lag, yet they have debated over exactly how we compensate, with one school of thought proposing our motor system somehow modifies our movements to offset the delay.

Changizi now says it's our visual system that has evolved to compensate for neural delays, generating images of what will occur one-tenth of a second into the future. That foresight keeps our view of the world in the present. It gives you enough heads up to catch a fly ball (instead of getting socked in the face) and maneuver smoothly through a crowd.

Coooooooool.

Idiots are smearing themselves with Preparation H before they go into the clubs. Apparently this makes themselves appear more 'ripped'. one woudl think it would also make them smell. As one commentor on Fark observed: "Well it is ointment for irritating a**holes, right?" Kudos to the commentor Tastes Like Chicken.

"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves." - Ronald Reagan

Rational About War

Hitchens reviews two tell-all books.

Feith was and is very much identified with the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, and he certainly did not believe that Saddam Hussein was ever containable in a sanctions "box." But he is capable of separating his views from his narrative, and this absorbing account of the interdepartmental and ideological quarrels within the Bush administration, on the Afghanistan and Guantanamo fronts as well as about Iraq, will make it difficult if not impossible for people to go on claiming that, for instance:

There was no rational reason to suspect a continuing Iraqi WMD threat. Feith's citations from the Duelfer Report alone are stunning in their implications.

That alternatives to war were never discussed and that the administration was out to "get" Saddam Hussein from the start.

That the advocates of regime change hoped and indeed planned to anoint Ahmad Chalabi as a figurehead leader in Baghdad.

That there was no consideration given to postwar planning.

Emphasis mine.

Unfortunately, people will claim the anti-Iraq war canards no matter how weak and invented. Its easier to be intellectually lazy, believing unlikely conspiracy theories instead of evidence. I just bought Feith's book War and Decision, as well as Yon's 'Moment of Truth' as a premium for subscribing to Townhall magazine.


Afghan insurgents 'On the brink of defeat' - Neocon propaganda! oh, wait, British commanders are saying this.


"Miseram pacem vel bello bene mutari." Even war is better than a wretched peace. - Tacitus

Sunday Dispatch

This weekend has been beautiful. I have hardly paid attention to the spectacle of the Democratic conference regarding the Michigan and Florida delegates. As expected, they are allowing the delegates to count a half each. If Republicans were more like Democrats, they'd start making references to the 3/5ths Compromise.

I am reading "Where Have All the Soldiers Gone?" by James J. Sheehan. It traces the roots of European pacifism and the transformation of Europe into a Kantian vision of perpetual peace. I borrowed it from the library. I have noticed a trend in the Siouxland libraries favoring leftist ideology. They carry all the books from the political left, and only the occassional opposing voice. My taxpayer dollars at work financially supporting the other side. However, Sheehan's book is not necessarily showing the peaceful, prosperous European transformation as a good or natural thing. I think the thesis is key to understanding the cultural differences between Europe and the US.

On that subject, Victor Davis Hanson is in Europe and posts a Euromania dispatch.

I have admiration for the European Union’s unmistakable achievement in avoiding war for half a century, and its widespread prosperity—but it has come at a price. Given what Barack Obama has said about raising taxes, funding new entitlements, yielding to international consensus abroad, and seeing Americans in terms of various racial, class, and tribal constituencies, all with justified grievances, I think his notion of our future is what we see in European today—even as the Europeans grow increasingly restless about unions, high taxes, and their impotence in the world abroad. Apparently even two-hour lunches, no children, no church, no military, good food and the disco can get boring.

A note on Obama: in minute one, Euros gush; in minute two, the questions come; in minute three, they express concern (if they think you too might as well and so can be candid); in minute four, you sense they understand there is only one EU. So should the US become one too, they worry about who might play the US to the US?

In a sick way this speaks well of Obama: by his intent to turn the US into something like the EU, he is scaring some elites in the EU as never before. There can only be one socialist union: it requires a capitalist wide-open trading partner and a Nato-like ally to offer it free defense as well as an easy target for cheap invective. So the Europeans hint: “Please, don’t become quite like us—we need you as you are.”

Works for me. I prefer a Land of the Free, which entails a land where a person is free to fail. Europe of course is free to pursue their own destiny, I see no reason to follow. Europe is really behind the US in most measures of properity.

"The Association of European Chambers of Commerce in Brussels warned that the transatlantic gap had widened yet further in the past five years by all key measures"

***

"It will take the EU until 2072 to reach US levels of income per capita, and then only if the EU income growth exceeds that of the US by 0.5pc," the study said."

No reason to think that EU growth will exceed the US. Former Communist countries have a lot of catching up to do, and their growth rates have been marked, but if the EU imposes the kinds of regulations and tax rates they are likely to, those nations will plateau soon enough.

Roundup on the News:

US casualties in Iraq at all time low - In related news Iraq's oil production has risen. Good. Iraq needs the money. Say, whatever happened to the "We invaded for oil" meme? Seems the fools who said it are quiet about it now, given that we are NOT taking Iraq's oil and we are not benefitting from it. Awkward. Well, maybe not. They will come up with a rationalization.

Yes we can! - Win the war, that is. An yes, imo, the folks who want to withdraw the troops are defeatists. They would dishonor our nation, make the sacrifices that our troops have made futile, and cause endless trouble as well as more deaths in the future.

Clinton supporters wringing their hands about Bill's sociopathic behavior. Well, no kidding. He has always been this way. Whereas before his irresponsibility was a problem for our nation, now its a problem for Hillary and the left. Now, I guess it matters to them.

Homeless people make their home in Heathrow.

Michael Crichton predicted the extinction of mass media in 1993. Slate thinks he may be vindicated. This amused me: "Had Crichton's prediction been on track, by 2002 the New York Times should have been half-fossilized. But the newspaper's vital signs were so positive that its parent company commissioned a 1,046-foot Modernist tower, which now stands in Midtown Manhattan." As I recall, the NYT's used its influence to get the City gov't to condemn other people's property unjustly. I also recall at the time that analysts were not so positive on the NYT at the time of the construction. It was called a white elephant that would be a financial drag on the company which needed to become more innovative.

One a lighter note: Tiny, cute animals. Awwwww.... I notice at least one is photoshopped, but no matter! The dog with ducklings was particularly amusing to me.


"The brave and bold persist even against fortune; the timid and cowardly rush to despair through fear alone." - Tacitus

The War Today

U.S. Cites Big Gains Against Al-Qaeda
Front page on the Washington Post no less.

"The sense of shifting tides in the terrorism fight is shared by a number of terrorism experts, though some caution that it is too early to tell whether the gains are permanent. Some credit Hayden and other U.S. intelligence leaders for going on the offensive against al-Qaeda in the area along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where the tempo of Predator strikes has dramatically increased from previous years. But analysts say the United States has caught some breaks in the past year, benefiting from improved conditions in Iraq, as well as strategic blunders by al-Qaeda that have cut into its support base"

""One of the lessons we can draw from the past two years is that al-Qaeda is its own worst enemy," said Robert Grenier, a former top CIA counterterrorism official who is now managing director of Kroll, a risk consulting firm. "Where they have succeeded initially, they very quickly discredit themselves." "

Its easy to support terrorism when you don't have to live with the consequences. This explains much of the apathy or verbal support for terrorism. Likewise, its easy to dismiss the danger of terrorism or undercut our efforts against it when you live a safe, insulated and affluent life, certain that the consequences will not impact you personally.

The Sunnis in Iraq, the favored political base of Saddam, learned the wages of supporting terrorists. Grievances cited by terrorists are just excuses, they are vicious barbarians who will subject everyone to their brutality.


'Now the American Forces Are on the Right Track'

'Nuff said.


VDH: Do we still have Grants or Shermans?

"A common complaint is that a worn-out military has lost the peace in Iraq and should withdraw in defeat. In fact, recruitments in June exceeded the military's goals, violence in Iraq is down, Shiite and Sunni terrorists are losing ground to the new military of a constitutional Iraq — and the junior American outsiders who engineered all that may soon be seniors on the inside."

IMO, the military is stronger because of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are achieving success in deployments throughout the world. I recommend Robert Kaplan's Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts, which details the extent of American deployments. Our military has never been so widely deployed, so well trained or efficient, nor as effective. We spend 4.5% of GNP on the military, far less than the historical standard. We should consolidate our strategic success and cement our military prowess by raising it to 5% of GNP.


"Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster." - William Tecumseh Sherman

Of Canine Interest

Adding rosemary to your steak could help prevent cancer.

Your dog wants steak.

Take your dog to the bar night in Minneapolis.

I would take my dog to the local brewpub which had an outside patio. Always a good time. He was a chick magnet.


"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - Mark Twain

Carbon Atheist or Agnostic?

Czech President Vaclav Klaus articulated his skepticism of global warming at the National Press Club. I found the reaction of the journalists to be most instructive, their expressions were grim. It pained them to hear a global warming skeptic. I happen to agree with Klaus that AGW is a pernicious ideology similar to communist totalitarianism.

"Klaus called alarms about man-made climate change a "quasi-noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of something above him" and that it is being exploited by a new elite "certain they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea a reality.""

I like this guy. He stands up for his neighbors, telling the Russians that the missile shield is none of their business.

Krauthammer, by contrast, is a carbon agnostic.

"For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class — social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts, and their left-wing political allies — arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (Communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism)."

"Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher’s England to Deng’s China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty more rapidly than ever in human history."

"Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual Left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but — even better — in the name of Earth itself."

Emphasis mine.

Socialism doesn't work. Free societies where individuals make their own decisions are not only morally superior in the sense that liberty is more just and moral, but also the rational choice. Free societies are richer, more productive and even better for the environment.

Yet many people, even otherwise intelligent and decent people, believe that using coercion to impose their will on others will somehow result in 'social justice' and saving the planet, despite the empirical evidence to the contrary.



Related quote:
"It is, I suspect, no accident that it is in Europe that climate change absolutism has found the most fertile soil. For it is Europe that has become the most secular society in the world, where the traditional religions have the weakest popular hold. Yet people still feel the need for the comfort and higher values that religion can provide; and it is the quasi-religion of Green alarmism and what has been termed global salvationism - of which the climate change issue is the most striking example, but by no means the only one - which has filled the vacuum, with reasoned questioning of its mantras regarded as a form of blasphemy." - Nigel Lawson,

Odds and Ends

News of the Weird:
Elf ears. The latest in body modification for those who aren't planning a a successful career.

EU court to takes up question of if chimps are human.

Cool:
New Yamaha concept motorcycle. An 'exo-skeleton' capable of 75mph, 0-60 in 3 seconds.

There may be a huge biomass deep in the ocean. Simple prokaryotes which could be ancient.

Darwin swings and misses:
Girls sunbathe on railroad tracks.

Man inflates his son with air hose. Bonus: "Police were not expected to take action against the father, blaming the incident on pure stupidity, against which there is currently no law"

Greetings

I will be posting a few things in Sparkle's absence. I was caught off guard by this honor, so I have no great thesis ready. Will be posting presently.

I'm the one on the left.

BEACH!

I'm leaving for Florida tomorrow for a week. As all of you know, that means I will be in what I consider heaven on earth for the next week...THE BEACH. I may feel that way because of experiences like this as well.

BigDog is taking over for me, so check in because he is MUCH smarter than I am.

Making a statement for Cuba!

I love this story.

This Wall Street guy collects and invests in baseball cards. I didn't know this, but the baseball card companies also include famous people with "cut" signatures, not just baseball players. So one day he notices that Topps (a baseball card company) put out a Fidel Castro card. The Wall street guy was disgusted! How dare this company give Fidel this kind of publicity and credit. He knew he had to buy the card so it wouldn't circulate, and he did. But what to do with it? Inspired by the whole Rush Limbaugh/Harry Reid victory, he decided to deface the card and auction it on e-bay. He will give the proceeds to the anti-Castro, pro-freedom cause dedicated to human rights.

Here is the auction.

Here, in part, is his description of the card:

To more accurate reflect the true Castro legacy, the card has been altered so that it now includes numerous words and phrases pertaining to Fidel on both the front and back of the card. For example, phrases on the front of the card now include:

* mass murderer
* Communist
* El Manbu concentration camp
* Free Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Oscar Biscet!
And, phrases on the back of the card now include:
* firing squads
* author of the Camilo-Cienfuegos forced labor plan
* violator of peaceful journalists' free-speech rights
* Remember Pedro Luis Boitel!

Also, all bidders must be aware that the corners of this card have been damaged by whacking each corner against a rather hard table several times (these damaged corners represent the damage to Cuba done by Fidel). In addition, all bidders must be aware that the sides of this card have several small cuts in them made with a knife (these cuts represent the torture -- and worse -- suffered by thousands of political prisoners during Fidel's regime).

via NRO

Vets for Freedom Speak Out about Obama

From NRO:

On Friday, Vets for Freedom PAC released an advertisement featuring Iraq war veteran Sergeant Garrett Anderson. The ad points out that Senator Obama was unwilling to meet with Illinois veterans, has never met with General Petraeus, and hasn’t visited Iraq in over two years. The facts are the facts, and the ad speaks for itself.

Predictably, the ad sparked fierce opposition from anti-war elements (here, here & here) who accused us of being a “right-wing 527 attack organization.” Except, they forgot to do their research. Vets for Freedom is not a 527, nor an attack organization. Our 24,000 members and 50 state chapters comprise a cross-section of America’s veterans—Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, and liberals—all of which are interested in one thing: victory in Iraq, Afghanistan, and overall the War on Terrorism.

Today, we are releasing a second ad, featuring Iraq war veteran and Vets for Freedom member, Specialist Kate Norley. CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE AD. Kate, who served 16 months on the front lines as a combat medic, asks Senator Obama two simple, but powerful, questions:

1. Senator Obama, when will you finally decide to go back to Iraq, to see the progress first hand?

2. And when will you finally decide to meet one-on-one, unconditionally, with General Petraeus?

The ad also talks about the incredible progress that has been made since Senator Obama last visited Iraq in January 2006: violence down 70%, civil war over, Al Qaeda decimated, political progress occurring, and the Iraqi Army taking the lead. The fact is—the surge has worked, and has moved America closer to overall success in Iraq.

It’s important that veterans ask the tough questions of our prospective leaders. Vets for Freedom PAC has no interest in attacking Senator Obama; we just want to know why he seems so uninterested about what is actually happening on the ground.

Democrats=Socialism

At least she spoke the truth about what they really want.

“And guess what this member* would be all about? This member would be all about socializing — er, uh. [Pauses for several moments] …. would be about … [pause] … basically … taking over, and the government running all of your companies.”

China's Sorrow

From the Family Research Center:

While it is of little comfort to the tens of thousands of grieving parents, China is making exemptions to the one-child policy in light of the May 12 earthquake. Officials of the Family Planning Committee have announced that "qualified parents" can petition the government to have another child if their son or daughter died in the quake. Parents who had more than one child "illegally" can receive permission to register the remaining sibling(s) as the "legal replacement." This glimmer of human feeling provides some hope that Communists leaders would further relax the policy; however, it cannot relieve the suffering of the many Chinese parents who have undergone forced abortion or sterilization at the hands of the totalitarian regime. We continue to pray that this catastrophe opens the hearts of China's leaders and awakens hope that a culture of life can take root even in an atheist state that rejects the Author of Life.

Read this paragraph again. Imagine the government telling you that you may have a "legal replacement" for your child. It's like some sick horror movie.

Sometimes I just can't believe what we stand by and allow.

Party on the Beach!

Reading through MSNBC's FirstRead detailing Hillary's swing through Puerto Rico this weekend brings about an almost surreal feeling. On Sunday she attended and spoke at an evangelical church:

Clinton has a big smile as the dancers perform in front of her, at first swaying subtly and then earnestly weaving back and forth and clapping to the beat. "This is the day that the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it," she says to the crowd. "And this is a church that rejoices."
......

She also says it's providence that has brought her here, and keeps her in the race. "I am very grateful that I have this opportunity to come to Puerto Rico to talk with you, to listen, to visit across from one end of the islands to the other with my message that there isn't anything we cannot do together if we seek God's blessing and if we stay committed, and are not deterred by the setbacks that often fall in every life," she says. "If I had listened to those who had been talking over the last several months we would not be having this campaign in Puerto Rico today."

I wish someone would search and see if Hillary ever in her lifetime uttered the words "if we seek God's blessings" or anything close to it while not campaigning. Huckabee or Bush says such a thing and and the left thinks we are heading for a theocracy. Hillary says it and they just yawn.

After Church:

Clinton has ditched her turquoise pantsuit and is now donning a bright pink tropical shirt as she arrives at the beach in Boqueron. Again she finds herself taken to the rhythms of a local dance ensemble and musical group, and is dancing in her own subtle way along with them. As the dance troop finishes, she reaches out her arms to beckon one of the young girls to come close, and gives her a big hug. The mayor of Boqueron, herself a woman, speaks briefly and says in English, "I love you." Clinton speaks briefly, saying, "I am very grateful to all of you. I want to tell you how much I love being here. This reminds me of very happy days."

She then starts toward the beach, and the local and traveling press ignores demands to keep a distance. A chaotic scene ensues as the press battles with some of the surprised beach goers in vying for Clinton's attention. But eventually the campaign finds a few strings of rope to keep a makeshift barrier around the candidate at all times. At one point as she walks past me on the sand, I say to Clinton that this sure seems a long way from New Hampshire, doesn't it. "It's great. So pretty here," she says. She then keeps pressing the flesh, as a drum band keeps a beat around her.

She's smiling broadly the entire time.

Later Clinton speaks at the Casa Cuba, a gathering place for Cuban ex-pats:

..she says. "I hope some day to be able to visit Cuba, and to be able to talk freely and walk freely and hear the desires and the needs of the people of Cuba. "But I will not give away the chance for real change. I think we must see evidence of reform before we allow the current government in Cuba to benefit from the prestige and power of a presidential meeting. They must show their good faith, and we will work with them if they do."

Take that Obama!

Later at Sabor Latino, a bar in San Juan:

As she mingles with the crowd, Clinton encounters the four network embedded reporters, some of whom have been following her for more than a year now. "You guys can drink, too," she says after raising her beer in our direction. One says that there might be plans for that later in the evening. "I think you would," she says.

And with the sounds of Enrique Iglesias' "Be With You" in the background, Aaron Bruns, another reporter is nodding along with it. Clinton then decides to very briefly dance with him, closing her eyes and nodding her head, before patting him on the shoulder and moving ahead. A somewhat bewildered Bruns can't believe what just happened, as some of Clinton's staff turn back to laugh at the scene.

Surreal enough for you? Who is this person??

Now, in case you haven't heard, that same Sunday Bill Clinton was in South Dakota saying that the Democrats were likely to lose if they don't nominate Hillary and had this to say:

"I can’t believe it. It is just frantic the way they are trying to push and pressure and bully all these superdelegates to come out,” he said at a South Dakota campaign stop Sunday, in remarks first reported by ABC News. “'Oh, this is so terrible: The people they want her. Oh, this is so terrible: She is winning the general election, and he is not. Oh my goodness, we have to cover this up.'"

The former president added that his wife had not been given the respect she deserved as a legitimate presidential candidate. "She is winning the general election today and he is not, according to all the evidence,” he said. “And I have never seen anything like it. I have never seen a candidate treated so disrespectfully just for running.”

I'm betting the behind the scenes atmosphere at the DNC is FRANTIC. Hillary is having the time of her life. She is sticking it in the faces of the DNC and Obama.

Just when I think that something rational will happen here and Hillary and Obama will make nice somehow and all this theatre will be over (how sad that will be!), Hillary just keeps on going like the energizer bunny and it's clear that her and her hubby are determined to keep their dream alive.

Don't you just love it???

The Left and Right of Gaffes

Let's start with Obama's story about his own conception:

Marking the anniversary of the March 1965 "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Ala., Obama, speaking at a church, he credited the those civil rights marchers of 1965 with the fact that his parents, a black African father and white Kansas mother, were inspired to fall in love and get married.

"They looked at each other and they decided, 'We know that in the world, as it has been, it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child, but something is stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Ala., because some folks are willing to march across the bridge.' And so they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Ala.!"

Obama was born in 1961; the Selma march was four years later.

Last May, he claimed that tornadoes in Kansas killed a whopping 10,000 people: "In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed." The actual death toll: 12.

In Obama's memoir, Dreams of My Father, he writes of a story in Life magazine that influenced and touched him greatly. It was about a black man trying to bleach his skin white. The Chicago Tribune researched Life magazine for the article. No such article could be found in Life. They researched Ebony as well, but found nothing.

A few weeks ago in Rush Limbaugh's hometown of all places, Obama messed up again:

Obama posited -- incorrectly -- that Arabic translators deployed in Iraq are needed in Afghanistan -- forgetting, momentarily, that Afghans don't speak Arabic. "We only have a certain number of them and if they are all in Iraq, then its harder for us to use them in Afghanistan," Obama said.

In a speech on Memorial Day Obama said this:

"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong."

Which of course led to rightwing blogs with headlines like, "Obama sees dead people."

Speaking in Oregon a few weeks ago Obama said: "I've now been to 57 states." Which prompted a new flag pin he could wear.

Now he has said this:

Obama also spoke about his uncle, who was part of the American brigade that helped to liberate Auschwitz. He said the family legend is that, upon returning from war, his uncle spent six months in an attic. “Now obviously, something had really affected him deeply, but at that time there just weren’t the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain,” Obama said. “That’s why this idea of making sure that every single veteran, when they are discharged, are screened for post-traumatic stress disorder and given the mental health services that they need – that’s why it’s so important.”

Auschwitz, of course, is in Poland. It was liberated by the Soviets on January 27, 1945, not by Americans. Obama's uncle was either part of the Red Army or he was told a story that he didn't think through.

Look, all Presidential candidates make gaffes and misspeak. This is why I never blogged on Obama's mistakes. Presidential campaigns are brutal and any normal person would make mistakes like this. But we all know that if McCain has made these same mistakes the pundits on TV would be frowning and asking America if McCain's "senior moments" would hurt his ability to lead.

The problem is how the media (not the bloggers) react to these mishaps when they happen to Republicans. As Jim Geraghty points out:

Dan Quayle gets defined by one foolish moment where his misspells "potato," and George W. Bush is forever mocked as a dunce for his (admittedly classic) "Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."

If the MSM would either A) be more forgiving of Republican officials who they don't like or B) be a little tougher on Democratic officials they do like, the world would be a better place. In this case, I don't think Barack Obama is deliberately lying, or trying to pull a fast one. It sounds like a family "legend" in which the specific horrors of war witnessed by his uncle are mistaken as the years go by. It happens, and Obama only deserves the lightest of metaphorical slaps on the wrist for it. But it would help if his fans in the press actually paid attention to what he says.

Even Hillary's sniper story didn't bother me because all politicans polish and embellish stories all the time. But we all know that the only reason Hillary got the same treatment by the media usually reserved for Republicans is because she is the Democrat who has the gall to not bow out gracefully to Obama, the media's love child.

I don't mind if the media gives Obama a pass on mistakes and gaffes, as long as they show the same courtesy to McCain.

Let the bloggers, on the left and right, have fun with them, but the MSM needs to be fair. Period.

McCain to Obama:

"Let's take a trip together."

That would be interesting. McCain wants Obama to visit Iraq with him since Obama hasn't been there since 2006 and so much has progressed since then:

"I go back every few months because things are changing in Iraq," he said. McCain questioned whether Obama has ever been briefed by Petraeus. "I would also seize that opportunity to educate Senator Obama along the way."

Obama will never go because things are looking much better in Iraq. That news is slowly leaking out. Obama can't possibly change his position now.

I'm back

I hope everyone had a lovely Memorial Day weekend. We caught a lot fish. I will put up some pics when I get to it.

Let's start off with this article that describes the different ways the right and left deal with bad news or deaths of conservatives vs. liberals.

I know that on the net you can find vile comments everywhere, but the Ted Kennedy story had me looking closely at the blogs I read and the comments about him. I am happy to report that the comments were almost all wishing him well. When someone on the right has this kind of news that is as famous for being conservative as Kennedy is for being liberal, you never get well wishes, I can promise you that.

Take a look.

h/t BigDog

GONE FISHING

I will be salt water fishing this weekend. I haven't fished since I was a kid, but we have a guide so maybe I will actually catch something. I promise to take pictures if I do!

Let's celebrate good news

This may be hard for some of you who read my blog (and you know who you are) but some people are seeing *whisper* victory in Iraq. Don't say it too loud now. The mainstream media might hear. (emphasis mine)

Mileposts: As President Bush's term winds down, signs are there that the war on terror is being won. The conflict in Iraq is ebbing, and worldwide terror attacks are down. When will someone call it what it is? VICTORY.

..........

Back from the front, Gen. David Petraeus called on Congress Thursday to begin considering a drawdown of U.S. troops after five years of war. Violence in Iraq has plunged to its lowest levels since 2004, and al-Qaida is a tattered shadow of its formerself — key leaders dead, successors weak and recruiting down.
......

This is no Saigon-style exit, but a coming victorious end of a long conflict. U.S. forces have pounded al-Qaida into irrelevance.

Using highly disciplined Special Forces strikes, advanced intelligence and communications, and local allies in the right places, 155,000 U.S. troops have been crushing a vicious enemy motivated by no rational forces in a war with no precedent.

They are winning against all odds, overcoming not just terrorists, but other obstacles such as a lumbering Pentagon bureaucracy and weak-kneed Western intelligentsia whose media toadies trump every military error and harp on every isolated bad deed.

The good news doesn't stop there: (emphasis mine)

Worldwide terror attacks have fallen off 40% since 2001, according to a study by Canada's Human Security Report Project, and support for al-Qaida in the Arab world has collapsed. The study found terror attacks had been overcounted because Iraq War atrocities distorted the figures. Security gains elsewhere included even sub-Saharan Africa, where the improvement was called "extraordinary."

On this Memorial Day weekend, this is very good news indeed. Don't fight the feeling, even if you disagreed with this war. Be happy for this, ok?

God bless the men and women in uniform. We are grateful for your service and your sacrifice. You rock.

*note: I'll be out of town this weekend, so if you don't see your comments, be patient! (and try to be nice too!)

h/t BigDog

You gotta love Peggy Noonan

Hillary is such a whiney baby. Butch up and follow in the footsteps of the great women leaders that came before you.

Obama: "Barack means the one who's blessed"

Please.

Obama spoke in front of a Jewish audience in Florida on Friday. Here in part:

"My father was from Kenya and Barack actually interestingly enough means the same as Baruch. It means one who's blessed. And the reason-the reason that that's interesting is that it's the same Semitic root.

......

And it's true they called me Barry when I was young, but as I got older, I thought it was important to acknowledge this other side of my heritage and so I was called Barack,"… "You've had a prime minister named Barack in Israel. It should be pretty familiar to this audience."

He added, "Some of my best friends are Jews."

Ok, not exactly, but pretty much:

He also ticked off a few names of friends and advisors who are known to be pro-Israel. "I have to be very cautious about this, because you know, you remember the old stereotype about somebody says, 'well I'm not prejudice, some of my best friends are Jewish.' Right? Or, 'I'm not prejudice, some of my best friends are black.' So I hesitate to start listing them out," he said. But since the man asked…

He also added this tidbit in his answer to a question about his being committed to Israel:

Obama said part of his job as an elected official was to listen to different perspectives - even if he does not agree with them. "We gotta be careful about guilt by association," he warned.

Oh yeah. I'll just bet you want that.

via HotAir

Obama is in way over his head

As the latest spat between him and McCain clearly shows. Obama dares to chastise McCain on the GI funding bill (never mentioning that McCain has his own version). McCain responds:

"It is typical, but no less offensive that Sen. Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of," McCain said in the statement. "Let me say first in response to Sen. Obama, running for president is different than serving as president. The office comes with responsibilities so serious that the occupant can't always take the politically easy route without hurting the country he is sworn to defend. Unlike Sen. Obama, my admiration, respect and deep gratitude for America's veterans is something more than a convenient campaign pledge. I think I have earned the right to make that claim."

Read the whole statement here. Here is how it ends it:

"Perhaps, if Senator Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully. But, as he always does, he prefers impugning the motives of his opponent, and exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions. If that is how he would behave as President, the country would regret his election."

It does my heart good to see that McCain is not afraid to challenge the oh most high Obama. Not that I ever expected anything less from McCain.

Laura and Jenna Bush

Did you see them on Jay Leno last night? Jenna is simply down to earth and adorable. You can clearly see that that mother and daughter have a wonderful relationship. And when Jenna talked about her father you could tell that Jenna adored him.

If you judge a man by the people who love him, George Bush is one of the most blessed men on earth.

McCain's VP pick

Let me put this as bluntly as I can.

Crist, Romney, and Jindal.....YES.

Tom Ridge......NO.

Ding Dong, The Witch Ain't Dead...

WASHINGTON – In case there was any confusion, Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff this morning made very clear her path to the Democratic nomination.

She is taking it to the convention. No doubt.

From NRO:

"We're Just Not Even Going To Entertain The Possibility Of Anything Other Than That." Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson, a few moments ago, emphasizing his faith that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination.

I have such mixed feelings about this! I mean, I want Obama to win the nomination because I think he will be easier to beat in the general, but to see Hillary snatch victory from the jaws of defeat would be political theatre that would not be repeated in my lifetime!!!!!!!!!!!!

And just imagine the Obamamanics EXPLODING!

Even better? The Obamamessiah losing it. You don't think that would happen? He is too calm, too serene, you say?

Not so fast.

When Obama was an Illinois State Senator he had a disagreement with another State Senator, Rickey Hendon. You can read the reasons here, but the interesting part of the story is here:

Soon, the two men were shouting at each other on the senate floor. They took their disagreement into a nearby room, and a witness said that Obama had to be physically restrained.

And they say McCain has temper issues! (This is confirmed by Hendon btw)

So we know that the Buddah like serenity of Obama can be broken. I'm thinking Hillary snatching this nomination from under his nose might just do that.

Heh.

Stop The Spending!

I think the biggest disappointment conservatives have with Republicans is the out of control spending they have allowed on their watch. It is beyond frustrating because where are we going to go? The Democrats are like Paris Hilton on a spending spree with our money. I think the Republicans thought it looked like fun to shop as well. Well, enough is enough!

Paul Ryan, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin, is a member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. Here is his scary assessment:

According to the Congressional Budget Office, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the rest of government will consume nearly 40% of the economy by the time my three young children reach my age (38). This will require more than doubling the average tax burden of the past 40 years just to keep the government afloat. Continuing down this path will eventually strangle our economy.

Read here his roadmap (real plan!) to stop this growing debt.

h/t BigDog

Sometimes they actually say what they think

Washington, D.C. — Republican presidential candidate John McCain's family background as the son and grandson of admirals has given him a worldview shaped by the military, "and he has a hard time thinking beyond that," Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., said Friday."I think he's trapped in that," Harkin said in a conference call with Iowa reporters. "Everything is looked at from his life experiences, from always having been in the military, and I think that can be pretty dangerous."

Dangerous? You know what's dangerous? Congressmen who think that having been in the military colors your thinking in such a way that it's "dangerous."

Good grief. According to this list, 31 of our Presidents served in the military. 11 did not.

h/t BigDog

Remember the 75,000 that showed up for Obama?

Maybe not just for him.

There is always more to the story isn't there?

Not that the MSM will tell you though.

McCain on how wrong Obama really is

The entire statement is here. But I like to focus on the really good parts:

“Senator Obama has consistently offered his judgment on Iraq, and he has been consistently wrong. He said that General Petraeus’ new strategy would not reduce sectarian violence, but would worsen it. He was wrong. He said the dynamics in Iraq would not change as a result of the ’surge.’ He was wrong. One year ago, he voted to cut off all funds for our forces fighting extremists in Iraq. He was wrong. Sectarian violence has been dramatically reduced, Sunnis in Anbar province and throughout Iraq are cooperating in fighting al Qaeda in Iraq, and Shi’ite extremist militias no longer control Basra — the Maliki government and its forces do. British and Iraqi forces now move freely in areas that were controlled by Iranian-backed militias. The fight against al Qaeda in Mosul is succeeding in further weakening that deadly terrorist group, and many key leaders have been killed or captured.

......

We continue to face challenges in Iraq, and we have a lot of work ahead. Yet the American people must ask whether we are more or less likely to succeed there if Senator Obama has his way. Each of these positive developments in Iraq is the direct result of the new strategy that Senator Obama opposed. Senator Obama consistently predicted the new strategy would fail, and at every step events have demonstrated his judgment was consistently wrong.

What happened to the Democratic party?

I've asked myself that question many times.

Joe Lieberman wonders as well:

Beginning in the 1940s, the Democratic Party was forced to confront two of the most dangerous enemies our nation has ever faced: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In response, Democrats under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy forged and conducted a foreign policy that was principled, internationalist, strong and successful.

This was the Democratic Party that I grew up in – a party that was unhesitatingly and proudly pro-American, a party that was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders. It was a party that understood that either the American people stood united with free nations and freedom fighters against the forces of totalitarianism, or that we would fall divided.
.........

And this was the Democratic Party of John F. Kennedy, who promised in his inaugural address that the United States would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of freedom."

This worldview began to come apart in the late 1960s, around the war in Vietnam. In its place, a very different view of the world took root in the Democratic Party. Rather than seeing the Cold War as an ideological contest between the free nations of the West and the repressive regimes of the communist world, this rival political philosophy saw America as the aggressor – a morally bankrupt, imperialist power whose militarism and "inordinate fear of communism" represented the real threat to world peace.

........

The reversal began, like so much else in our time, on September 11, 2001. The attack on America by Islamist terrorists shook President Bush from the foreign policy course he was on. He saw September 11 for what it was: a direct ideological and military attack on us and our way of life. If the Democratic Party had stayed where it was in 2000, America could have confronted the terrorists with unity and strength in the years after 9/11.

.......

When total victory did not come quickly in Iraq, the old voices of partisanship and peace at any price saw an opportunity to reassert themselves. By considering centrism to be collaboration with the enemy – not bin Laden, but Mr. Bush – activists have successfully pulled the Democratic Party further to the left than it has been at any point in the last 20 years.

........

John also understands something else that too many Democrats seem to have become confused about lately – the difference between America's friends and America's enemies.

There are of course times when it makes sense to engage in tough diplomacy with hostile governments. Yet what Mr. Obama has proposed is not selective engagement, but a blanket policy of meeting personally as president, without preconditions, in his first year in office, with the leaders of the most vicious, anti-American regimes on the planet.

Mr. Obama has said that in proposing this, he is following in the footsteps of Reagan and JFK. But Kennedy never met with Castro, and Reagan never met with Khomeini. And can anyone imagine Presidents Kennedy or Reagan sitting down unconditionally with Ahmadinejad or Chavez? I certainly cannot.

If a president ever embraced our worst enemies in this way, he would strengthen them and undermine our most steadfast allies.

A great Democratic secretary of state, Dean Acheson, once warned "no people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies." This is a lesson that today's Democratic Party leaders need to relearn.

I have many Democrat commenters at my Houston Chronicle blog and I am amazed almost daily by their animosity towards the United States. I am stunned by their refusal to see what the war on terror really means. To say that we have opposing worldview would be an understatement. If I write a pro-United States or a pro-military peace they immediately pile on. It's terribly sad to me, but I left the Democratic party long ago. I can only imagine how Lieberman feels.

h/t BigDog (again!)

A Staunch Democrat Defends Bush

And I couldn't have said it better myself. It's Ed Koch and here are just a few of the good parts:

Recently, President Bush went to Israel to celebrate its 60th birthday as a nation and addressed its parliament, the Knesset. He said, "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have an obligation to call this what it is: the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
Bush's remarks were heavily criticized by leading Democrats, particularly Barack Obama, who said, "Now that's exactly the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and that alienates us from the world."
Really? Is it wrong to call the philosophy supporting negotiating at the highest levels - President to President without pre-conditions -- with the terrorists and radicals by its rightful name - appeasement?

........

The reason I believe history will redeem President George W. Bush is that he is one of the few leaders on the planet today who understands the larger picture. He has not lost his courage and vision of the future. He knows what calamities await the world if it engages in appeasement and deserts an ally in order to buy an illusory peace. We will recognize his worth long after he is gone.

This is why Bush sleeps well at night and doesn't show the weariness of his task. He never cared what people thought of him personally. He always acted graciously to even his enemies. All he cared about was keeping the American people safe and defeating the enemy. This is not to say he didn't make mistakes. He is human, after all. But he never backed down on the fight that he saw as right and necessary. He never took opinion polls. He knew that sometimes doing the right thing wasn't the popular thing.

h/t BigDog

Hillary still isn't going anywhere

From her speech last night in Kentucky:

Now, I'm told that more people have voted for me than for anyone who has ever run for the Democratic nomination. That is more than 17 million votes.

..........

Neither Senator Obama nor I have won the 2210 delegates required to secure the nomination. And because this race is so close, still separated by less than 200 delegates out of more than 4,400, neither Senator Obama nor I will have reached that magic number when the voting ends on June the 3rd.

So, our party will have a tough choice to make. Who is ready to lead our party at the top of our ticket? Who is ready to defeat Senator McCain in the swing states and among swing voters? Who is ready to rebuild the economy and the war in Iraq and protect our national security as Commander-in-Chief? Who is ready on Day One to lead?

This is basically her case, along with counting Florida and Michigan. She will claim the popular vote and hope/plan on Obama continuing to make gaffes. I think she honestly believes what she is saying. She is determined to convince superdelegates that the right thing would be to support her.

What in the world is going on in Iraq??

Anybody know? Ralph Peters gives the mainstream media a smackdown. Oh, how they loved declaring any setback or any violence in Iraq, but it's all been so quiet on the news front now. I can't imagine why?? Ralph Peters gives us an idea:

DO we still have troops in Iraq? Is there still a conflict over there?
If you rely on the so-called mainstream media, you may have difficulty answering those questions these days. As Iraqi and Coalition forces pile up one success after another, Iraq has magically vanished from the headlines.
Want a real "inconvenient truth?" Progress in Iraq is powerful and accelerating.

But that fact isn't helpful to elite media commissars and cadres determined to decide the presidential race over our heads. How dare our troops win? Even worse, Iraqi troops are winning. Daily.
...
Today, Iraqi soldiers, not militia thugs, patrol the lanes of Sadr City, where waste has replaced roadside bombs as the greatest danger to careless footsteps. US advisers and troops support the effort, but Iraq's government has taken another giant step forward in establishing law and order.
My fellow Americans, have you read or seen a single interview with any of the millions of Iraqis in Sadr City or Basra who are thrilled that the gangster militias are gone from their neighborhoods?
Didn't think so. The basic mission of the American media between now and November is to convince you, the voter, that Iraq's still a hopeless mess.
...
Developments just keep getting grimmer for the MoveOn.org fan base in the media. Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who had supported al Qaeda and homegrown insurgents, now support their government and welcome US troops. And, in southern Iraq, the Iranians lost their bid for control to Iraq's government.

Bury those stories on Page 36.

Our troops deserve better. The Iraqis deserve better. You deserve better. The forces of freedom are winning.

Here in the Land of the Free, of course, freedom of the press means the freedom to boycott good news from Iraq. But the truth does have a way of coming out.

The surge worked. Incontestably. Iraqis grew disenchanted with extremism. Our military performed magnificently. More and more Iraqis have stepped up to fight for their own country. The Iraqi economy's taking off. And, for all its faults, the Iraqi legislature has accomplished far more than our own lobbyist-run Congress over the last 18 months.

When Iraq seemed destined to become a huge American embarrassment, our media couldn't get enough of it. Now that Iraq looks like a success in the making, there's a virtual news blackout.

via Ace

Related. White House counselor Ed Gillespie sends a scorching letter to NBC. In part:

As long as I am making this formal request, please allow me to take this opportunity to ask if your network has reconsidered its position that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war, especially in light of the fact that the unity government in Baghdad recently rooted out illegal, extremist groups in Basra and reclaimed the port there for the people of Iraq, among other significant signs of progress.

On November 27, 2006, NBC News made a decision to no longer just cover the news in Iraq, but to make an analytical and editorial judgment that Iraq was in a civil war. As you know, both the United States government and the Government of Iraq disputed your account at that time. As Matt Lauer said that morning on The Today Show: "We should mention, we didn't just wake up on a Monday morning and say, 'Let's call this a civil war.' This took careful deliberation.'"

I noticed that around September of 2007, your network quietly stopped referring to conditions in Iraq as a "civil war." Is it still NBC News's carefully deliberated opinion that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war? If not, will the network publicly declare that the civil war has ended, or that it was wrong to declare it in the first place?

Can't wait for the answer.

I would hope that the media wouldn't hide the truth about the war just because it's an election year and the news is good. Nah. Never.

via NRO

You gotta love it....

...when identity politics comes back and bites the Democrats in the butt.

Best Wishes to Ted Kennedy

I didn't comment on this when he went into the hospital because I always find it ridiculous to go on and on about a prominent figure just because they go to the hospital. You never know if it's just minor or serious. If you were watching the news shows you would have thought he had died that day the way they were interviewing everyone who knew him and commenting on his life. I found it morbid.

Now that we know he has a malignant brain tumor, it seems appropriate for the news to comment it on it a bit more.

This family has suffered a great deal. All of their tragedies on display for the world to see. It is sadly the price of their political celebrity. I pray for strength for him and his family as he fights what may be his last battle.

Who says one blogger can't make a difference?

I'm proud to say that the woman in this NYT article is a member of The Cotillion and an online friend. Jane updates us by e-mail regularly about all things Yemeni. She is especially passionate about Abdul Karim al-Khaiwani, a Yemeni journalist who is on trial for sedition charges that could bring the death penalty. To you and me she may be just a stay at home Mom, but to the Yemeni govt she is much more:

And yet Ms. Novak has become so well known in Yemen that newspaper editors say they sell more copies if her photograph — blond and smiling — is on the cover. Her blog, an outspoken news bulletin on Yemeni affairs, is banned there. The government’s allies routinely vilify her in print as an American agent, a Shiite monarchist, a member of Al Qaeda, or “the Zionist Novak.”

Go Jane.

Go visit Armies of Liberation and sign her petition!

Democrats are like rock stars

At least by the standards of their picky requests at the convention.

As a reader at NRO suggests, Mrs. McCain would do well to distribute some of that Bud Light on our convention floor and let's see who best represents America, wheat juice drinkers or beer drinkers? Heh.

h/t BigDog

Obama has it wrong

As usual Victor Davis Hanson has it right on every score regarding Obama's world view. From talking to Iran to driving our SUV's, Obama gets it wrong every time. But Hanson really hits the nail on the head when it comes to Iraq:

He needs to update his doom and gloom on Iraq, in which, as the Mosul operation suggests, the final missing pieces — the Shiite-dominated constitutional government turning on Iranian-back Shiite militias, as Sunnis rejoin government and continue to rout al Qaeda — are falling into place. Iraqis are taking more and more responsibility for their future, violence is down, our own recruitments are up, our military is beginning to promote the mavericks, and we are close to having done the impossible of securing a constitutional state in a primordial region. All that for now is the best shot we have in tempering Iran's agenda, as a democratic Iraq can become as subversive to theocratic Iran as its militias are to Iraq.

The Craziness Continues

Don't count her out yet:

Mrs. Clinton has sounded almost like a professor of political science on the trail, explaining how the popular vote should be calculated by her lights, as she did before an audience in Kentucky on Monday.

“I believe that with your help we will send a message to this country because right now more people have voted for me than have voted for my opponent,” she said. “More people have voted for me than for anybody ever running for president before. So we have a very close contest for votes, for delegates, and this is nowhere near over. None of us is going to have the number of delegates we’re going to need to get to the nomination, although I understand my opponent and his supporters are going to claim that.

“The fact is we have to include Michigan and Florida — we cannot claim that we have a nominee based on 48 states, particularly two states that are so important for us to win in the fall,” Mrs. Clinton said.

If all states with popular vote totals are counted — which would exclude four caucus states that have not released numbers — Mrs. Clinton would lead Mr. Obama by more than 26,000 votes out of more than 33 million cast. By other calculations, Mr. Obama is ahead in the popular vote.

Seriously, I have never seen anything like this. You are going to have to pry this nomination from Hillary's cold dead hands. So to speak.

Sen. Robert Byrd endorses Obama

One has to appreciate the extreme irony of this.

The Betrayal of Vipers

The betrayal of Hillary by the NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) must have been especially painful to the Clintons. Abortion rights groups are probably the only constituency that the Clintons never let down in their eight years in the White House.

So why did they do it?

One reason that the national board of NARAL, the pro-abortion lobbying organization, endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, and encouraged its state membership to do the same, was a series of behind the scenes conversations between the Obama campaign and NARAL.

"The message was, get on board or risk losing influence," says an Obama strategist. "We needed one of these [feminist or pro-abortion] groups to step up and walk away from Hillary. NARAL did it, and to its credit under great danger to its credibility with its membership."

Why would such a hardcore feminist group turn their back on a woman running for President that had always supported them? Because they could count on Obama being a bit more radical:

Obama advisers suggested that Obama was more likely to put in place key feminist and pro-abortion activists than Clinton. "The name that kept popping up was [San Francisco District Attorney] Kamala Harris. The campaign promised she'd become increasingly higher profile with Obama, and the women's groups love her," says another Obama strategist.Harris is viewed as one of the most radical local elective office holders in the country, a district attorney who has refused to seek the death penalty even against cop-killers, and who has won high praise from the homosexual and pro-abortion lobbies that have strong bases in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Obama keeps telling us who is really is. Is anyone listening?

One can't help but feel sorry for Hillary. It seems her whole life has been framed by betrayal.

McCain on SNL

Y'all know how I hate these appearances, but there it is.

Coming to Hillary's defense

Shorter video: If you are female, shame on you if vote for Obama.

Far be it from me to defend Hillary Clinton in any way or to defend modern feminism, But I have to admit that Hillary has been treated in a very sexist manner by the press during this election. Now, maybe that has to do with a general dislike for Hillary, but it doesn't excuse it. No one disagrees with Hillary on just about everything more than I do, but I have not only felt sorry for her during this primary season, but I have felt offended on her behalf at times. Just in the comments sections at places like First Read at MSNBC I have been appalled at how sexist the Democrats for Obama have been.

No one will be happier than I will be when this process is finished and Hillary is NOT the nominee. But the reasons should always have been because of her past actions, not her gender.

via Ace

Don't appease terrorists

Yeah, I'm talking to you and you know who you are.

Well, at least Obama knew who.

President Bush said this:

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

And Obama and various other Democrats took great umbrage at that. It must have made them wince when the White House came out and said that President Bush was not talking about Obama at all.

So what is wrong with the idea of sitting down with the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

This is what is wrong with it:

President Reagan talked with the Soviets while pushing ahead with the deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe. He spoke softly – after getting himself a bigger stick. Sen. Obama is proposing to reward a man who pledges to wipe Israel off the map with a presidential photo-op to which he will bring not even a twig. No wonder he's so twitchy about it.

h/t BigDog

The Media's Crush on Obama

A TimesOnline writer from across the pond marvels at how our media has throughout the years anointed some politican as a great savior from all out troubles. He notes John and Robert Kennedy, Carter and then Clinton, and of course now, Obama.

But something has always been missing in the adorations of the press. What is that? A Republican, of course.

The alert among you will have noticed by now that what all these spiritually uplifting leaders have in common. They are all Democrats. Never in any of the chapters of this hagiography does a Republican, a conservative, appear in a remotely similar light. These alien creatures by contrast have always been portrayed as cartoonish representatives of the Dark Side of humanity, or, if they were really lucky, simply idiots, failed B-movie actors and irredeemably ignorant hicks with embarrassingly neanderthal views on women, religion and communism.

So the media has found their shining light once again:

It's been a while coming - neither Al Gore in 2000 (before the luminescence created by his recent joint Nobel/Oscar triumphs) nor John Kerry in 2004 quite fit the bill. But it's fairly clear now that, with the near-certain nomination by the Democrats of Barack Obama everything is in place for the media to indulge in one of the greatest, orgiastic media fiestas of hero-worship since Elvis Presley.

You will not see a finer example of the genre than the cover story of this week's Newsweek, which was entitled “The O Team”.

........

Mr Obama is portrayed throughout as an immanently benevolent figure. Not human really, more a comforting presence, a light source. He is always eager to listen to all aides of an argument, always instilling confidence in the weak-willed, resolutely sticking to his high principles and tirelessly spurning the low road of electoral politics. I stopped reading after a while but I'm sure by the end he was healing the sick, comforting the dying, restoring sight to the blind and setting prisoners free.

Heh.

McCain was the one Republican the media kind of liked, but now that he is up against the rainbow of light that is Obama, he will need to be "recast in the more familiar Republican mould of villain and scaremonger-in-chief."

As amusing (and true) this piece is in describing how our media portrays the ones they wish to be elected, it is a sad commentary on journalism in this country. It also explains the growing popularity of the "new media."

Obama is charasmatic, but the media is making him out to be a much bigger personality than it's possible to be.

Remember, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

h/t BigDog

Where can we get one of these???

Oh yeah.

The French President Nicolas Sarkozy has a son who seems to want to fall into his father's footsteps. As TimesOnline points out:

........they are falling under the spell of his son Jean, whose eye-catching initiatives in an affluent suburb of Paris have put him under the spotlight.
With his golden locks and dazzling smile, Jean Sarkozy looks like a film star - he happens to be a keen amateur actor - and has inherited his father’s political ambition. Now he is playing the leading role in a drama that they are calling “the rise of the dauphin”.

As tens of thousands of students and teachers took to the streets last week to protest at the president’s plans to cut teaching jobs and streamline the civil service, Jean, a town councillor in Neuilly, the affluent Parisian suburb in which he was born, staged his own piece of political theatre. It was designed to show that not all young people were against his father’s economic reforms.

He launched the first in a series of meetings called “jeudis jeunes” - “young Thursdays” - in a cafe where young conservatives were invited to question prominent government members and other celebrity guests.

“The idea is to show young people that you can get involved in politics,” said Jean, 21, referring to youths who did not feel attracted to the left. “It irritates me that when you are young it’s always easier to carry the banner of the left or the extreme left. But it is possible for young people to have other convictions.”

via Drudge