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June 30, 2005
On Today's Democrats
When I was growing up back in the 1950s and 1960s, I, like most people, I suppose, never dreamed that our society would become like it is. There was always healthy competition between the Democrats and Republicans, but there was always a line of sorts that neither side crossed. People on both sides were proud of America and proud of our country's Judeo-Christian heritage. Patriotism was fashionable, even among Democrats. Children were raised to respect authority figures like teachers and cops(though, during the Vietnam conflict, the peace movement deviated from that aspect of their upbringing), television left more intimate events to the imagination and produced great shows(better than what I saw more recently before I stopped watching it) and the news media had a better grasp on the meaning of the verb "report". You felt you could trust what you read in the papers or heard on the evening news. People could say what they meant without having to couch their words in the obscurity of so-called "political correctness"(PC is still a foreign concept for me, I still say exactly what I mean, using whatever words I feel best get my point across).
Today we seem to have gone 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
We have the Democrats, a party that, since being hijacked by liberals, has moved so far to the left that were the earth flat, they'd have all fallen off years ago, bashing their country at every opportunity under the guise of caring one way or the other about an issue; In reality, the current crop of Dems have demonstrated that they are more concerned with scoring political victories than with the economy, national security, the citizens' rights they claim to champion or pretty much anything else they express an interest in.
They want to abolish God from any and all public properties, hiding behind a "separation of church and state" that doesn't appear anywhere in the Constitution, yet insist on butt munching Muslims when it comes to Islamics' religious rights, even those of incarcerated terrorists. Last year I read of a school in California where, though Jewish and Christian kids aren't allowed to pray, all students were required to attend Koran classes and one day per week show up in Arab garb.
Along with a news media that's drifted far to the left, they presently focus all their energy fighting the War On Bush, crowing joyously out from behind facades of concern whenever we lose soldiers in Iraq, comparing our troops to Nazi storm troopers, Camp Delta to a gulag or a concentration camp, anything to discredit President George W. Bush and truth doesn't even factor into the bargain. They obstruct Bush any way they can, fighting every appointment he makes to every agency and organization whether the candidate is good, bad or otherwise, their goal being to make the President fail. It doesn't matter that such a failure might result in more 9/11s, Iraq falling to another bloody dictatorship after all the sacrifices of our brave military personnel and those of other coalition countries, or even Armageddon. All these traitors -- that's right, t-r-a-i-t-o-r-s, there's no other word that so aptly describes these assholes -- care about is their partisan politics and what's really scary, on the order of the Dems getting the White House and/ or Congress somewhere in the future, is that while they lambast Bush over every move he makes, not one of them has any solutions to any of the problems that my President has thusfar addressed rather brilliantly.
While the left has chanted their "Bush lied, people died" and "No blood for oil" slogans, we have seen two murderous Islamic dictatorships become democracies, the concept of democracy embraced in a couple of other Arab states and we have enjoyed tax cuts that allow us to keep more of our own money. We have seen the economy, measured in new jobs, begin to grow again and a homeland security structure bringing our various intelligence and security agencies into a cooperative loop and greatly decreasing the chances of more terrorist attacks. We have seen government programs enacted that are aimed at bringing our educational standards back to their former excellence.
This has been solely the work of the Bush Administration and the Republican party, despite incessant, aggressive obstructionism by the Democrats, the same people whose major contribution during the Clinton Administration was to make America appear weak in the eyes of the global terrorist organizations Bubba and his people should have been fighting.
Today, while the Bush Administration fights the Global War On Terror, the Democrats fight their own war on the President.
The upside to all this is that as the Democrats become more and more vitriolic, and downright insulting to the intelligence of the voting public, they continue to drive away votes(not entirely, of course, they'll always have dingbat California liberals and a faithful following of blue state boneheads to keep them from being shut out altogether), and the longer we can stave off a resurgence of power from the left side of the aisle the better off America, and the world, for that matter, will be.
Posted by Seth at 09:07 PM |
June 28, 2005
Man And The Environment: A Bible- Based Perspective
In today's Jewish World Review there's an interesting piece by Dennis Prager called The case for Judeo-Christian values: Without man, the environment is insignificant.
Based on the Story of Creation, Mr. Prager's premise is that the environment, like all else that God created on the first 5 days, was put there for the use and enjoyment of man, who arrived on Day 6.
One major conflict between the Judeo-Christian value system and the various secular ones competing with it revolves around these questions: Is nature created for man or is man merely a part of nature? Or, to put it in other words, does the natural environment have any significance without man to appreciate it and to use it for his own good?
The Judeo-Christian responses are clear: Nature has been created for man's use; and on its own, without man, it has no meaning.
Dolphins are adorable because human beings find them adorable. Without people to appreciate them or the role they play in the earth's ecosystem to enable human life, they are no more adorable or meaningful than a rock on Pluto.
That is the point of the creation story --- everything was made in order to prepare the way for the creation of man(and woman, for those whose college education leads themto confuse the generic "man" with "male"). G-d declared each day's creation "good," but declared the sixth day's creation of man "very good."
Critics find three biblical notions about nature unacceptable: that man shall lord over it; that it was created solely for man and therefore has no intrinsic value; and that it is not sacred.
Go ahead and read the whole thing. If you are one of those liberals devoted to the atheist left's War On God or one o' them thar environmentalists it will probably piss you off, but who cares? I believe in God and it really irritates me that there are assholes in my country who are trying to legislate and sue every last vestige of Judeo-Christian belief out of existence while demanding that Muslims' religious beliefs are indulged to their tiniest whim.
Yeah, that's right, man rules nature, he's not its equal, according to The Book the left so detests. The environment is there for man. Go cry in your tofu, then learn to live with it.
Does this mean that the biblical view of nature gives man the right to pollute the earth or to abuse animals? Absolutely not. Abusing animals is forbidden in the Torah:
The ban on eating the limb of a living animal, the ban on placing two animals of different sizes on the same yoke and the ban on working animals seven days a week are just a few examples. To cause gratuitous suffering to an animal is a grave sin. As for polluting the earth, this, too, is religiously prohibited. If the purpose of nature is to ennoble human life and bear witness to G-d's magnificence, by what understanding of this concept can a religious person defend polluting nature?
We are indeed to be responsible stewards of nature, but for our sake, not its.
Posted by Seth at 10:36 PM |
De-Durbinising GITMO
This morning, in a post about Camp Delta titled Club Gitmo, Vilmar of Ranting Right Wing Howler fame linked to an article in FRONTPAGEMAG.COM by Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu, who wrote about a visit to GITMO to see first hand this detention center referred to by (Bene)Dick(t) Durbin as everything from a concentration camp to Pol Pot's killing fields.
In the article, the author described extremely humane circumstances, big meals and generally a state of detention any inmate in a carefully monitored U.S. federal prison would envy.
The only inhumanity he cited was the agressive hostility of the prisoners, who physically attack guards who are bringing them meals or other items, reaching under face masks to try to rip out eyes, trying to grab and break guards' limbs, thowing feces, yelling death threats, you need to read the article, then compare what you read with the remarks of Dick Durbin.
You are right to worry about inhumane treatment taking place at GITMO. But your concern should be for the dedicated, well trained, highly professional American men and women who are subjected to a daily barrage of feces, urine, semen and spit hurled at them along with vile invective as they implement a humane, enlightened system of confinement on men who want nothing more than to kill Americans.
These quiet, professional Americans, who live under the motto "Honor Bound for Defense of Freedom," deserve our utmost respect and concern. Shame on anyone who slanders or disrespects them for short-term and short-sighted political advantage.
As Vilmar pointed out in his post, you'd better read it there because you won't see it anyplace else, and he was definitely correct there, as I searched several MSM venues for any reference to the fact that Durbin had it backwards: The detainees are the people doing the mistreating. You know, the detainees the liberals are so deferrent to, those peaceful Islamic souls who would just as soon butcher an American liberal's six month old baby as they would any other American's.
I did find an article over at Fox News titled Senators Agree On Gitmo Operations that unsurprisingly got no mention in the New York Times. After all, it wasn't anti-Bush enough to earn its place in the Newspaper of Record.
WASHINGTON- A group of senators who travelled to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, this weekend to observe the conditions at the detention facility held separate news conferences on Capitol Hill Monday, but seemed to agree on one point--- that the facility should not be shut down.
Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Ben Nelson of Nebraska said that while they believe some kind of standard should be set for the status and treatment of the prisoners there, they did not observe anything in interrogation practices or conditions that would prompt them to agree with a call to shut the facility down.
"It is my opinion that closing the detention camp at Guantanomo Bay would result in less accountability in the treatment of prisoners, not more," Wyden said. "The question we have to ask is who do we trust more to treat these prisoners humanely --- Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt or the United States?"
...Wyden said that past practices he had heard about at Guantanamo, a.k.a. Gitmo, have been changed, and procedures and conditions at Camp Delta, where the prisones are housed, offer the best committment to human rights. He acknowledged that the prisoners at Guantanamo "are not your garden-variety criminal defendants.
"However, the most urgent task now is for Congress to articulate what reasons can justify holding these prisoners and for Congress to finally establish the precise legal status of these prisoners," Wyden said. "Just because it is a war doesn't mean there shouldn't be any concrete rules."
That's nice. The Democrat couldn't find anything wrong and couldn't very well make anything up about what he saw because also present were two GOP senators, so he told the truth about Camp Delta, albeit putting a nowwww it's okay spin on his statements and adding that Congress needs to establish the legal status of the detainees and justification for detaining them, a little lip service to his party. His remark that, "Just because it is a war doesn't mean there shouldn't be any concrete rules." is pretty lame.
I don't remember finding any special humanitarian rules posted anyplace that determined special guidelines for fair and balanced treatment of those human beings who died in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on the morning of 11 Sep 01. Still the point has been made by two Dem senators that conditions at Camp Delta are fine.
Also on the trip were Repulican Sens. Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Mike Crapo of Idaho, both of whom went further than Wyden and Nelson and said not only are conditions acceptable at Guantanamo Bay, but that they want to "set the record straight" that prisoners are being treated in a way that's totally consistent with American values. They noted that the new facilities at Gitmo include air conditioniong, good meals, facilities for religious worship and "top-notch health care."
Prisoners have "everything to make them as comfortable as possible in detention," Bunning said.
"It's my conclusion that I don't think you would be able to find a detention facility where people were better treated ... the health care is better or equal to what our own troops get," added Crapo, who did say it might be useful to come up with some kind of new status for these prisoners. Crapo said the reason is not to ensure better treatment but only because it would set a universal understanding of their status.
When I looked through the NY Times earlier for some mention of this visit and these remarks and couldn't find any, I figured there are two possible reasons:
1. GITMO being found not to be the gulag they'd hoped the two Dems would report it to be is not in their best interest to share with their liberal readership.
2. They might print the story later, after they've had the time to get the right anti-Bush spin on it.
What!? No gulag? No killing fields? No electrodes for the detainees' testicles? This... This is outrageous!
Posted by Seth at 08:49 PM |
June 26, 2005
Good Congress Information Link
Previously, I linked to a page at the Thomas website.
The site is a running record of proceedings in both houses of Congress, and a good place to peruse the work output of those people we send to Capitol Hill to represent our, and our fellow Americans' interests in the governance of our country.
The sheer number of ongoing bills for Constitutional amendments, some important, some frivolous, boggles the mind.
There are bills up for everything from renaming federal buildings to allocating funds.
I find reading summaries of what was debated and decided in different Congressional sessions intensely amusing.
When I think of our original Congress I always envision a bunch of patriots who were instrumental in winning the American Revolution pounding out the legal and moral issues of their time and holding emotion-charged strategy debates, each man making bold, profound statements to emphasize his points.
Today, I envision these two giant chambers, full of lawyer/politicians, in long hours of hot debate:
"No way! The fifth paragraph has to appear above the third, and a comma inserted between the sixth and seventh words, space after comma."
"Get real. If there's gonna be a comma anywhere in the first sentence, it'll be between the fourth and fifth words, and once we've reached agreement on that, we can debate whether or not to include your proposal for a space after it."
"That space after the comma, I'll have you know, will clarify many questions voters in my district have on this issue. Listen, how about if we delete the colon in sentence two of the second paragraph, replace it with a semicolon and...."
{just a bit of Seth-humor, there}
Go check out the link and explore the site if you've never been there, a good way to keep up with what's being debated on Capitol Hill and who sponsors and supports each issue.
Posted by Seth at 11:17 PM |
June 25, 2005
The Spirit of a Free Iraqi
Another article at CENTCOM(U.S. Central Command)'s website, titled Isn't fighting fires dangerous enough? tells the story of yet another Iraqi patriot that you would never find among the Bush hating, political left motivated Mainstream Media. Those partisan assholes want the American public to believe we're(therefore the Bush Administration is) failing in Iraq, and they tailor their "news" to fit that template rather than telling us the truth.
Actions speak louder than words - particularly in Iraq. Such is absolutely the case, every morning, when Baghdad Fire Chief, Laith Abbas, gets out of bed and heads to work.
Each day, he faces the reality that there is a significant "price on his head" by those who would destroy efforts to build a democracy in Iraq. However, for the good of the country, there are those - like this intense, wiry professional - who strive each day, one difficult step at a time, to build their part of what they hope will soon become an active, viable democracy.
Any real American patriot who believes in our form of government and the spread of democracy would be encouraged by this man's story. He is the embodiment of the Iraqi people, a nation that wants its chance to be free and is willing to take any risks necessary for the privilege.
The people in the U.S. who would deny the Iraqis the same freedoms we have because their success would be a success for W, mostly Democrats, are profound fucktards who don't belong in a free society, they should have their U.S. citizenship yanked and be flown to someplace like Zimbabwe, never to return. Here are anal cavities who, just to realize their cheap anti-Bush political agendas, have no problem consigning an entire country, finally free after centuries of one kind of dictatorial government after another, most recently the rule of the sociopathic Hussein family, back to the kind of hell we've only recently liberated them from.
Liberals must be tough as nails if they can look in the mirror without vomiting all over themselves.
Posted by Seth at 07:34 AM |
Oprah Does(and doesn't) Paris
Oprah Winfrey's pissed off at Hermes, because their Paris store wouldn't let her in to shop 15 minutes after closing(they were apparently having a promotional event, and she wasn't on the invitation list). They probably wouldn't have let me in after closing either, but I'd understand. Oprah doesn't, because like many celebrities, she obviously feels that she's "more important" than any mere mortal(remember the big hoopla they made when she had to do jury duty, the media gave it nearly identical coverage to that of the Ronald Reagan memorial service). Yeah, sure, when Oprah's inconvenienced, it's big news.
Ms. Winfrey claims it was because she is black.
You go to a store after it closes. They refuse you admittance because they are closed, read the sign, lady! "But I'm Oprah! Surely a mere Closed sign doesn't apply to me! It must be because I'm black!"
Now, she plans to boycott Hermes and do a show on the affair, despite a profuse official apology from Hermes.
However, on another side of the story,
According to the New York Post, a witness who was with Oprah when she tried to get into the store claims that the talk show host was told that "We've been having a problem with North Africans."
Most North Africans I've met have been Arabs, who've been swarthy rather than black.
If this remark was actually made, Oprah does have some reason for being a little miffed.
My only reservation here is that I've been in several such highbrow stores, most recently Gucci to buy someone a present, and from what I've seen, the employees and managers are extremely civilized, polite and well spoken people(you don't hire abrasive types to deal with customers who might buy single small items from you that are marked up into the thousands of dollars), not the sort to make such remarks.
When I lived in Nevada I worked for a busy casino, and as a casino employee, like employees of stores like Hermes, one thing you learn damn quick is that judging a customer's spending power by appearance(excluding obvious types like winos, speed freaks, junkies, etc) is extremely foolish. We had regular high rollers who looked like day laborers, one even an old mega-alcoholic who looked the part, who didn't give a second thought to, let alone worry about dropping $30,000.00 plus on a 21 table in under 2 hours three or four times a week. We had low-income "looking" black regulars who made $5,000.00 sports bets on two or three games a day. In stores like Hermes, employees are usually reaaalllly careful how they talk to people.
My point is, was this racial remark really made, or was this account fabricated? I'm so used to hearing the racial card played that I've gone beyond the giving of the doubt that someone levelling such a charge is telling the truth. I'm not from Missouri, but in such a case you have to "show" me.
Of course, this happened in Paris, so it might have happened just as stated. Why? Because the employee alleged to have made the comment was probably French and as we know, the French are "different."
Posted by Seth at 05:32 AM |
Baghdad Weapons Cache
At CENTCOM's website today was a report that U.S. forces discovered still another stash of essential tools used to promote The Religion of Peace.
I don't think I need to add anything, do you?
Posted by Seth at 05:15 AM |
Yesterday
Yesterday I didn't post at all because I was in and out all day and when I was on line I spent most of my time trying to find some sane explanation for this unbelievable SCOTUS ruling. It was all over the Blogosphere yesterday and I read more than twenty different posts and probably twenty five media reports and Op Eds on the ruling, and couldn't find a single approving comment. Correct me if I'm in error, but I was brought up on the premise that in America we are ruled by the people. How many Americans do you suppose would have voted for this?
I have to admit utter failure, there was no way I could find one, because there was none to find.
The Supreme Court has given license to cities to take away your home, your property, and sell it to any private business concern they think will use the land to generate more tax revenue and/ or create new jobs. The individual municipality now has the authority, from the highest court in the land, to make the last word judgement that the site of your home could be used for something else "for the good of the community" or whatever, and offer you market price for your home, usually a lot less than what you could sell it for to an individual. It's an offer you can't refuse, because if you do, they have only to condemn the place and then you lose even more, if not all.
These berobed fungi seem to have forgotten what we went to war with Britain over back in the 1770s. It was to escape just that kind of government control, to live in a free country where one can live as one wishes, achieve according to ones ambitions and abilities without being taxed to death and be the master of all one possesses. Now, thanks mainly to the liberals in the Court, the government is as much the owner of your home as you are.
So much for another American freedom. Stalin would have been soooo proud!
You'll remember a recent SCOTUS ruling confirming federal authority to prosecute(for possession and use) persons permitted by states to use marijuana for medicinal purposes, the dissenters were the conservatives in the Court. Maybe the liberals will learn that "neocons" and "neoconettes" in the Supreme Court protect their rights much more tenaciously than the portsiders do. Dream on, Seth.
Also Yesterday
I was reading the Euphoric Reality blog and a post about the <treasonous, in my book, when perpetrated, defended or endorsed by American citizens> flag burning issue, and ended up going to the Stop The ACLU Coalition's site and spending considerable time there. I ran across the Public Expression of Religion Act of 2005.
Representative John Hostettler, R-Ind., has teamed up with the American Legion to prevent the American Civil Liberties Union and others like them, from strong arming defendants.
The Public Expression of Religion Act of 2005 would prohibit attorneys fees from being collected in cases of religion abuse.
The ACLU boasts more than 400,000 members and supporters who handle more than 6000 cases each year. Its 2003 revenue topped $44 million while it claims to have been awarded more than $2 million in settlements.
Wow! They make 44 mill while the people and causes they purport to represent make an aggregated 5% of that amount. Shameless, morally bankrupt parasites need only graduate from Law school and pass the bar someplace, and the ACLU has a good home for them.
See, this is what the ACLU is all about. They identify themselves as an advocate of civil rights and use that noble self description as a license to sue moneyed institutions, the federal and municipal governments for preference, over bagatelles like this:
You have, say, a small city, population 50,000 whose religious community is 75% Christian. Incorporated over 150 years ago they have, for the last 125 of those years, had a Nativity scene erected in front of City Hall each Holiday season. Nobody in town has a problem with it, in fact most of the town enjoys the tradition.
Enter the ACLU, with a suit against the city for forcing its religious beliefs on non- Christians as official policy in that the Nativity scene is erected on city property by city employees. The ACLU wins the suit and they are paid their fees, by law, by the city they've successfully sued. This means the taxpayers of that municipality, who wanted the Christmas display, have to pay the ACLU for winning a suit against having the display.
So all those citizens who believe the ACLU is championing a cause be advised, they are just a business. Unfortunately, they are an evil business whose greatest contribution to the American people has been to erode the moral fabric and many of the traditions in our society that have made America great-- in order to line their own pockets.
The Public Expression of Religion Act of 2005, if passed, would prohibit the collection of legal fees by the ACLU and other parasite scumbag legal groups when they sue government over gratuitous church & state issues. Once we take the profits out of these lawsuits, watch how quickly these "guardians of civil rights" curtail their Legal War On God.
The Bill Summary & Status is here.
Posted by Seth at 03:05 AM |
June 23, 2005
Patriotism, Liberal Style
I linked to this during my daily read of Best of the Web Today.
This is insane, how far are these people going to go in their efforts to rewrite American History? These Berkeley liberals are trying to have Thomas Jefferson Elementary School renamed because Jefferson owned slaves.
How far does this mean the libs will go?
Maybe they'll sue to have Jefferson's very existence stricken from our children's history books. Perhaps they'll push to change the causes for the South's secession that brought about the Civil War. And why stop there? For that matter, why bother to even mention the War Between The States in children's history books, why not rewrite the entire American saga from the Mayflower through, say, the Eisenhower Administration? That way they could erase inconvenient holidays like Thanksgiving, that commemmorates the pilgrims' giving of thanks to God, and any other aspects of U.S. history and culture they find embarrassing.
But then, what can we expect from those fine, patriotic folks in Berkeley, the same "Americans" whose verbal reaction to the horrors of 11 September 2001 was that The United States had deserved it?
Posted by Seth at 12:58 AM |
June 22, 2005
Peace for Israel via Diplomacy? When?
It amazes me that there are still people out there who believe that Israel and the United States can deal with the Palestinians as though they were doing so with a civilized nation. The Palestinians themselves are demonstrating that they are incapable of maintaining any kind of stable govenment nor of controlling the activities of their terrorist organizations, who attack Israel whether there are peace negotiations on the table or not, whether Israel gives concessions or not.
On the one hand, there's the Palestinian Authority(P.A.), representing the PLO and led by Arafat successor Mahmoud Abbas. That body retains the same quagmire of massive corruption that it did under Arafat and exhibits a total lack of control over the plethora of terrorist organizations based among the Palestinians.
On the other hand, there's Hamas, the premier Palestinian terrorist organization cum political party that has built its constituency in large part by vowing to end the corruption in the P.A. They have been growing increasingly popular among the Palestinian voters and threaten to become popular enough to one day become the P.A.
Hamas and their cronies in the al aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Fatah, etc continue their terrorism against Israel as Abbas purportedly tries to hold the peace talks with Ariel Sharon and the Bush Administration together, effectively sabotaging those negotiations a)because Sharon, and rightly so, refuses to make any concessions without including the cessation of hostilities in the package, and b)because Abbas' credibility as the leader of his people is greatly diminished due to his admitted inability to curtail the activities of either the terrorist groups or the corruption in his own organization. He may not even be there for long, Hamas might become the party in power. Hamas isn't interested in peace, their goal isn't the Palestinian state envisioned by Roadmap advocates: They want the whole potato knish. They would like nothing more than a bloodbath in which they murder every Jew in Israel(fat chance), according to their charter.
And they are recognized by a significant percentage of Palestinians as a viable political party!
An article in the Jerusalem Post about the summit meeting just wrapped up between Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas, titled Palestinians deem summit a failure, says
....Palestinian leaders expressed frustration over Israel's insistance on linking major concessions to the cessation of violence.
WTF! Are they saying that Israel should just accept the butchery of its citizens as just a run of the mill, day to day, inevitable, "not to worry, old man" cost of doing business with the Palestinians? There's the problem right there, the Israelis are not dealing with those of a modern human mentality that can be reasoned with, they are dealing with evil people who see nothing wrong with killing the innocent and embrace doing so with as much emotion as they might experience over going to the bathroom.
If I wasn't totally convinced before, I am now. The only way there will ever be peace between Israel and the Palestinian people will be after Israel has exercised an extreme military option. You cannot negotiate peace with any success when the other side doesn't want it. When the other side is dominated by bloodthirsty people who couldn't care less what they agree to nor what treaties they sign(it is acceptable practice, according to their beliefs, to lie, as long as you are lying to infidels) and who have no compunction about killing themselves in order to murder your people.
Sure, there are many Palestinians, some of whom I have met, who want peace and friendship with Israel and who despise both corruption and terrorism, but they seem to be a considerable minority to judge from the actions of their community. I truly believe that when members of a given community become a danger to those of other communities, the community in question is engendered with a responsibility to clean its own house or be held accountable for the actions of its bad seed.
Sharon is absolutely right in insisting that peace on the Palestinians' side of the equation be part and parcel of any agreements he signs off on.
You can't install the software of peace when there are too many broken links on the site.
Israel has offered, and ceded, a lot more concessions to the Palestinians than they've received in return, even releasing convicted terrorists from prison. The Israelis have set a date for razing Jewish homes in Gaza, displacing something like 7500 residents, sparking internal political turmoil as intense and disruptive as the Iraqi debate is in the United States. Most of what the Israelis get in return for concessions are further demands.
In a column in Jewish World Review, Richard Chesnoff writes
....There's growing talk that the Bush Administration, impatient over lack of viable movement toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement, may soon trash longstanding American policy and authorize limited U.S. diplomatic contact with Abbas' chief rival and Israel's worst enemy: the Islamic terrorist organization known as Hamas.
Talk about potential disasters!
No kidding! I refer you again to the website about Hamas.
This extremely dangerous diplomatic turn may be precipitated in part by growing fear in the administration that Yasser Arafat's heir doesn't have the stuff needed to make peace happen and by frustration with Sharon's internal political woes.
It's also hard for both President Bush and Secretary of State Rice to ignore hard facts on the West Bank/Gaza ground. Abbas' PLO continues to lose popularity while Hamas gains. During recent Palestinian municipal elections, the group campaigned on a clean government platform and won nearly half the municipal councils at stake!
So, what's wrong with talking to Hamas? A lot. As Robert Satloff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy recently put it, "Hamas is more than just a party with which we disagree, it is a terrorist organization responsible for the murder of hundreds of Israelis, Americans and citizens of many other countries."
I don't concur with the basis for Mr. Chesnoff's speculations, but the premises he offers are indeed food for thought. What I don't see happening is the Bush Administration opening up polite diplomatic dialogue with a terrorist organization. Terrorists are our enemy and their only ambition is our destruction. Once again, Hamas Charter. Pay particular attention to the two lines that say,
There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.
How, or even why for that matter, does one attempt to negotiate with people who uphold such a covenant?
No, I don't see Condie Rice sitting down with somebody like Hasan Yusuf to pursue "meaningful" diplomatic negotiations.
**********************
So we have these two sides to the Palestinian political structure, one that can establish control among neither its members nor its constituents, that being the P.A., and one that is dedicated to murdering as many innocent people as possible in the name of God, both vying for control of a Palestinian state. The Party of Murder is gaining, the Party of Confusion is losing.
Yeah, I know, I'm not even a little bit PC, I tend, in fact, to be downright blunt, so:
Being completely realistic, there are only two possible conclusions where the question of peace between Israel and their Palestinian neighbors are concerned.
1. Peace talks underscoring bloody violence forever, or
2. That extreme military option I mentioned above.
Posted by Seth at 08:12 PM |
Embracing A New Defeatist Strategy
Citing polls indicating a waning of popularity of the war in Iraq, some people on Capitol Hill who are seeking reelection or entertaining ambitions of campaigning for higher office have begun pressing for an exit strategy, complete with a schedule, for our military presence and operations in Iraq. Unfortunately, these are not only Democrats, but also a Republican or two, the latter kissing up to the moderates in our own party as well as those Democrats who have become disillusioned with the liberal moonbats currently running their party.
The Wall Street Journal's Brendan Miniter weighs in on the subject in the Opinion Journal.
The Goal in Iraq is victory, not withdrawal
The last thing we need in Iraq is a timeline for withdrawal. Victory sets its own schedule, and it's not contingent on the U.S. election calendar. Arbitrarily forcing a timetable on the battlefield will only aid the enemy. Yet a growing number of politicians are calling for just that--or, at least, a better(read more negative) official accounting of what's happening in Iraq. With polls showing less support for the war and pols parroting that public opinion, we're in danger of losing sight on how to defeat the enemy.
Sen. Joe Biden, a Delaware Democrat, joined the parade over the weekend while also bluntly saying he's looking at a presidential bid in 2008--although he was careful to add that he thinks the next presidential election will turn on national security. Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., normally a sensible Tennessee Democrat, has also joined the procession and hopes his call for a timeline will help him win the Senate seat Bill Frist is vacating. And it's not just Democrats, Sen. Chuck Hagel is making similar noises as he considers his own presidential bid.
The prime objective of the war in Iraq goes 'way beyond the done-deal defeat of Saddam Hussein, its ultimate goal is to establish a democracy in the midst of dangerous theocracies that are the petrie dishes for the cultivation of global terrorism, demonstrating the advantages of living in a free society to those in the rest of the region who never have.
Iraqis, despite the anti-Bush MSM campaign to depict our efforts in Iraq as a total failure, have been relishing the trappings of their new freedom and their young people have been fighting for it in the uniform of their military forces. We are kicking butt over there, but to complete their mission will take our soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen time, time that we cannot define with exactitude, although as we train and equip more Iraqis to defend their new democracy, we will be decreasing the number of U.S. troops deployed in security capacities.
These politically agendized liberals who want to sacrifice American lives for their own partisan purposes and the Republican pols whose careers are more important to them than doing the right thing for the U.S. and the West in general are traitors in my book: The politicians who want to schedule our withdrawal are educated men and women, most if not all lawyers and earning a law degree requires a great deal of intelligence. To read some of their opinions and see what they vote for in Congress tells me that they have agendas that pay little attention to the real wellbeing of their fellow Americans or the security of our country.
If we schedule a withdrawal of our military presence from Iraq, what do you suppose happens? The al Qaeda and other guerillas in Iraq back off and wait until the due date for us to be gone, then they attack the Iraqi government with strategies they've had time to plan carefully and forces they've had time to martial with full knowledge of the coalition's exit date, and the next thing you know, the Iraqis are enslaved by another oppressive, evil regime.
Do we really want what the Democrats do, to make waste of the sacrifices by those American warriors who have given their lives in Iraq?
The hope, of course, is that as democracy takes root in Iraq it will spread to the rest of the region. Since the invasion there have been plenty of encouraging signs. Lebanon and Egypt appear to be moving in the right direction. And even Syria is looking to set up its first stock exchange, perhaps a precurser to liberalizing economic reforms. Inside Iraq a civil government is slowly standing up even as the insurgency continues to pull off deadly attacks.
This is a war of civil society versus the agents of anarchy. We don't need to set a schedule to accept defeat. We need more civil societies to help us keep a lid on the violence that will otherwise creep into our lives. That's what the war in Iraq is all about and why winning it remains in our nation's vital interests.
Those patriotic Americans who want what's right but whose beliefs are programmed by what they read, listen to or watch in the MSM, do not have a clue. They have little or no idea that complete success in Iraq will be an important measure in protecting ourselves and other free countries from terrorism.
Posted by Seth at 09:58 AM |
June 21, 2005
It Just Keeps Getting Stupider!
On 12 June, I did a post on the moronic Gitmo rhetoric coming from moonwipes like Newsweek and Amnesty International. You know, about flushing Korans(retracted) and the gulag we purportedly run in Cuba, according to Travesty International, who admitted not knowing what was happening at Guantanamo Bay but reported it anyway at their website.
Now there's more.
CONGRESS LIKELY TO DEFINE WAR DETAINEES
Congress is likely to step into the operation of the Guantanamo Bay detention center with legislation on how the U.S. should legally categorize an unorthodox enemy.
Fitting the enemy in the war on terror into the proper niche is challenging. Al Qaeda terrorists do not wear a uniform. They target civilians and never signed the Geneva Convention governing the treatment of wartime detainees.
U.S. officials say al Qaeda members make up the majority of the 520 inmates at Camp Delta in Cuba and include terrorist leader Osama bin Laden's bodyguards and one man who authorities suspect was supposed to be the 20th hijacker on the September 11 flights. The other inmates are suspected of being Taliban members.
....Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Hemingway, who is chief legal advisor to the appointing authority for the military commissions, added,(" I?) think that we can hold them as long as the conflict endures. But we have... a very detailed process for eliminating them if they no longer present a threat."
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and a strong advocate for detainee rights, asked, "Well, we now have a government in Afghanistan, yet the conflict continues. Is that what you're saying?"
What an idiotic question! And this coming from a guy who belongs to the body of our government that makes laws!
Gen. Hemingway replied, "The conflict is not with the government of Afghanistan. The conflict is with a nonstate organization."
...So far, the Pentagon has released more than 200 detainees. About 10 have resurfaced on the battlefield in Afghanistan and been killed or captured, administration officials said.
Ten that we know of because they've been recaptured or waxed, how many more are out there, using their freedom from custody to get back to business as usual?
I mean it, I am soooo flabbergasted at all this. This entire affair is based upon nothing concrete, in fact nothing whatsoever, it's like a vile cartoon and the upswing, if the administration and the right thinking folks on the Hill allow the Democrats to have their way, will be hundreds of terrorists back in circulation while a message is sent to Muslim terrorists everywhere that most Americans are on their side. There is a Republican majority in this country, which is why they'd be wrong in this assumption: It's that other party, the minority, that seems to be on their side.
Posted by Seth at 03:12 AM |
Winning The Peace
On the DOD's website today appeared an article posted yesterday by the American Forces Press Service titled,
Americans Can't Neglect Signs of Progress In Iraq
Americans cannot forget the progress being made in Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said from Jerusalem today.
Rice took time off from her trip to the Middle East to speak to Fox News Channel. She said Americans cannot ignore the political and military successes in Iraq.
"I would say to the American people, 'Yes, this is very hard and very difficult, but we are making a lot of progress in what will be a strategic breakthrough for the United States, which is to have a different kind of Middle East''' Rice said.
Recent polls show support for operations in Iraq is dropping among the American people. Casualty lists, car bombs and suicide bombers dominate the news, but Rice said there are clear signs of progress. Among them is the capture of "the Emir of Mosul" -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's lieutenant Abu Talha.
The Iraqi forces are growing in numbers and sophistication, Rice said. Iraqi forces took the lead in security for the January elections, for example. Since then, Iraqi forces have taken on increasing security burdens. The 40th Grigade of the Iraqi army handles security for much of Baghdad. Marines participating in Operation Spear in Karabila are operating with Iraqi forces.
The Iraqi security forces now consist of about 170,000 trained and equipped soldiers and police. As those forces grow and gain experience, the security responsibility for coalition forces will shrink, Rice said.
We've been doing increasing damage to the terrorists over there as our troops and their commanders become increasingly more experienced at fighting the kind of fight they face, and the Iraqi forces have the benefit of being trained by the best soldiers in the world.
The Iraqis have demonstrated their enthusiasm for living in a free country by starting up hundreds of newspapers they can now sell without being tortured for their views, electing their government in a democratic election and fighting the terrorists aggressively alongside coalition members as soldiers for their country. They are rebuilding their country in an image of democracy.
In my opinion, any waning of support for our enterprise in Iraq is the result of the MSM's one-sided reporting. Somehow, these "journalists" always seem to be looking in a different direction when something positive occurs, but they never miss a negative event and when one happens, they put the worst possible accent on it. When G.I.s are killed, they positively crow about it and when they provide a tally of casualties to date, they sound like they're bragging about points they've made in some game they are playing.
That's about the size of it, a game, friends. A game of politics in which the stakes could well be our lives and the partisan Mainstream Media hacks could care less, because their priority is discrediting George W. Bush, not the wellbeing of their fellow Americans, world peace nor even feeding the world's hungry, despite their claims to the contrary. These are educated people delivering the news to the majority of American voters, and there's no way anyone with even Jethro Bodine's level of education could fail to see the importance to our own survival of what we're doing in Iraq.
For some reason, when I think of all those dems following the MSM's stories and treating them as gospel, I think of....well.... Lemmings....
**** As is usually the case with DOD site links, there is a redirect to their main news page. The linked article is the sixth one down.
Underneath the lead-in to the article is another link, to an article titled, Rice Urges Patience As Democracy Emerges .
Both are under "More Defense News".
Posted by Seth at 02:01 AM |
June 20, 2005
Bureau Trivia
I haven't posted for the last few days because I was inordinately busy and was also having to address some move- related problems with my DSL. I seem to be settled in now, at last.
Over at the FBI's website, there's a small quiz on the Law Enforcement agency in pop culture, for those who are trivia buffs, 5 questions and 1 bonus question.
Posted by Seth at 11:11 PM |
June 16, 2005
Make Mine Starbucks!
If you've ever wondered how Starbucks Chairman Howard Shultz built the coffee concern into such a dynamo, try considering the employee loyalty factor as one element of his success. Until I read the bio linked above, I actually gave no thought to the man.
According to the bio, he came from poverty, got out of the projects with a college football scholarship and never looked back.
He worked for Starbucks and during that period of employment, when they only sold their coffee in bean or grounds form to take home, he tried convincing the company that they would do well to open a chain of cafes. They declined to act on his suggestions, he left and later bought the firm, then metamorphised it into what it is today.
What kind of employee loyalty do you suppose you enjoy when you give 20 hour per week part timers full health coverage, and health coverage to unmarried spouses and institute a generous profit sharing plan, especially in these times when most employers go for the cheapest benefit packages they can scrape up and treat part timers like red headed step children(in fact a lot of companies, including the one that picks up and delivers most packages sent in the United States, I won't reveal the name of that company whose acronym is the opposite of 'downs', keep most of their rank and file employees on part time status so they don't have to give them any benefits). At any rate, Shultz is a great American success story if I've ever seen one, and he shares with his employees. The reason, he says, is because he wants to give others the chance to work for the kind of company his father never got to work for. Here's the link again, check out his bio.
What actually brought on this curiosity about the Starbucks chairman was a link emailed to me by my good friend Steve who, like me, is an avid supporter of Israel. It is a long post on a Muslim website inciting readers to boycott Starbucks because Howard Shultz is also an avid supporter of Israel. He's done business there, raised funds for Israel and is a very good friend of the Jewish state, so naturally, it stands to reason in the convoluted minds of members of The Religion Of Peace, he is the archenemy of Islam.
The Islamic site's post begins:
Research Findings Howard Shultz, chairman of Starbucks is an active Zionist.
Read and enjoy.
The U.K. website must have a more sedate readership than we're accustomed to on Islamic forums, since there hasn't been anything in the news as yet about anybody hijacking buses or eighteen wheelers and crashing them into Starbucks coffee houses, or anyone like Mr. Emoticon, here,
setting up shop in a nearby mosque.
Posted by Seth at 08:16 AM | Comments (2) |
June 15, 2005
The Last Antitaxation Hero
Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger is taking on the California tax and spend liberals who, as usual, are looking to sleaze yet more money out of the tax payers with blind-siding, sneaky legislation. Proposition 13, a 1978 initiative that capped California property tax increases, is the issue at hand with the state's Dems looking to change it or add taxable increments to the prop that would enable them to extract more money from voters.
Santee, San Diego County -- Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger's special election campaign suddenly became all about the landmark Proposition 13 property tax initiative Tuesday when he warned elderly homeowners they could lose their houses to taxes if Democrats and union leaders got their way in the fall.
"They want to back us into a corner so eventually they can force us to raise taxes," Schwartzenegger told about 25 people in a backyard gettogether at this town outside San Diego.
He accused Democratic legislators of sneaking around with backdoor efforts to "tweak" Prop. 13, the 1978 initiative that put tight caps on property taxes in the state.
....The attack enraged Democratic leaders, who accused the governor of campaigning on issues that aren't on the Nov 8 ballot.
Changing Prop. 13 to boost taxes on homeowners "isn't on the ballot and it isn't even on anyone's radar screen," said Maviglio, a spokesman for assembly speaker Fabian Nunez, D- Los Angeles. "The governor is trying to scare people to the polls and that's shameful."
Democratic legislators have authored bills that would amend Prop. 13 to make it easier to impose special parcel taxes and backed efforts to boost taxes on commercial property.
The San Francisco Chronicle article that tells the story will not link, but in today's online edition of the paper, the item reads Guv: It's About Prop 13.
California is the liberal stronghold of America, the home base of those who think we should be a socialist country, a nation in which the government and, through taxation, the rank and file tax payer and successful businesses are responsible for every last Utopian jerkoff social whim these asshats want to espouse.
Oh, shit! We've blown all the state taxpayers' money, we'd better hit 'em up for more....
Their tax the people into the ground, the more the merrier attitude, during previous gubernatorial administrations such as that of Gray Davis, whom we fired in favor of electing the Governator, has driven businesses(can you say, jobs?) out of California and into neighboring states with more agreeable business tax rates.
These people are so far beyond unreasonable that it borders on insanity! They have no concept of budgets, they simply spend money on their bottomless pit feel-good agendas and when the kitty bottoms out, they seek to squeeze more money out of Joe Taxpayer. European countries, whom the liberals admire to the extent of worship, confiscate more of their citizens' wages and salaries than they allow them to keep, and their economies still fall short of ours by enormous margins(more than double the unemployment, etc).
We are a Capitalist Republic that's proved out(the richest, strongest nation on this planet) with a constitution that forbids taxation without representation(remember the Boston Tea Party, or has that, too, been stricken from primary education textbooks by liberal revisionists of history?), and the vast majority of liberal agendas are just that. The liberals' favorite passtime would seem to be spending our tax dollars on issues that the majority of us would vote against if given the opportunity to do so, if for no other reason than to hang onto enough of the money we earn working to live under reasonable conditions. The liberals want us to be just like France and other failing countries.
Arnold's referendem for the vote in November is a counter to the California libs' tendency to obfuscate issues in order to get the voters to pass laws and enact policies they might not vote on if they had the true picture.
A good example is a proposition that was on the ballot here in San Francisco, where all the politicians are liberals, in 2002. The city supervisors(the local equivalent of councilmen) needed a venue for rewarding their more noteworthy supporters, so they decided to form an entertainment commission that would decide issues relating to licencing night clubs and like businesses that would consist of their political cronies. They voted it in among themselves without consulting the voters, and on the proposition ballot they gave the voters a choice as to whether or not the mayor(the baksheesh and political advancement seeking Willie Brown) should be able to appoint X number of members to the commission and the city supervisors the rest. The way it was worded on the ballot made it appear to most local voters that they were actually having a say on whether or not to form the commission to begin with, a "yes" or "no" vote all that was required. In my book, that constitutes misleading the public.
The California branch of the Angry Left has been maligning Schwartzenegger since he took office and the opinion on the street(read that as "among the state's liberals") is that he's "sold out" the citizens of the state and reneged on what he purported to stand for when he ran for governor.
Bullshirt. Like the rest of today's Democrats, the majority in California's legislature would rather sabotage their GOP governor(like the Dems on Capital Hill do to W at every opportunity), letting the rest of us pay the price, in order to undermine his performance and get him voted out in favor of their own candidate in the next election. These anal cavities should be slowly smothered to death, or exported to France where they belong.
I don't envy the California governor his job, which has to be a frustrating ordeal in itself just because of the obstructions he faces on a day-to-day basis from the state legislature's liberal majority.
Posted by Seth at 11:26 AM |
June 13, 2005
Moving.
I am moving today, and SBC won't have my service transferred until tomorrow, so unless my notebook finds me a wireless network in the meantime, I will be offline for about 24 hours.
shudders
Posted by Seth at 03:20 PM |
The Gulag Archipelago
You can preview and order the Gulag Archipelago here. Alexander Solzhenitsyn's 1973, three volume nonfiction work on the brutal Soviet prison camp system describes a reality that places Amnesty International's reference to Camp Delta as a gulag squarely at the top of the Bullshit List.
That they can even remotely refer to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility thusly(even if they hadn't admitted not knowing what goes on there) tells us that they have no credibility whatsoever anymore and are letting their left wing, anti-Bush, anti-U.S., anti-freedom, pro-terrorism agenda do their talking for them.
Asshats.
Posted by Seth at 01:58 PM |
Ridiculouser And Ridiculouser
"Guantanamogate" has reaaallllly gotten out of hand.
We get a Newsweek story based on misinformation and quickly retracted as such, then Amnesty International, admitting that they don't know what's happening at Camp Delta, the Gitmo detention facility, but going ahead and calling it a gulag anyway, so,
Based on no factual evidence whatsoever(to Bush hating liberals that's plenty of proof), the left has begun to crow with their usual glee beneath their patented false veneer of concern and hurl accusations of torture and inhumanity, creating yet another wave of anti-Bush hysteria, demands pouring in from liberal politicians and pundits that the detention center be shut down. What a bunch of reactionary obstructionist buffoons!
Let's read how Oliver North weighs in on the subject.
An exerpt,
Here's Amnesty's "gulag:" Upon arrival, detainees are issued a blanket, a sheet, two orange "jump suits," flip flops, a foam sleeping pad, two bath towels, a washcloth, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, a prayer rug, and a Koran. They are allowed two 15-minute showers per week; They get recreation time and three culturally sensitive meals per day. Schedules are respectful of Islamic traditions, prayer calls are broadcast five times a day and arrows painted on the floors point to Mecca. Their regular quarters include a flushing toilet, running water, and an off-the-floor bed. Detainees who ask for them are provided with soccer balls, playing cards, chessboards and paperback books. All of this, courtesy of the American taxpayers the detainees have sworn to kill.
Now compare that to a Soviet gulag as described by gulag survivor Alexander Solzhenitsyn. If you haven't yet read his (1962) novel, One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovitch, I highly recommend adding it to your reading list.
Another of Solzhenitsyn's books on the subject (in nonfiction mode) is The Gulag Archipelago. A link to a preview at Amazon.com that includes the opening segment follows in the next post.
Posted by Seth at 06:45 AM |
June 12, 2005
Medical MJ Issue Update
Last Monday I posted about the Supreme Court's ruling that it is okay for the DEA to bust medical marijuana patients.
Fox News, on their online video page, reports that the DEA has said it will not actively pursue medical marijuana patients, but focus its efforts on serious traffickers of nonprescribed marijuana. Fox news videos do not possess their own linkable URLs, but this report is presently on the page, which changes from day to day.
Go to the right sidebar, click on Only On Fox, then on Smoked Out? Here is the link to the page.
I have seen stories about the Court's ruling and surrounding issues in several MSM venues, but none seem to have mentioned the above development, probably because it's in the liberal interest to keep the folks concerned mad at the Bush Administration for as long as possible.
I know, the Supremes that ruled against medical marijuana were the liberals, those that dissented the conservatives, but you'll see: It'll somehow become Bush's fault, as always.
There's also a good take on the issue by Daniel Henninger in The Wall Street Journal Online.
Marijuana!
Supreme Court Just Says No
The Supreme Court's liberal bloc -- Stevens, Ginsburg, Souter and Breyer -- ensured Monday with the support of Justices Kennedy and Scalia that people sick from cancer treatment will have to think first about a house call from the federal drug police before using marijuana to treat their symptoms. Even the Court's language was unfeeling: "The case comes down to the claim that a locally cultivated product that is used domestically rather than sold on the open market is not subject to federal regulation. Given the...undisputed magnitude of the commercial market for marijuana, Wickard and its progeny foreclose that claim."
Liberalism to cancer patients: Drop dead.
Read the entire column.
Posted by Seth at 07:27 PM |
Eliot Spitzer, Witch Hunter
And here we have the New York Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, a man so full of ambition to build the resume he feels he needs to further his political career that he executes the duties of his position using a jungle rules approach, attacking target companies through what amounts to browbeating them into "out of court" settlements, because he knows he wouldn't win any of his dubious, weakly conceived cases against them before a jury.
An Op Ed in WSJ Opinion Journal's Review & Outlook(Friday, 10 June), titled The Siphol Verdict A jury instructs Eliot Spitzer on the rule of law, discusses a case in which Spitzer went after one Theodore C. Siphol for "late trading", as the defendant had been helping Canary Capital trade mutual funds after 4:00 P.M., when the market closed for the day. The problem the Spitz encountered was that there is no law on the books that says "late trading" is illegal, only that trading after the NAV(net asset value) of a mutual fund is computed for the day is illegal, and that happens about an hour and a half after the close of trading of a mutual fund for that day.
Mr. Siphol is the exception to the usual Spitzer rule of using strong-arm tactics to coerce settlements out of business. The Attorney General has become famous for assailing a business practice that is either controversial or legally ambiguous, and then using leaks via the media and the threat of indictment or the destruction of an entire company to force his targets to surrender.
In the case of mutual fund "late trading," that tactic worked with Bank of America and Canary Capital, the hedge fund whose trades Mr. Siphol had helped execute. But when Mr. Siphol, a mid-level functionary, refused a plea offer that included jail time, the Attorney General came down on him like J. Edgar Hoover on John Dillinger, with multiple counts and potential jail time of up to 30 years.
This led Mr. Spitzer into the terra incognita of a jury trial, where he'd have to prove that "late trading" was illegal....
Eliot, Eliot, Eliot....
What's wrong with being a man of honor? If you want to feather your cap so badly, why not find some legitimate criminals to pursue rather than simple targets of opportunity?
I know, I know, you really don't care all that much about your duty to those who elected you AG, it's all about finding vulnerable shortcuts to glory and thereby(hopefully, to you) a platform from which to launch a campaign for governor. Did you serve in Vietnam? If so, be sure to include that in as many sentences as you can in your campaign speeches, it just might work this time. The last guy that tried it nearly succeeded, but unfortunately(for him, not for the nation) many of those who knew him in Southeast Asia came out of the woodwork with accounts of his service that weren't quite as heroic as his own version. Can you say "180 degrees?"
I try so hard not to sound like an extremely right wing kind of guy, I really do, but sometimes it can't be helped, because I am an American and I'm proud of my government and my country and my President. This, I think, is what causes me to digress. I promise to try not to do that.
Still....
But seriously, before you drag your next would-be victim before a jury, you should take a year off from work and study under John Edwards. He'll teach you how to manipulate a jury to the point that they'd convict an armless, legless, blind, four year old deaf mute of strangulation to death of the Heavyweight Champion of the World.
There I go again, dammit!
Posted by Seth at 08:27 AM |
June 08, 2005
Gitmo 101
In Jewish World Review today, Linda Chavez has a column on the Detention Center at Guantanamo Bay that sums up, completely, totally, eloquently and thoroughly the whole story in a way that even the stooopidest liberal could not refute her without looking even more stooopid.
Senator Joe Biden, D-Del., thinks that the United States detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "has become the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world."
Sure, Joe. Bubba Clinton's policy of turning the other cheek no fewer than half a dozen times when terrorists attacked us during his administration worked a lot better, right? We should show these extremists that we feel their pain, reach out to them in the spirit of compassion and friendship, nurture them with tender loving care and then, because we've demonstrated our peaceful goodwill, those gentle spirits will throw away their explosives and smallarms and leave us alone as they go on to pursue productive, meaningful lives. Right.
Biden told ABC's "This Week" that "we should end up shutting it down, moving those prisoners. Those that we have reason to keep, keep. And those that we don't, let go." Biden wants Congress to appoint a commission to study Guantanamo, but the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee seems to have no clue what the practical consequences of his suggestion would be.
It's not that he doesn't have a clue, it's that he doesn't want one. Like most of the flaming leftists the Democratic Party has allowed to hijack it, he apparently believes that the consequences of something he sets in motion are just some picayune detail of little or no consequence, the main thing is to score some imagined political point in the LWOB(Liberals' War On Bush). This has reached the point of ridiculousness, one of our primary political parties slavering with so much anger and hate towards our president that they're willing to endanger the rest of us, get American troops and civilians killed, just to sling some mud on Mr. Bush and hope at least part of it sticks.
Can anyone say, treason?
Since January 2002, when the United States began detaining at Guantanamo Bay enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other fronts in the war on terror, critics have complained of human rights abuses. Last month the secretary general of Amnesty International compared Guantanamo to the Soviet gulags, a charge that can only be described as obscene. From 1929 to 1953, 18 million people were imprisoned in the Soviet slave labor camps. The gulags' horrors have been documented by their most celebrated inmate, Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and most recently by JWR columnist Anne Applebaum in her Pulitzer Prize winning book, "Gulag: A History." Men, women, children guilty of nothing were sent to camps in Siberia where they wereworked often literally to death. Applebaum writes that "[p]risoners were also locked in punishment cells until they died of cold and starvation, left untreated in unheated hospitals, or simply shot at will for 'attempted escape.'''
The men imprisoned at Guantanamo are members of an international terrorist organization that has killed thousands of innocent civilians. Most were captured while fighting U.S. and coalition troops. They have provided valuable intelligence about al Qaeda, including its recruitment efforts in Europe, its training methods, especially its use of suicide bombers, and its exploitation of charity fronts to raise money for its efforts. More than 200 men have been released from Guantanamo, some of whom have rejoined terrorist networks and are trying to kill Americans again.
Posted by Seth at 05:46 PM |
June 07, 2005
A Jewish Perspective
Jewish World Review today features an Op Ed by Sam Schulman that seems to me to be dead on, regarding the failure to pass of the EU constitution and what it means to Israel, Let's congratulate the national peoples of Europe for their courage.
Don't be disturbed by the stories from France and the Netherlands that a motley coalition of communists and neo-nazis have defeated the EU constitutional referenda. The restoration of the principle of self-government to the various European nations is the best news for the Jews to come out of Europe since the acquittal of Dreyfus.
The fact is that the European "superstate" was founded on one idea: nationalities cannot be trusted with a state of their own. A majority of Frenchmen or Dutchmen must not be permitted to decide on their own economic and foreign policy--- lest --- well, lest the heavens fall. Under the new European constitution, a panel of unelected experts would take all decision-making power away from individual national groups. The Dutch, the Germans, the French, the Czechs would surrender their ability to govern themselves in the interest of something higher. What, exactly, that higher value might be was never explained--- but if one opposed it, one was a "xenophobe" or a reactionary.
So the national peoples of Europe were about to surrender their states. Needless to say, the notion that, of all people, the Jews should be allowed alone to have a state in which they could govern themselves and choose their own leaders under the rule of law was an outrage to the "European Idea." To the extent that the European Union continued its march against national self-determination, Israel's legitimacy would be eroded.
I agree. The Weasel States, who carry the most weight in the EU, pretty much call the shots at the U.N., and that unctuous, corrupt, anti-America, anti-Israel bureaucracy has, for as long as I can remember, opposed Israel at every turn, siding with the Palestinians and whatever other Arab countries have had issues with Israel.
Posted by Seth at 07:19 PM |
June 06, 2005
Supreme Micromanagement vs States' Rights
Although I am pretty right wing by most people's standards, there are a few issues upon which my views differ from those of many of my fellow conservatives, and in this instance I think the Supreme Court has given its blessing to the guv'mint to interfere in affairs that should be left to the discretion of individual states.
Court Rules Against Pot for Sick People
Washington (AP) - Federal authorities may prosecute sick people whose doctors prescribe marijuana to ease pain, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, concluding that state laws don't protect users from a federal ban on the drug.
The decision is a stinging defeat for marijuana advocates who had successfully pushed 10 states to allow the drug's use to treat various illnesses.
Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the 6-3 decision, said that Congress could change the law to allow medical use of marijuana.
In a dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said that states should be allowed to set their own rules.
Interestingly enough, O'Connor was joined in her dissent by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas. Liberals take note: Medical marijuana is a liberal issue and there's Clarence Thomas, the accomplished black man whom you demean, for his conservatism, as a traitor to his "people", coming down on your side of the equation. Try and find some spin to put on that!
I am totally on the dissenters' side in this.
Living in San Francisco and socializing with a lot of people here, I've gotten to know quite a few people who have medical marijuana prescriptions. These are people with severely painful, permanent internal disorders, AIDS and other ailments whose agonies are either relieved or minimized by smoking marijuana. It really, truly helps them and while it is profoundly less expensive than some of the pharmaceuticals they would otherwise have to take, many at the taxpayer's expense, it also works better than many of those prescription drugs and doesn't feature the harsh side effects that are associated with most pharmaceuticals.
I truly cannot understand why the folks on my side of the aisle are continuing to be so damned boneheaded about this.
There is no interstate trafficking in California's medical marijuana program, all the legal herb sold here is grown in California and it is illegal to transport it out of the state for commercial purposes. People can also grow plants at home for their personal medical use, and a great many do because it's cheaper than buying by weight. Seeds and young marijuana plants are sold at many of the "weed shops"(my own term).
In short, as long as a state keeps its legal sweet leaf (think Black Sabbath here, with Ozzie on their album Master Of Reality) industry entirely within its borders, the federal government should allow that state to make its own determinations regarding marijuana laws and their enforcement.
That would leave a whole lot more ATF assets free to go after the heroin, crystal & crack cocaine, oxycontin and methamphetamine traffickers who constitute the real threats by purveying addictive products that destroy families, ruin lives and create violent street crime.
In my honest opinion, the government is wasting millions of dollars in man hours(ooops! This is San Francisco, so it's person hours) and logistics fighting the sale, use and possession of a product that will inevitably be decriminalized, at the very least, within the next few years as members of more recent generations replace the older politicians in the Senate.
"The states' core police powers have always included authority to define criminal law and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens," said O'Connor....
Right on!
Posted by Seth at 07:31 PM |
Well, Well, Well...
On June 1st I posted about Amnesty International's website posting about GITMO and other U.S. military detention centers where they keep captured terrorists and their associates.
Apparently, they were merely indulging in the by the book liberal strategy of hurling accusations in the general direction of G.W. Bush, accuracy not even a factor in their considerations, just another element of the nonstop leftist onslaught of idiocy in the liberals' War On Bush.
According to an article in today's Washington Times online by James G. Lakely, Amnesty International admits that they were talking from their touchas.
The head of Amnesty International's American branch yesterday acknowledged that he "doesn't know for sure" what is going on at Guantanamo Bay prison, although Amnesty International's secretary-general has called the terrorist prison run at a U.S. military base in Cuba a "gulag."
However, William F. Schulz defended the description made last week by Irene Khan, saying on "Fox News Sunday" yesterday that America's "archipelago of prisons throughout the world" are "similar in character, if not in size" to the Soviet gulags, where millions of political prisoners were killed.
"I don't believe [the charges] are irresponsible," said Mr. Schulz, the executive director of Amnesty International U.S.A. "I've told you the ways in which I think that [there are] analogies between the Soviet prison system and the United States."
Pressed to cite concrete evidence that Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales are the "architects" of "systematic torture" at the prison, Mr. Schulz could produce none.
"We don't know for sure what all is happening at Guantanamo and our whole point is that the United States ought to allow independent human rights organizations to investigate," Mr. Schulz said, adding that Amnesty International was careful to use the word "alleged" when accusing high level Bush administration officials.
So, "we don't know for sure what all is happening at Guantanamo," but we'll hurl accusations anyway since even though we may be misleading the public, we'll maybe plant a few anti-Bush seeds in so doing and since the left has been working hard to establish ourselves as noncredible anyway, what could it hurt? We can always stumble foolishly through the heat we'll have to take when the truth comes out, God knows we're used to making asses out of ourselves in front of America and the world as it is, so here goes....
Read the entire article.
Posted by Seth at 06:32 PM |
Heading East
In September, I am moving from San Francisco to New York, from which I hail.
The thing I will miss most about today's California is....
Posted by Seth at 02:06 AM |
June 04, 2005
Muslim "Civil Rights" vs. Homeland Security
I'm sure finding a lot of stuff to comment about from the "all the left that fits to print" newspaper these days. In todays New York Times there's an article by Andrea Elliott entitled You Can't Talk to an F.B.I. Agent that Way, or Can You?
Dressed in a navy suit and red tie, his hair parted neatly on the side, Special Agent Charles E. Frahm sat with practiced calm as Muslims rose, one after another, to hurl raw complaints at him. Mr. Frahm, who heads the counterterrorism division of the F.B.I. in New York, was at a banquet hall in the Midwood section of Brooklyn on Thursday night to listen, he had told hundreds of residents gathered there.
And they responded. They were tired of being held for hours at airports when their names resembled those of suspected terrorists, they said. They were tired of seeing Muslims arrested on immigration charges. They were tired of having their mosques watched, their businesses scrutinized.
....Since Mr. Frahm took over New York's counterterrorism division in July 2004, he has impressed some skeptical Muslim leaders with his eagerness to make public appearances. "I think it helps the community to air their feelings," he said during a break on Thursday night. ""This provides folks a forum for pent-up frustration. The emotion is real."
...."I hear you, and I will continue to hear you," he said. "I can also say we make no apologies for actions we must take to protect Americans."
And that last quote sums things up pretty well. ".... we make no apologies for actions we must take to protect Americans."
What do these people expect? The overwhelming majority of today's terrorists look just like them, have names like theirs and to go further, several mosques and places of business have been caught out as places for storing weapons and explosives, harboring wanted terrorists, indoctrinating and training terrorists and also in the case of the mosques, many are places where "holy men" preach hate against Jews and Christians with the intention of inciting lethal violence against innocent people in the name of Islam.
So we're supposed to assume that all of these people are clean until something blows up and a lot of people are killed or maimed? Is that it?
I have a much better idea: Stop whining, and police your own damn community! Your inaction sends out a message of approval to these murderous fanatics, and coupled with the adulation they receive from Arab media and millions of fellow Muslims this accellerates terrorism. If a Muslim community, here or elsewhere does not openly oppose terrorists and actively help local and federal law enforcement in taking them down(that includes fingering relatives who are involved in terrorism) then as far as I'm concerned that community is proterror and undeserving of U.S. citizenship or even a green card.
Terrorism travels with Islam; Wherever the Religion of Peace goes, so does violence. It's your baggage, Muslims, so you need to deal with it. Until you do, don't bitch about your "rights." My right to live is more important to me than your right not to be inconvenienced.
So, in the article....
Posted by Seth at 09:59 PM |
June 02, 2005
A "Spot-On" Column
In today's N.Y. Times, the paper known 99% of the time or thereabouts for butt munching Old Europe while extolling their superiority to the U.S. under a GOP administration, there is a column by David Brooks titled Fear and Rejection that expresses the opinion that American liberals are, once again, being proved wrong. How? By failing to perceive that their goals for the United States have already been tested over time in Western Europe and found to be seriously lacking in favorable results.
Read the column here.
"The Western European standard of living is about a third lower than the American standard of living, and it's sliding. European output per capita is less than 46 of the 50 American states and about on par with Arkansas. There is little prospect of robust growth returning any time soon."
"Once it was plausible to argue that the European quality of life made up for the economic underperformance, but those arguments look more and more strained, in part because demographic trends make even the current conditions unsustainable. Europe's population is aging and shrinking. By 2040, the European median age will be around 50. Nearly a third of the population will be over 65. Public spending on retirees will have to grow by a third, sending Europe into a spiral of higher taxes and less growth."
And the above is what the liberals want for the rest of us? Our so-called "cultural elite", with all their self proclaimed intellectual superiority, are as dumb as the proverbial box of rocks. Even confronted with the truth glaring out of the reality that is the example set by today's Western Europe, they are determined to lead us down their Utopian trail to economic and cultural disaster.
The references made by the columnist to the Western European median age, by 2040, of 50 with one third of the population being 65, while not cited in the piece, are a result of a severe decrease in child births in the last couple of decades. Younger generations are having less babies, and less babies means less future taxpayers to support them when they retire, and it stands to reason that this, in turn, means that in order to take care of the old folks a few short decades from now, the thinned down working generation of that time will have to be taxed almost to starvation.
Do we really need to be there tomorrow, just so a few "cultural elite" jackasses can score some political victories today?
Posted by Seth at 11:19 PM |
June 01, 2005
A Must- Order DVD
Yesterday I received my copy of Herb Meyer's DVD, The Siege Of Western Civilization, and I just finished watching it.
It's a 42 minute monologue that very reasonably defines the entire conservative point of view, and I can't imagine a liberal watching more than the first fifteen minutes, since as we know, liberals are almost exclusively closed minded to the point that they'll rarely even socialize with anyone whose political views are different.
The intro begins thusly:
"We all want to live in a healthy environment. So when our environment is threatened, we need to know about it so we can take steps to make things better. But in the last few years, we have become so obsessed by our physical environment that we have ignored threats to our cultural environment. And the truth is, in the long run the health of our cultural environment is just as important to us as the health of our physical environment- maybe even more important...
Our cultural environment is Western Civilization. This is who we are. And today, Western Civilization is under siege........"
Herb Meyer really does cover all the bases in the conservative argument.
Posted by Seth at 05:29 PM |
Travesty International
I have added Amnesty International to my site links and aptly described them as an international version of the ACLU, whose site I won't link to here because it is probably the most miserably bigoted, hate filled and hypocritical organization in America.
While Amnesty International is another org along the same lines, their site keeps us up with some of the rhetoric these asshats are spreading to a vast global audience.
Ever since its inception, Amnesty International has put a great deal of effort into anti-U.S. propaganda. Basically, they have taken the side of our enemies at any given time, whenever an opportunity has arisen to do so.
Currently on their website is yet another of their attacks on Guantanamo Bay and "other" prisoner of war camps. Read The Article.
These people we have in detention are not there for shop lifting, though some of them are associated with others who steal airplanes, then crash them into busy office buildings, murdering thousands of innocent human beings they don't even know. They are not prisoners because they committed DUI, uttered forged instruments nor perpetrated insider trading.
These people are terrorists, or they are the former thugs of a fallen, oppressive, murderous theocratic regime that supported and harbored those terrorists, a Muslim Ton Ton Macoutre. They are POWs in the Global War On Terror, which is an ongoing military conflict and as such different(military) rules apply. These prisoners' crimes, other than by association, were not committed on United States soil, and they are not being held on sovereign U.S. soil. Hell, the GITMO bunch are in Cuba! Rest assured, therefore, that considering how prisoners of the same status would be treated in Fidel Castro's captivity they are living in the lap of luxury.
Posted by Seth at 03:06 PM |
