I really enjoyed this one…

Chester and Earl are going hunting.

Chester says to Earl, “I’ll send my dog Out to see if there are any ducks out in the pond. If there aren’t any Ducks out there, I’m not going hunting.”

So he sends the dog out to the pond. The dog comes back and barks twice.

Chester says, “Well I’m not going to go out. He saw only two ducks out There.”

Earl says, “You’re going to take the dog’s barks for the truth?”

Earl doesn’t believe it, so he goes to look for himself. When he gets back he says, “I don’t believe it! Where did you get that dog? There really are only two ducks out there!”

Chester says, “Well, I got him from the breeder up the road. If you want, You can get one from him, too.”

So Earl goes to the breeder and says he wants a dog like the one his friend Chester has.

The breeder obliges, and Earl brings the dog home, and tells it to go out And look for ducks.

Minutes later the dog returns with a stick in its mouth, shakes its head, and starts humping Earl’s leg.

Outraged, Earl takes the dog back to the breeder and says, “This dog is a fraud. I want my money back!”

The breeder asks Earl what the dog did. Earl tells him that when he sent the Dog out to look for ducks, it came back with a stick in its mouth and started humping his leg.

The breeder says, “Earl, he was trying to tell you that there are more F_ _ _ _ _ _ ducks out there than you can shake a stick at!”

H/T BJS

After President Ronald Reagan won the Cold War for us and the Soviet Union went Chapter 11, rather than let them fester in their resulting economic ruin (and these were people who for decades had been aiming nuclear missiles at us while spreading the antithesis of democracy around the world), we poured gazillions in U.S. taxpayers’ money into helping them get back on their feet, sans the communist bit.

Years later, along came Vladimir Putin’s regime. I say regime rather than administration because the man is cut more in the mold of a Soviet strongman than any kind of democratic leader.

Despite all the diplomatic triple speak and related drama, he is not any sort of friend of the U.S. Russia has gotten back on its feet, and obviously Putin figures he doesn’t need us anymore. He certainly hasn’t proven to be any kind of ally of America, and has opposed us on a number of issues at the U.N. He is a better friend of the Iranian government, an enemy of the U.S. and indeed an enemy of freedom, than he is of ours.

President Vladimir Putin cautioned Tuesday that Russia would increase the combat-readiness of its strategic nuclear forces to ensure a “swift and adequate response to any aggressor.”

Putin also said that Russia’s will be pulling out of a key arms control treaty, which he calls a necessary response to NATO “muscle-flexing” near its frontiers.

The statements, which come amid simmering tensions between Moscow and the West, reflect the Kremlin’s assertive posture less than two weeks before Russia’s Dec. 2 parliamentary elections.

So first he pretty much threatens us with nukes lest we attack his country, which makes little if any sense since he should know that we entertain no malevolence toward Russia, then he withdraws his country from the CFE Treaty.

His reason?

The missile defense plan we wish to implement in proximity to his sovereign bailiwick, the one that would have been a perpetual tragedy had it not been for our largesse (that means me & you — I don’t know if the dog named Boo has paid any taxes, so I’ll exclude him — and our hard-earned tax liability).

The 1990 CFE treaty, which originally set limits on weapons of NATO and Warsaw Pact countries, was revised in 1999. Russia says the old version has lost relevance since former Soviet satellites have joined NATO.

Russia ratified the updated treaty in 2004, but the United States and other NATO members have refused to follow suit, saying Moscow first must fulfill obligations to withdraw forces from Georgia and from Moldova’s separatist Trans-Dniester region.

As a counterproposal to the U.S. missile defense plans, Putin earlier this year offered the United States joint use of a Soviet-built, Russian-operated radar in Azerbaijan. Washington said it was studying the proposal, but U.S. officials said the radar couldn’t be considered as a replacement for the sites in Poland and the Czech Republic.

“Regrettably, Russian proposals about the creation of a joint missile defense system with equal access for all its participants have remained unanswered,” Putin said Tuesday.

Right, Vlad proposes that we intertwine our defense venues with aparatus owned and operated by his government and on his turf. That sounds like something Bill Clinton might have agreed to, as long as he had a permission slip from China.

Putin bears watching very closely, he might well be the originator of another Cold War, this one infinitely more dangerous than the last as there is now an Islamofascist third party in the equation of global political and security concerns, and there are elements of same in a few former Soviet republics.

If I were the DCI in the E. Howard Hunt era, I’d probably instruct my Deputy Director, Operations to “take him out, make it look like Chechen separatists did it.”

…but I just can’t help but post it.

FINALLY, SOMEONE HAS CLEARED THIS UP FOR ME

For centuries, Hindu women have worn a spot on their foreheads. We have always naively thought that it had something to do with their religion.

The true story has been revealed by the Indian Embassy in Washington, DC.

When a Hindu woman gets married, she brings a dowry into the Union.

On her wedding night, the husband scratches off the spot to see whether he has won a convenience store, a gas station, a doughnut shop or a motel in the United States.

If no prize is revealed, he must take a job in India answering telephones to give technical support or other customer service for an American corporation.

H/T Brenda

…not to raise taxes, why won’t they sign the pledge?

Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative taxpayer group, regularly asks Republican politicians to sign a pledge not to raise taxes. Three Republican presidential candidates have not signed the pledge, which one strategist said might hurt them during the primaries.

“I worked on Bob Dole’s campaign in 1988 and he didn’t sign and it killed his campaign in the final week,” David Johnson, a Republican strategist and president of Strategic Vision. “That’s how the first President Bush was able to turn around and win the New Hampshire primary.”

New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) have not signed the pledge.

Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and RINO McCain all have excuses for not signing, but to me, the bottom line is that if their hearts are pure on the matter of not raising taxes, they will sign the pledge.

The fact that they won’t sign on indicates that they have doubts, that they are leaving their options open rather than committing themselves to hard-copy promises that might come back to haunt them if they do agree to tax increases on their watch.

A track record is one thing, a stated intention still another, but signing an agreement with The American People, legally binding or not, is a much stronger declaration of intent than a few words spoken in a campaign speech or a debate, wherein a politician will more often than not promise whatever is necessary to get elected, the operative theory being that once they’re in office they can worry about any verbal obligations acquired on the campaign trail: Especially when the office in question is the most powerful political position on earth.

“They are kind of caught in a Catch-22,” Johnson said. “They know that this is a way to win the New Hampshire primary, but they don’t want to go on record saying they will never raise taxes and then, if they’re nominated and elected, have to go back on that pledge and have it used against them like the first President Bush did with his famous ‘no new taxes.’”

“I think it’s going to hurt these candidates in New Hampshire,” said Johnson. “New Hampshire is a very anti-tax state.”

“Voters, traditionally when the economy is bad, go for candidates who promise not to raise taxes and who promise to lower taxes,” he said, noting that by refusing to sign the pledge, the three candidates are creating a situation that could play well for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

I suppose that we shall see what we shall see….

…I was kind of tied up yesterday and so, since key aspects of the below described affair have been sources of outrage to me, both as an advocate of justice and an American, since two dedicated Border Patrol agents were railroaded into prison by a scumbag in Federal Prosecutor’s clothing.

The allegasd {Seth’s note: Obvious misprint, mispelling or typo of “alleged” — disgraceful editing} Mexican drug smuggler shot by Border Patrol agents as he tried to dodge arrest in 2005 will appear in federal court in El Paso, Texas, on Friday afternoon.

Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, 27, was arrested Thursday on a drug smuggling offense at a U.S. port of entry. A federal grand jury handed down a sealed indictment on Oct. 17.

Aldrete was granted immunity in 2005 in exchange for testifying against ex-border agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.

The two Border Patrol agents were sentenced to 11 and 12 years, respectively, for shooting Aldrete as he tried to sneak about million dollars’ worth of marijuana into the country. He was shot in the buttocks while running toward the Mexican border.

Right, the mutt was granted immunity by a legal representative of the United States Government, whom, unless he was on the payroll of a Mexican drug cartel, profoundly stupid or peaking on pure L.S.D. (actually, to be fair, I believe Sutton was kissing up to The Boss, who is paradoxically pro-homeland security and pro-an open border with Mexico at the same time), knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that he was calling to the witness stand a career criminal whose resume included felonies in at least two countries, including the U.S., to testify against and decimate the careers and futures of these two agents, Ramos and Compean, destroying their families at the same time.

I seem to recall, however, that while the testimony of felons (other than those willing to convict themselves — often with immunity to prosecution though more often a reduced sentence) as an incentive to testify against their own organizations or comrades is considered admissible, the same does not apply to those of questionable background in other circumstances.

I mean, giving official creedence to a drug smuggler who is testifying against a couple of people whose job is to catch and arrest them is beyond the absurd.

Aldrete now faces two counts of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance, one count of conspiracy to import a controlled substance and one count of conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute.

The alleged offenses happened between June 1, 2005 and Nov. 30, 2005, which is when the government gave Aldrete a pass to enter and exit the country unsupervised, primarily to get medical treatment for his bullet wound.

Aldrete and his co-defendant, Cipriano Ortiz Hernandez, conspired to import and distribute more than 100 kilograms of marijuana on Sept. 24, 2005, and again on Oct. 22 and 23 that same year, according to the charges. (The second alleged offense happened after Aldrete was granted immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony against the agents.)

I don’t know how anybody else feels about this (though I have a good idea where the sane are concerned), but this whole Aldrete immunity thing, to my way of thinking, makes the DOJ look pretty foolish. They grant immunity to a Mexican drug trafficker in exchange for his testimony crucifying American law enforcement agents and he uses the immunity as an opportunity to smuggle more drugs.

Sutton also is prosecuting the Aldrete case. He has been blasted by advocates of the border agents for not bringing charges against Aldrete sooner.

“I have repeatedly said that if we obtained sufficient competent and admissible evidence against Aldrete, we could prosecute him,” Sutton said in a statement. “Members of my office have worked closely with agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration for many months to investigate Aldrete’s alleged involvement in drug trafficking.”

At a Senate hearing this summer on the border agents case, Sutton was non-committal in answering questions about the October drug offense by Aldrete. Some senators pressed Sutton to explain why Aldrete was allowed to enter and leave the country in the run-up to the border agents’ trial.

Advocates of the border agents also have complained that the Aldrete’s alleged October drug smuggling did not come up at the trial of Ramos and Compean.

So Sutton is reneging on his deal with Aldrete, if not in a letter-of-the-law manner, in a “sorry, pal, but you’re cooked… My career is more important than honoring any agreements I make with criminals.”

What a sleazeball this guy is! He sells out both sides in order to further his own career. This is as contemptible an excuse for a…

At any rate, the entire article is here.

There has been no excuse for GWB not pardoning Ramos and Compean without reservation.

Truth to tell and actually a repetition of what I expressed among my earlier posts on this situation, I actually believe that a mere pardon wouldn’t be anywhere near enough.

1. The two agents should be pardoned and reinstated, with all accumulated and earned seniority, to their jobs, and receive all retroactive pay.

2. They should be compensated by the gov’t for all their legal fees and,

3. They and their families should be restored, via full taxpayer expense, to the exact same situation (homeowners with X mortgage debts, etc) that they were in prior to the screwing they received from their own government, the one they served.

What these two guys are being screwed for, coming right down to it, is thinking on their feet.

When a bunch of bureaucrats who’ve never been in danger are empowered to make the rules for those who work in danger, this is what we get.

Fun example: Over 30 years ago, in the early stages of my security career, I worked undercover on the wharves in New Orleans (not that it’s applicable, but my CW was a Colt Python). This was not the same kind of post as the lobby of an office building or whatever, it was a perpetually violent situation. Whenever the job got exciting, both the New Orleans Harbor Police and U.S. Customs were also involved.

As a UC, I held supervisory authority over our uniforms on the wharves, and as such had to deal with management contact.

At one such meeting, I was actually told by a company founder/owner, concerned about liability, that the new policy was that should anyone pull a weapon on me, I should “shoot it out of his hand”.

After I was done laughing, I said, “I have a better idea. How ’bout if I call time out, call you and have you come down and shoot the gun out of the guy’s hand!?”

My point here is that when you hire and train people to protect you, you need to allow them to handle situations as they see fit…you know, think for themselves, as they’re there and you’re not, and you have to back them up.

If I were a U.S. Border Patrol agent, knowing that the Bush Administration condones prosecuting agents for doing their jobs, I would quit. There are too many other ways to serve our country without being punished for doing what we were told we were hired for.

…”catching up” posts.

First, there’s an excellent column by Caroline Glick on the ongoing western policy of appeasement in the face of what I personally prefer to term aggressive Islam.

MUSLIM MINORITIES throughout the world are being financed and ideologically trained in Saudi and UAE funded mosques and Islamic centers. These minorities act in strikingly similar manners in the countries where they are situated throughout the world. On the one hand, their local political leaders demand extraordinary communal rights, rights accorded neither to the national majority nor to other minority populations. On the other hand, Muslim neighborhoods, particularly in Europe, but also in Israel, the Philippines and Australia, are rendered increasingly ungovernable as arms of the state like the police and tax authorities come under attack when they attempt to assert state power in these Muslim communities.

Logic would have it that targeted states would respond to the threat to their authority through a dual strategy. On the one hand, they would firmly assert their authority by enforcing their laws against both individual lawbreakers and against subversive, foreign financed institutions that incite the overthrow of their governments and their replacement with Islamic governments. On the other hand, they would seek out and empower local Muslims who accept the authority and legitimacy of their states and their rule of law.

Unfortunately, with the notable exception of the Howard government in Australia, in country after country, governments respond to this challenge by attempting to appease Muslim irredentists and their state sponsors. The British responded to the July 7, 2005 bombings by giving representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood an official role in crafting and carrying out counter-terror policies.

In 2003, then French president Jacques Chirac sent then interior minister Nicholas Sarkozy to Egypt to seek the permission of Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi of the Islamist al-Azhar mosque for the French parliament’s plan to outlaw hijabs in French schools.

In the US, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the FBI asked the terror-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations to conduct sensitivity training for FBI agents.

In Holland last year, the Dutch government effectively expelled anti-Islamist politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the interest of currying favor with Holland’s restive Muslim minority.

At the minimum, I would say that sanity does not seem to prevail here; They are in the minority in all these countries, yet their demands are complied with post-haste, even to the point of exceeding accommodations accorded the majority in a respective host population.

This acquiescence is not restricted to laws of a social nature, on the contrary it has found its way into global politics.

THE FOREIGN policy aspect of the rush to appease is twofold. First, targeted states refuse to support one another when individual governments attempt to use the tools of law enforcement to handle their domestic jihad threat. For instance, European states have harshly criticized the US Patriot Act while the US criticized the French decision to prohibit the hijab in public schools.

More acutely, targeted states lead the charge in calling for the establishment of Muslim-only states. Today the US and the EU are leading the charge towards the establishment of a Palestinian state and the creation of an independent state of Kosovo.

In two weeks, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will host the Annapolis conference where together with her European and Arab counterparts, she will exert enormous pressure on the Olmert government to agree to the establishment of a jihadist Palestinian state in Israel’s heartland with its capital in Jerusalem and its sovereignty extending over Judaism’s most sacred site, the Temple Mount.

The establishment of the sought-for Palestinian state presupposes the ethnic cleansing of at a minimum 80,000 Israelis from their homes and communities simply because they are Jews. Jews of course will be prohibited from living in Palestine.

To continue,

FOR ITS part, the Palestinian leadership to which Israel will be expected to communicate its acceptance of the establishment of Palestine, is one part criminal, and two parts jihadist. As Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his colleagues have made clear, while they are willing to accept Israel’s concessions, they are not willing to accept Israel. This is why they refuse to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

A rare consensus exists today in Israel. From the far-left to the far-right, from IDF Military Intelligence to the Mossad, all agree that the Annapolis conference will fail to bring a peace accord. Since Rice’s approach to reaching just such an accord has been to apply unrelenting pressure on Israel, it is fairly clear that she will blame Israel for the conference’s preordained failure and cause a further deterioration in US-Israeli relations.

While Israel is supposed to accept a Jew-free Palestine, it goes without saying that its own 20 percent Arab minority will continue to enjoy the full rights of Israeli citizenship. Yet one of the direct consequences of the establishment of a Jew-free, pro-jihadist State of Palestine will be the further radicalization of Israeli Arabs. They will intensify their current rejection of Israel’s national identity.

With Palestinian and outside support, they will intensify their irredentist activities and so exert an even more devastating attack on Israel’s sovereignty and right to national self-determination.

“Ma zeh?” {Hebrew for “what’s this?”} you may ask. Well, one answer is that it’s lackluster diplomacy — you know, just like what an employer might expect from a lazy employee of the “sweep under a rug” persuasion. The politicians and diplomats on the western side of the equation want only to put the Israeli-”Palestinian” affair to bed once and for all, the consequences of any expediency be damned, and as a bonus, giving Israel the fid will also fulfill the requisites of The New Dhimmitude©.

SHORTLY AFTER the Annapolis conference fails, and no doubt in a bid to buck up its standing with the Arab world, the US may well stand by its stated intention to recognize the independence of Kosovo.

Yeah, well,

As Julia Gorin

(Julia is profoundly well informed on affairs in the Balkans, and the bulk of her columns specialize therein)

documented in a recent article here, in Jewish World Review, Kosovo’s connections with Albanian criminal syndicates and global jihadists are legion. Moreover, Kosovar independence would likely spur irredentist movements among the Muslim minorities in all Balkan states. In Macedonia for instance, a quarter of the population is Muslim. These irredentist movements in turn would increase Muslim irredentism throughout Europe just as Palestinian statehood will foment an intensification of the Islamization of Israel’s Arab minority.

The Kosovo government announced last month that given the diplomatic impasse, it plans to declare its independence next month. Currently, the Bush administration is signaling its willingness to recognize an independent Kosovo even though doing so will threaten US-Russian relations.

In a bid both to prevent the Bush administration from turning on Israel in the aftermath of the failure of the Annapolis conference and to make clear Israel’s own rejection of the notion that a “solution” to the Palestinian conflict with Israel can be imposed by foreign powers, the Olmert government should immediately and loudly restate its opposition to the imposition of Kosovar independence on Serbia.

In the interest of defending the nation-state system, on which American sovereignty and foreign policy is based, the US should reassess the logic of its support for the establishment of Muslim-only states. It should similarly revisit its refusal to openly support the right of non-Islamic states like Israel, Serbia and even France, to assert their rights to defend their sovereignty, national security and national character from outside-sponsored domestic Islamic subversion.

There’s a lot more happening in Ms. Glick’s column, which can be read in its entirety here.

In my mind’s ear (if there can be a mind’s eye, there must surely also exist a mind’s ear) I keep hearing the phrase, “The creep of Islam”.

“Moving right along”…

This is really funny. Put down your coffee cup before you listen.

A car accident happened in the Dallas-Ft.Worth area.

This is a recorded phone call from a man who witnessed the accident involving four elderly women. It was so popular when they played it on the local radio station the station decided to put it on their website.

Next up, and while the following articles are several days old they are by no means historical,

Nearly two dozen illegal immigrants were arrested Wednesday, accused of using fake security badges to work in critical areas of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, including the tarmac, authorities said.

The 23 illegal workers were employed by Ideal Staffing Solutions Inc., whose corporate secretary and office manager also were arrested after an eight-month investigation that involved federal, state and Chicago authorities.

The company contracted work for carriers including UAL Corp.’s (UAUA) United Airlines, KLM and Qantas Airways Ltd. (QAN.AU), said Elissa A. Brown, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

“The investigation identifies a vulnerability that could compromise national security, while bringing criminal charges against individuals who built an illegal work force into their business practice,” Brown said.

Read the entire article here.

As if that weren’t enough,

The Transportation Security Administration touts its programs to ensure security by using undercover operatives to test its airport screeners. In one instance, however, the agency thwarted such a test by alerting screeners across the country that it was under way, even providing descriptions of the undercover agents.

The government routinely runs covert tests at airports to ensure that security measures in place are sufficient to stop a terrorist from bringing something dangerous onto an airplane.
Alerting screeners when the undercover officer is coming through and what the person looks like would defeat the purpose.

But that’s exactly what happened April 28, 2006, according to an e-mail from a top TSA official who oversees security operations.

This one’s a real winner, read on…

On the one hand, we have airports hiring HR contractors who make a practice of endangering the lives of scores, hundreds or thousands of people and on the other, the government agency responsible for U.S. airport security is rigging security inspections to make it appear that they are doing their job.

No matter how much effort I put into it, I can’t find even the slightest hint of justification for the above two situations. Does this make me a bad person?

Some people definitely need to be punished to the fullest extent that the law allows, some people need to be replaced and some people need to be majorly retrained….

…to legislate surrender in Iraq?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on Thursday that she will bring another troops-out-of-Iraq bill to the House floor on Friday.

It will be the 58th “politically motivated” bill on the Iraq war by the House and Senate this year, Republicans complained.

The Fifty Eighth!

Now, I may sound a bit partisan here, but repeated failure seems to be a recurring theme among the folks over there on the left side of the aisle. I mean, they embrace socialism… despite its extreme lack of success in every government that has adopted it over the years… and they want to force it on the rest of us, here in America, marketing it as “freebies” for all.

So this 58 business, while lending new meaning to the old adage “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”, is also somewhat embarrassing to me, as an American, despite the fact that it comes from the left, which is as indictable as El Nino once was in its own milieu, for all sorts of problems.

Foreign media report on our Congressional activities, simply because the United States is what it is in the world, and a Congress that spends most of its time trying to disrupt the CIC during a time when American troops are in harm’s way demeans the image of America and our political system (think all us voters, who put these people in office).

Fifty Eight failed attempts by the majority on the Hill to surrender to terrorism must make us look pretty lame.

“We are restating the differentiation between us and the president of the United States,” Pelosi said at a press conference. “This gives voice to the desires of the American people,” she said of the bill, which ties war funding ($50 billion for four months) to an immediate troop withdrawal.

Right, they are “re-stating” the differentiation, etc, etc…

Liberals will be liberals.

These are people who will sink in quicksand to protest an anti-quicksand policy and wonder, as they begin to smother (ooops! too late!), if it was a worthwhile cause.

However, I digress…

The 58 surrender attempts have all had one thing in common: They all happened on the taxpayer’s dime. What Pelosi blatantly admitted in that single short paragraph was that the Democrats have no problem with flogging a dead horse on our time and money to press a political agenda.

Try being as unproductive in a salaried private sector job and see how soon you encounter the need to edit your resume.

House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) criticized Democrats for refusing to recognize the important of the U.S. military mission as well as the “tremendous progress we’ve made against all odds in capturing and killing agents of terror, and providing a level of security for political reconciliation to take place.

“This bill is deja-vu all over again,” Blunt said. “The last time Democrats tried to tie funding for our troops to a date for surrender, they failed - and that was before the marked turn-around we’ve witnessed on the ground over the past several months.”

Truncating…

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that American forces have routed Al Qaeda in Iraq from every neighborhood of Baghdad, according to a top American general - “allowing American troops involved in the ’surge’ to depart as planned.”

Which brings us to this:

The upbeat assessment from the New York Times and other major newspapers had some Republicans questioning the Democrats’ timing:

Blunt said the House on Friday would be taking up a bill “that has far less to do with building on our continued progress, and far more to do with pandering to their (Democrats’) base.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) issued a statement on Thursday questioning the continuing Democratic push for a troop withdrawal.

“What unfortunate timing for Democrats, announcing yet another attempt at a withdrawal date on a day when the papers are filled with encouraging news from Iraq,” McConnell said.

President Bush vetoed a bill tying war funding to a troop withdrawal in May, and he undoubtedly would do so again, given the chance. Some troops withdrawal bills, facing the prospect of a presidential veto, have not mustered enough support to pass the Senate.

So what it all boils down to is that the Democrats have so little regard for our tax dollars or for the Will Of The People that they’ve got absolutely no problem with wasting the time and the resources of the American People by squandering two years of a Congressional majority performing the Kiss of Shame on the far left.

Fifty Eight (count ‘em, 58!) attempts to surrender to the anti-thesis of our very civilization, “Paid for by the Democratic Party”.

…This past week began with another one of those ambushes beginning in “…could you please…we really, really need…” and continuing along with a deadline-oriented project that consisted of writing a short but time-and-thought-consuming manual. To put things simply, whenever I freed up a little time to post, I was, to all intents and purposes, brain-dead.

So Friday, after Fed-Exing the finished product to the client, I determined to simply relax for a day (Saturday), get my head together, so to speak, watch a few DVDs and cook myself a humongous rib-eye from the best butcher shop in Chicago, accompanied by pasta with a jar-originated sauce — anyone who occasionally (or always) takes the shortcut of using pre-made pasta sauces might try Mezzetta’s Napa Valley Bistro brands, they make every other brand I’ve ever sampled pale to insignificance — that wasn’t a paid advertisement, it was a free endorsement from a devoted fan. A spinach salad with lots of grape tomatoes and Marie’s Creamy Italian Garlic dressing and about half a bottle of chiante classico rounded things out rather well…

I watched Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon (I am a major Humphrey Bogart fan, and especially enjoy the films he made with Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet) a few Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts and Dean Martin Variety Show episodes and, conversely, a totally insane Rob Zombie gorefest called House Of 1,000 Corpses.

Having said all that, one of the most disconcerting, though not at all surprising in the Track Records Department bits of news I’ve read in the last few days was about Condoleeza Rice consulting with Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter in order to “benefit” from their Middle East Peace Talks experience.

Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot!!!?

What is she thinking?

Both of those administrations were failures in the Israeli/”Palestinian” arena, accomplishing nothing save for increased violence with a backdrop of Israel making mounds of concessions while the “Palestinians” honored none of their side of any agreements made.

Adding to that, Carter’s proven himself quite the anti-Israel lobbyist over the last few years.

George W. Bush’s “Roadmap” secured the release of beaucoup terrorists from Israeli prisons and subsequently resulted in Israel ceding territory to the “Palestinians”, territory the Arabs began utilizing, right off the bat, as launching platforms for terrorist attacks against Israel.

Every single “peace” accord in which we engage over there has identical results: Israel compromises more of her security and cedes more territory and the “Palestinians” gain additional one-way concessions.

Now Jerusalem has been thrown into the mix of diplomatic consideration.

Our (U.S.) involvement in the Israel-”Palestinian” relationship is a paradox: On one hand, we finance much of Israel’s self-defense capability via hundreds of millions of dollars, on the other hand we cripple Israel on the political/diplomatic stage.

Our diplomatic offerings over there are the epitome of profound idiocy.

Either we support Israel or we don’t.

I was a 100% supportive of Condi when she was first appointed. Her approach to the Israel/”Palestinian” millieu has changed my mind entirely.

We’re looking at a typical political appointee in a typical politics-first scenario: Support Israel with the right hand while allowing it to be gradually eroded and eventually destroyed by the left hand.

A column by Wesley Pruden (an icon of mine) gives a good example of those among my fellow Jews who have, unfortunately in large quantities, listed too far to port.

If at first you don’t succeed in making friends with a neighbor who’s forever dreaming of killing you, try again. If that doesn’t work, cry “mea culpa.” Then call your lawyer and make sure your will is up to date.

The notion that trusting your enemies against all evidence to the contrary is the most stubborn liberal pipe dream. If you wish upon a star hard enough, hold hands tight enough and sing kumbaya loud enough, dreams come true.

Right, as we once said, On!

Yosef Kanefsky, a prominent Orthodox Jewish rabbi in Los Angeles, detonated a fierce debate among Jews and their Christian allies here last week with his argument that maybe the insoluble, intractable standoff in the Middle East is the result of lies, or at least stretchers, told by Jews and evangelical Christians. And a few little white fibs told by misguided Muslims. A good place for repentance to start is to divide Jerusalem.

“The question of whether we could bear a redivision of Jerusalem is a searing and painful one,” he wrote in a provocative essay in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles. “The Orthodox Union, National Council of Young Israel and a variety of other organizations, Christian Evangelical ones, are calling upon their constituencies to join them in urging the Israeli government to refrain from any negotiation concerning the status of Jerusalem at all, when and if the Annapolis [peace] conference occurs. …

“It’s not that I would want to see Jerusalem divided. It’s rather that the time has come for honesty. … [T]hese organizations are not being honest about the situation that we are in, and how it came about. And I cannot support them in this.”

Oh, yeah, as in almost every other venue in this cockamamie era, idiots are taking over. The rabbis who most figured into my much younger years were Boxer (deceased) and Spar, who Bar-Mitzva’d me. Both were conservatives, both religiously and politically.

Along came the liberals, introducing “reform” Judaism. Moral convenience over the laws set down in the Torah. Don’t stray too far while looking for comparable examples, just examine the Democrats here in the U.S. of A. Here, they simply do away with references to G-d altogeter and, in the same vein, treat the Constitution the way Reform Jews regard the Old Testament.

The fact that Kanefsky is an Orthodox Jew truly makes me wonder why he’s in the dhimmi camp rather than the Kahane camp.

Well, the rabbi, like the rest of us, at least in the West, is entitled. But it’s difficult to see how giving your enemies a “mea culpa” is a smart bargaining position when those enemies devoutly believe that with only a little more pressure you’ll cave. Rabbi Kanefsky goes further:

“No peace conference between Israel and the Palestinians will ever produce anything positive until both sides have decided to read the story of the last 40 years honestly. On our side, this means being honest about the story of how Israel came to settle civilians in the territories it conquered in 1967, and about the outcomes that this story has generated.”

This is the well-meant goodwill gesture that Israel’s enemies will take for an admission that the Palestinian radicals were right all along, that the Jews are as perfidious as the Islamic radicals have been saying they are, and their Crusader allies are just as bad. Conceding half of Jerusalem for nothing in return would further embolden the Palestinians to scorn the half-loaf when they can soon get the bakery

Nevertheless, the rabbi’s remarks are taken very seriously indeed. Several of his rabbinical colleagues praised his “bravery” and “courage,” though it’s not clear what bravery and courage have to do with anything, since rabbis, like Christian pastors, generally do not fear the beheadings, firebombings and similar tools of doctrinal suppression often employed in certain other places.

Mid-East (Israel, “Palestinian”) peace is a major political focus of every U.S. Government administration, be it Democrat or Republican.

Realistically, we should simply step aside and allow the Israelis and the Arabs to settle their differences. Every time we get involved, we kill more Israelis.

It’s not that our politicians and diplomats are ill intentioned, it’s just that they’re either naive, stupid or a combination of the two. Sort of like Rabbi Kanefsky.

I would really like to see Condi stand toe-to-toe with Abbas and say in level tones, “You folks never honor the obligations you assume in the course of these peace accords, yet you screech the second you don’t think Israel has honored theirs to the fullest extent to which you can milk them. You are not an honorable people. Until you have proven otherwise and civilized yourselves in the process, you will not receive a dime of U.S. largesse.”

Instead, she (and by extension, the administration) prefers to show us how lost she is on that front by consulting the architects of previous failure.

We are supposedly Israel’s friend — with a friend like us, who needs enemies?

…I spent four hours at a pro-troops demonstration at Federal Plaza, which was the final destination and gathering place of an anti-war march conducted by the usual crowd of fake Americans.

We right thinkers were in the profound minority (I’m not sure how many of us showed up, but I think fifty to sixty would be a reasonable ball park figure), whereas the marchers, when they arrived, numbered somewhere in the mid to upper hundreds, maybe a thousand and change (again, my own estimate — I’ve never been all that good at estimating the volume of a huge crowd of people). Of course, had it not been for an emailed announcement from Merrilee Carlson at Families United, I never would have known about it at all. It would seem that the media’s main interest was the port side of the equation.

As always, it was a fun event, meeting other patriotic Americans in a city brimming over with liberals, talking, joking and laughing at the wingnuts. There was also a gay guy in one of the conversation groups I was in who flat out said that the liberals across the street were distressingly misguided, and there were a couple of “obvious” lesbians on our side of the street, one mega-butch, which demonstrated that not all {a little PC here} alternative lifestyle folks are as naive as their mainstream.

The starboard side of the rally was organized by Airborne Ranger (82nd) mom Beverly Perlson, a really nice lady who is understandably proud of her son’s service to his country.

The lefteez had a stage set up, complete with this horrible live “band” fronted by some guy who thought he was a cross between Edwin Star and the lead singer of AC/DC circa Highway To Hell. He led off with “War-huh!-What is it good for?…” and from his first ultra-loud, terrifying gutteral assault, I kept on waiting for his tonsils to come flying out of his mouth. Some really funny guys with bull horns on our side of the street harangued the hell out of him and had the rest of us laughing our asses off.

I met a couple of Republicans who are running for the U.S. Senate, Andy Martin and Michael John Psak (Martin struck me as pure lawyer/politician — it was a Saturday at a demonstration and he was the only entity in sight wearing a suit and tie — while Psak, an MBA who drives a truck for a living, seemed more in touch with the common man than did his same party competitor — I’ll have to examine their websites before I form any further conclusions on either) and the whip from Minutemen Midwest, Ev Evertsen, great guy… I was majorly gratified to learn that like me, his organization are staunch supporters of Presidential candidate and Republican House member Tom Tancredo.

And along came the marchers, bearing the usual “Impeach Bush” (and Cheney on several), “Bring The Troops Home Now”, “Bush Lied, People Died”, “Send The Twins To Iraq”, etc, signs, along with a number of signs laced with the profanity we can always expect to see at any liberal demonstration (no doubt “for the children”). One sign said, “Bush Eats Babies”. Another, sported by a spacey looking young woman with multicolored hair, a code-pinker I believe, held up a sign that said, “Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed” (a line from the Beatles song Strawberry Fields Forever), and that one amused me as I thought that she had plagiarized the Magical Mystery Tour track in an autobiographical context.

Once all the marchers were settled in, one of their mass activities was the singing of We Shall Not Be Moved. I left at about 5:00 pm as there was some stuff that needed to get done, and can report, as surprising as it may seem, that Kumbaya had not yet been sung.

There was a dude in an Army uniform among the anti-war folks proclaiming “I am the troops!”, and he was regalled by our side with shouts of “Traitor!” until an older cop on a Segway singled out one among many and snarled that he was inciting violence, “…One more word and you’re coming with me!” The other officers in the immediate vicinity shrugged and indicated via rolled eyes and so forth that they had no idea where he was coming from. There were, naturally, scores of uniformed and a few plainclothes CPD, Cook County Sheriff’s Dept police and also quite a few firemen, I would guess because firefighters are superb first responders. All of them, except the dude on the Segway, seemed to be enjoying the event immensely.

For our part, except for maybe a handful of signs featuring civilized vocabulary, everybody waved American flags.

I heard a good joke there:

A U.S. Marine boards a commercial airplane and sits down in the aisle seat beside two Arabs. He removes his shoes so as to be more comfortable. After the seat belt sign goes off, the Arab in the middle seat says, “I’m going for a Coke.”

The Marine says, “Here, let me get it for you.”

After he leaves, the Arab picks up one of his shoes and spits in it. The Marine returns with the Coke and the Arab in the window seat says, “I, too, wish to get a Coke.”

“Let me get it for you.” The Marine goes off to get him a Coke. This Arab picks up the Marine’s other shoe and spits in it.

The Marine delivers the Coke and retakes his seat.

Later, as the plane is landing, the Marine puts his shoes on and frowns.

He turns to the Arabs and complains, “As fellow human beings, we should really try to understand each other and get along. All this spitting in shoes and pissing in Cokes gets us nowhere.”

As I have mentioned before at one place and another, I grew up in a Jewish family that loved ethnic jokes, particularly those aimed at ourselves, and we used to share them at gatherings around my grandparents’ dinner table. My extraction on that, the maternal side of my family, is Ukrainian and Polish. Yep, Polish, so my grandmother was the honored recipient of plethoras of extra jokes.

However, Ukrainian jokes were hard to come by (sparing my grandfather, LOL) in fact I don’t recall ever hearing or reading any, at least until now, with this one emailed to me this morning by my treasured Aunt Brenda, conservative-Democrat-at-large:

A Ukrainian walked into a bank in New York City and asked for the loan officer. He told the loan officer that he was going to Kiev on business for two weeks and needed to borrow $5,000 and that he was not a depositor of the bank.

The bank officer told him that the bank would need some form of security for the loan, so the Ukrainian handed over the keys to a new Ferrari. The car was parked on the street in front of the bank. The Ukrainian produced the title and everything checked out. The loan officer agreed to hold the car as collateral for the loan and apologized for having to charge 12% interest.

Later, the bank’s president and its officers all enjoyed a good laugh at the Ukrainian for using a $250,000 Ferrari as collateral for a $5,000 loan. An employee of the bank then drove the Ferrari into the bank’s underground garage and parked it.

Two weeks later, the Ukrainian returned, repaid the $5,000 and the interest of $23.07.

The loan officer said, “Sir, we are very happy to have had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely, but we are a little puzzled. While you were away, we checked you out and found that you are a multimillionaire. What puzzles us is, why would you bother to borrow $5,000?”

The Ukrainian replied: “Where else in New York City can I park my car for two weeks for only $23.07 and expect it to be there when I return?”

Ah, the Ukrainians… See! Kielbasa & Vodka is good for the brain.