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December 31, 2005

Best Of The Blogosphere 2005

Stop The ACLU is hosting Best Of The Blogoshere 2005, in which bloggers have submitted posts they consider their best for the year, linked to from the Stop The ACLU site.

While Jay invited me to submit a post and I would have genuinely enjoyed doing so, I've been so swamped with the details of a major move, buying and organizing myriad logistics for my new house and existing of late in a one man state of mass pandemonium that I wouldn't know where to begin looking for the post that fits the bill.

By this time next year, I will have been long settled in my new home and be in a "state of mind", LOL, that will render me truly able to participate.

Nonetheless, I'm completely supportive of Best Of The Blogosphere 2005, there are some truly excellent posts by some truly excellent bloggers, well worth taking the time to read and enjoy.

That said, I'll see you next year, and

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

Posted by Seth at 05:33 AM | Comments (2) |

December 30, 2005

Tell Me About It

Back in September I stayed at two hotels in Manhattan, The Benjamin and Doubletree Suites. Both were notably expensive.

The Doubletree flat out sucked, and the Internet access I paid $10.00 a day for was beyond useless. I lost several posts I'd put a lot of time into. I did the angry guest routine, which isn't me at all unless I become really peeved, and they credited me the money I'd spent on web access. Whooptie Doo! That's enough, I needn't go into the prices of items, even snack foods that cost a buck or two, in the minibar.

The suite I had at the Benjamin was beautiful, but again, the web access was iffy and a room service breakfast of sausages, eggs, potatoes, toast, orange juice, milk and a pot of coffee cost me $52.00 or thereabouts, a steak dinner with dessert and milk and a glass of brandy some $20.00 over a C-note.

Room service waiters in Manhattan must be required to take a course on how to look someone straight in the eye when presenting the check, exchange pleasantries and depart without gleefully shouting, "Sucker!"

But it is New York, after all, and according to AP writer David B. Caruso, A Night In New York Costs More Than Ever.

Hotel prices set wallet-busting records in New York City in 2005 after a long, slow recovery from the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The average daily price of a room in the city hit $292 in November, according to the hospitality industry analysis firm PKF Consulting. Figures for December weren't yet available, but the city is a lock to break its previous record yearlong average of $237 per night, set in 2000.

Prices were high in every corner of town, from the noisy motels jammed into industrial neighborhoods near Kennedy Airport to the palaces near Central Park.

They'll leave the light on for you...

Posted by Seth at 08:15 PM | Comments (1) |

Ech!

I am a serious coffee afficionado, one for whom awakening or finishing a delicious meal, or simply hanging out are all synonymous with a good cup o' java, but this is just a bit much.

Would you pay $175 for a pound of coffee beans which had passed through the backside of a furry mammal in Indonesia? Apparently, some coffee lovers wanting to treat themselves to something special are lapping it up.

Kopi Luwak beans from Indonesia are rare and expensive, thanks to a unique taste and aroma enhanced by the digestive system of palm civets, nocturnal tree-climbing creatures about the size of a large house cat.

I love Jamaican Blue Mountain and during the limited time each year the crop is being harvested have no qualms with spending $40.00 a pound(for maybe 5 lbs., which I refrigerate and treat like gold), but I'm definitely not gonna drink coffee from beans that have been processed as turds.

Ewwww!

Posted by Seth at 06:48 PM |

Spies Like Us

And a well written viewpoint by Kathleen Parker,

"The president has authorized a domestic spying program without court approval" sounds like Big Brother is breathing down all our necks. "The president has authorized national security agents to wiretap suspected terrorists" sounds like common sense.

Thus, try as I might, I can't muster outrage over what appears to be a reasonable action in the wake of 9/11. As a rule, I'm as averse as anyone to having people "spying" on me. I'm also as devoted to protecting civil liberties as any other American.

But the privilege of debating our constitutional rights requires first that we be alive. If federal agents want to listen in on suspected terrorists as they plot their next mass murder, please allow me to turn up the volume.

Meanwhile, unless I start placing calls to Peshawar using phrases such as "I want my 72 virgins now," then I figure I'm safe to make my next hair appointment without fear of exposure. OK, fine, so I highlight.

Read the entire column here.

Posted by Seth at 06:30 AM |

Horror In Hollywood

Wesley Pruden's got some good ideas on why Hollywood isn't doing as well at the box office these days.

...the idea is dawning on the little minds of Hollywood that maybe the great gullible moviegoing public is fed up with junk -- the endless car chases, the mechanical sex, the gore and guts, the mindless plots and maybe even the relentless sneering at red-state values. Hollywood has forgotten how to tell a story, or to recognize one. One screenwriter who must remain anonymous so he can continue to lunch in this town says that's why there are so many remakes. "No one has any confidence in what they're doing. So if someone suggests remaking 'Titanic' for the fourth time, everyone says, 'Yeah, great, that one always makes money.' Or they'll pay a lot of money for a book and only use the title, because they figure if someone in New York thinks the story was good enough to put in a book it must be OK."

I can't say as I feel all that bad about Hollywood's misfortunes, seeing as the film industry's taken such an adversarial position towards everything even remotely patriotic, or anything at all construable as American for that matter.

Posted by Seth at 06:11 AM |

Fleeing Euros

The European observers — responsible for monitoring the crossing and ensuring the terms of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement are upheld — fled the area, fearing the situation was getting out of control, the officials said.

So what we're talking here is fleeing Europeans.

As to those who run, let them run... We don't need cowards and we need appeasers even less.

Bye bye, Eurofux...

Posted by Seth at 12:29 AM |

December 29, 2005

He's Back!

For most of this year, I've wondered about the abrupt absence, which commenced in January, of one of my favorite all-time bloggers, the Dissident Frogman. I seriously missed his posts.

Checking my email a few minutes ago, there he was!

YES!!!!

Posted by Seth at 11:51 PM |

Showing I.D. To Vote.

So...

ATLANTA - At the end of a losing battle during the past legislative session, Georgia state Rep. Alisha Thomas Morgan burst into the civil rights anthem "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around" to protest the passage of a law requiring voters to show a photo ID at the polls.

W, as they say, TF!!!?

In the next session starting Jan. 9, the 27-year-old black Democrat says she will not be moved in her fight to get the law repealed.

"It's whatever it takes," Morgan said. "I'm putting on the armor. Nothing they can do will fix the bill. It's a bad law and it needs to be repealed. We're not going backwards."

Thomas and other black lawmakers know they are in for a battle as Republicans stand determined to defend the law, which requires voters who do not have a driver's license to buy a state-issued ID card for as much as $35 — a fee critics say hurts the poor, the elderly and minorities.

The entire article is here.

First, to establish something we know in advance will be blown up into a racial event{look for appearances by the usual suspects, like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and perhaps even Louis Farrakhan}, this is not a racial issue, and the very idea that low income folks are so poor that they cannot somehow produce enough money for the onetime purchase of state I.D. is ludicrous. I'd also like to point out that there are a whole lot of dirt poor white families in both rural areas and major cities, I happen to have met both examples, so this law does not only require low income minorities to produce picture I.D. at the polls.

I refer you to California; I recently moved from there to the east coast, but I've voted numerous times in San Francisco. My polling place, as a matter of interest, was a Honda dealership at the intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Market Street, which was once the site of Bill Graham's Fillmore West. I used to own a live double album, on vinyl, recorded there by the Allman Brothers' Band.

There, in the lap of the liberal capital of this solar system, I was required to produce both my voter's registration card and... California picture I.D.

Times have changed since the days when you could write a personal check at a store you'd never been to before on the strength of merely producing a checkbook.

Today, the country plays host to millions of illegal aliens who would simply love the opportunity to vote for political candidates sympathetic to their illicit cause(essentially that of allowing them the same rights as documented citizens while allowing them to remain "off the books"), and without adequate identification requirements, a single illegal could make the rounds of every poll in his or her city and vote in every one.

There's also the fact that anyone else could do the same -- vote several times under several different names using identifiers like Social Security cards and utility bills that don't have photos on them.

It's bad enough that each state has its own voting authority that isn't linked to the other forty-nine. Back when Bush defeated Gore in the 2000 election, the Mainstream Media made a big deal about hanging chads in Florida and so forth, accusing Bush of "stealing the election," but they totally ignored the issue of many thousands more liberals from New York, having moved to Florida, voting at polls in Florida while also voting by absentee ballot in New York.

So can the race card, Alicia T. Morgan, the law requiring showing valid picture I.D. at the polls is perfectly justified.

Posted by Seth at 02:01 PM | Comments (2) |

Linking Some Good Reading

Raven has the latest scoop on U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton.

Michael Yon's latest post is a short piece that links to a CNN report which actually talks about one of the many positives by our troops in Iraq that the MSM usually makes a point of ignoring. The post is titled News That Boosts Morale.

Mr. Ogre's got some more reasons why I'm going to find adjusting to my new state's(I just bought a house in Charlotte, NC) liberal political make-up something of a challenge, LOL, with Education Money Myth and Prohibition Continues In NC.

Pat'sRick addresses the 6th Circuit's conclusion{a resounding slap in the face for the Marxist scumbag traitors of the ACLU}, that the Constitution does not demand a wall of separation between Church & State.

And speaking of enemies of the state, Michelle Malkin's got a great post on her site about The Do-Nothing ACLU.

Have a good read.

Posted by Seth at 07:25 AM |

Tell It Like It Is!

Nathan Tabor, in Human Events Online, goes streamlined and point blank with If Spying Works, Let's Do It.

Posted by Seth at 05:17 AM |

Good Reasons Not To Go To The Movies These Days

We all see the blatantly, often ridiculously politically correct scripting of today's Hollywood output, much of this going so far beyond the boundaries of reality(at least for most of those of us who don't write for, direct, produce or act in the film industry) that one has to wonder how far afield from the rest of America and the world these denizens of the lower left coast have actually migrated.

But the above only scratches the surface of goings-on in an industry that seems to have lost its soul -- today's movies, even those meant for thirteen year olds, are filled with material that was once rated a firm "R". It seems Hollywood feels the kids need some generous helpings of world class sexual demonstration and profoundly graphic violence in order to develop into proper modern adults.

And there is an increasing anti-American, leftist element being worked into scripts as the almost entirely anti-war, Bush hating liberal contingent that rules the roost in Hollywood uses its "art" as a vehicle for pushing political agendas that not too many decades ago would have seen them lynched by vast crowds of patriotic Americans.

Victor Davis Hanson is spot-on in a column titled Hollywood's Misunderstood Terrorists.

When terrorism goes to the movies in the post-Sept. 11 world, we might expect the plots, characters and themes to reflect some sort of believable reality. But in Hollywood, the politically correct impulse now overrides all else. Even the spectacular pyrotechnics, beautiful people and accomplished acting cannot hide it.

Instead, moviegoers can anticipate before the opening credits that those characters who work for the American government or are at war with terrorists will likely be portrayed as criminals, incompetents or people existing on the same moral plane as killers.

Too true.

Take this fall's "Flightplan," in which the U.S. air marshal on board and a flight attendant turn out to be the true terrorists. Meanwhile, four Middle Eastern males are unfairly put under suspicion in the lynch-mob atmosphere on the plane.

The film warns us that the real threat after Sept. 11 is certainly not young Middle Eastern males on planes who might hijack or crash them into iconic American buildings. No, more dangerous in Hollywood's alternate universe are the flight officials themselves — who in reality on Sept. 11 battled terrorists only to have their throats cut before being blown up with all the passengers.

Read it all.

Max Boot has more to say on the subject.

...for 60 years, Hollywood has had no problem making movies that depict World War II as a struggle of good versus evil. Rightly so. Because for all the Allies' faults, they were the good guys.

For some reason, Hollywood can't take an equally clear-eyed view of the war on terrorism. The current conflict, pitting the forces of freedom against those of Islamo-fascism, is every bit as clear cut as World War II. Yet fashionable filmmakers insist on painting both sides in shades of gray, as if Israeli secret agents or American soldiers were comparable to Al Qaeda killers. Two of the most serious holiday flicks — "Syriana" and "Munich" — are case studies in mindless moral relativism and pathetic pseudo-sophistication.

Keep reading.

What gets me is that even though film revenues are off because Americans have grown tired of seeing our way of life and those who defend it being perpetually demeaned at the movies and out of the mouths of Hollywood celebrities in their endless barrage of Bush bashing, these clueless, anti-American morons continue to sabotage their own collective source of income.

Posted by Seth at 03:47 AM |

December 28, 2005

No, New York Times, We're Not Done With You Yet...

...and we won't be until everybody in America knows what a lying, treasonous, shameless, bogus, idiotarian, leftist propaganda generating, thoroughly liberal-biased source of disinformation you have become, abusing the reputation you earned back in the days when you were a respectable newspaper.

Columnist and blogger extraordinaire Michelle Malkin puts in her two cents, as succinct and on-point as always.

Posted by Seth at 03:13 AM |

Spitzer Revisited

Back in June, as a brand new blogger, I posted on Eliot Spitzer and conveyed my own disapproval of the self-seeking, ethically-challenged New York State Attorney General rather bluntly.

Columnist John Podhoretz' opinion of the man is apparently not all that different from my own, and he adds some good background, to boot.

Here's what the Times editorial endorsing him said in 1998: "Spitzer has misled the public about how his father's wealth was used to support about $9 million in loans that financed his campaigns in 1994 and 1998. His conduct may not be illegal, but it was clearly designed to circumvent laws that would have limited his father's direct contributions to the campaign. In normal circumstances, Mr. Spitzer's evasions would have made it impossible to endorse him for the state's top legal position."

Pretty extraordinary, don't you think, in light of Spitzer's shameless pose as a heroic Mr. Clean, throwing the moneychangers out of the Wall Street temple?

Read on.

Posted by Seth at 02:48 AM |

Tom Tancredo Stands Tall

My friend Raven, at And Rightly So, posts excellently on Tom Tancredo, one of the few members of Congress today who has shown the courage to stand up to the PC forces that protect illegal immigrants and promote ignorance of all the damage they do to our country, to address the problem point blank and to get real results from his perserverance and the force of sheer, powerful, unrelenting drive to succeed.

Posted by Seth at 02:20 AM |

T'was The Night Before Hanukkah!

My friend GM, of Gm's Corner, cross-posted this one from Winds of Change, a great site I've had blogrolled since I first began blogging, and being an American born Jew who grew up in a time when Yiddish and Jewish humour, courtesy of our immigrant parents and grandparents who were alive and well in the family I simply could not resist cross-posting it in turn.

It is simply brilliant!

'Twas the night before Hanukkah and all over the place There was noise, there was kvetching Soch ah disgrace! The Kinderlach, sleeping, uneasily felt The chocolate rush from the Hanukkah gelt

And me in the easyboy,
so stuffed with latkes,
I stretched the elastic
which held up my gatchkes

When up on the roof
(and it has a steep pitch)
A fat alte kakker
was making a kvitsch.
I jumped up real quick
and I ran to the door,
Was it a bandeet,
or only a schnorrer?

He wasn't alone;
he had eight ferdelach,
And called them by name
as he gave a gebrach:

"On Moishe, on Yankel, on Itzik, on Sam,
On Mendel, on Shmendrik, on Feivush, on Ham;
My kidneys are kvelling;
do you give a damn?"

He had a white beard
and payyes to boot,
And to keep out the cold,
he had such a nice suit!

A second from Peerless,
I could tell at a glance,
But the cut was okay,
and so were the pants.

He was triple XL,
a real groisser goof,
So I yelled out,
"Meshuggener! Get off from Mein roof!"
He jumped down and said
as he shook hands with me,
"Max Klaus is the name.
You have maybe some tea?"

So I gave him a gleisel,
while he shook his white mop,
Mutt'ring, "Always the same thing,
They're dreying my kopp!"

From Vancouver to Glace Bay,
Outremont to Reginek,
Every shmo in the world
hakks meir a cheinik!

They're screaming for presents,
and challah with schmaltz,
And from Brooklyn alone,
the back pain, gevaltz!"

So we sat and yentehed,
and we spun the old dreydels,
(He took all of my money,
and one of my kanidels)

He said, "Business is not bad,
a living I make,
But I'm getting too old
for this Hanukkah fake;

And the cell phones, you see
how my pacemaker dings?
For two cents I'd quit,
and move to Palm Springs!"

And he gave a geshrei
as he fled mit a lacht,
"Gut Yontiff to All,
Vey is Mir, Such a Nacht!"

(Author Unknown)

Posted by Seth at 02:02 AM | Comments (2) |

The Burke Habit

Dartmouth Professor of English emeritus Jeffrey Hart has written a thought provoking essay defining the conservative movement in the United States and its roots as a response, in part, to the Utopian thought and doctrine of the liberal movement.

Both hard and soft utopianism ignore flawed human nature. Soft utopianism believes in benevolent illusions, most abstractly stated in the proposition that all goals are reconcilable, as in such dreams as the Family of Man, World Peace, multiculturalism, pacifism and Wilsonian global democracy. To all of these the Conservative Mind objects. Men do not all desire the same things: Domination is a powerful desire. The phrase about the lion lying down with the lamb is commonly quoted; but Isaiah knew his vision of peace would take divine intervention, not at all to be counted on. Without such intervention, the lion dines well.

The entire highly recommended read is here.

Posted by Seth at 12:02 AM |

December 27, 2005

The N.Y. Post Weighs In On The N.Y. Times

This editorial in yesterday's New York Post is spot on, and points out transgressions on the part of the "newspaper of record" that could only be called treason, the right to freedom of the press notwithstanding.

Certain freedoms do, after all, carry with them a degree of responsibility and the NYT seems to have opted to disregard these responsibilities.

Has The New York Times declared itself to be on the front line in the war against the War on Terror? The self-styled paper of record seems to be trying to reclaim the loyalty of those radical lefties who ludicrously accused it of uncritically reporting on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

Yet the paper has done more than merely try to embarrass the Bush administration these last few months.

It has published classified information — and thereby knowingly blown the covers of secret programs and agencies engaged in combating the terrorist threat.

The most notorious example was the paper's disclosure some 10 days ago that, since 9/11, the Bush administration has "secretly" engaged in warrantless eavesdropping on U.S.-based international phone calls and e-mails.

Further,

The Times says it held the story for more than a year, provoking a predictable uproar on the left. So why did it finally go ahead?

According to a Los Angeles Times report, New York Times editors knew that a book by the article's author was to be published in just a few weeks — and they feared losing their "exclusive" to their own reporter's outside work.

But the exact timing is highly suspect. The article appeared on the very day that the Senate was to vote on a Democratic filibuster against renewal of the anti-terrorist Patriot Act — a vote the Bush administration then lost. At least two previously undecided senators said they voted against the act precisely because of the Times piece.

And that's not the half of it:

Last May, the Times similarly "exposed" — in painstaking detail — the fact that the CIA uses its own airline service, posing as a private charter company, as "the discreet bus drivers of the battle against terrorism."

In fact, as the Times itself reported, "the civilian planes can go places American military craft would not be welcome." In an unconventional war, like the one against terrorism, the ability to move personnel around quickly and inconspicuously — or to deliver captured terrorists to a third country — is indispensable.

Thanks to the Times, that ability has been irrevocably compromised — costing Washington yet another vital tool in the War on Terror.

More?

Then, not content to merely sabotage the federal government, the Times last week blew the whistle on the fact that the New York Police Department has been using plainclothes officers during protest demonstrations.

In particular, the cops have been exercising their vigilance on the group called Critical Mass, which the Times refers to benignly as "a monthly bicycle ride."

Not quite. Yes, it began as peaceful, law-abiding rides — orderly protests. But it deteriorated last year into mass disruptions of traffic.

A federal judge unwisely refused the city's demand that the riders obtain a police permit in advance — but still admitted that the monthly protests were "spawning potential dangers."

All along, the NYPD has not been trying to shut the Critical Mass protests down or abridge anyone's First Amendment rights. It has only insisted on safeguards — like permits — to guarantee that no laws are broken and traffic disruptions are held to a minimum.

Unable to get the courts to agree, the cops instead used plainclothes cops "to prevent and respond to acts of violence and other unlawful activity."

In other words, to protect the people of New York.

Now, the Times has "exposed" this police work — and not just in words, but by splashing the pictures of these undercover officers across the pages of the newspaper, without making even the slightest effort to protect their identities.

And make no mistake: The result will be to compromise the ability of the NYPD to work undercover at a time of increasing danger to the city from back-pack-toting terrorists — a la Madrid and London.

Does The New York Times consider it self a law unto itself — free to subversively undercut basic efforts by any government to protect and defend its citizens?

The Times, it appears, is less concerned with promoting its dubious views on civil liberties than with undercutting the Bush administration. The end result of the paper's flagrant irresponsibility: Lives have been put in danger on the international, national and local levels.

Al-Qaeda couldn't ask for better saboteurs in the U.S., people they presumeably don't even have to compensate, than the bunch of bald faced traitors over at the New York Times.

Posted by Seth at 11:23 PM |

Some Democrats Are Growing Brains

It would seem that some Democrat politicians and think tanks are finally waking up to the fact that their party's practice of playing politics over homeland security is damaging them in the eyes of the voting public, who perceive the fanatical leftist rantings of Harry Reid and his ilk as a sure sign that the Republicans are much more suited to defend the United States against the threat of terrorism than are the Democrats.

Some centrist Democrats say attacks by their party leaders on the Bush administration's eavesdropping on suspected terrorist conversations will further weaken the party's credibility on national security. That concern arises from recent moves by liberal Democrats to block the extension of parts of the USA Patriot Act in the Senate and denunciations of President Bush amid concerns that these initiatives could violate the civil liberties of innocent Americans. "I think when you suggest that civil liberties are just as much at risk today as the country is from terrorism, you've gone too far if you leave that impression. I don't believe that's true," said Michael O'Hanlon, a national-security analyst at the Brookings Institution who advises Democrats on defense issues.

As a conservative Republican myself, I am both angered at the obstructive policies of those on the left who place our nation and its citizens in grave danger in the name of their hatred for President Bush and their partisan political agendas, and amused at the way they sabotage their own chances of political success in the process.

Their endeavors at running a far-fetched civil liberties scenario(the government eavesdrops on international telephone calls by al-Qaeda connections in the U.S., the liberals try and make out that they're spying on every citizen, like the agencies of "Big Brother" do in Orwell's 1984) in an effort to discredit Bush and compromise vital national defense programs are as sick as they are suicidal. It is quite obvious that their intention is to dismantle our protective operations to the point that one or more terrorist attacks on U.S. soil are able to be successfully executed, Americans die and then they can accuse Bush of failing to secure the country against terrorism.

In my opinion, the very fact that such people hold office is a sad reflection on the intelligence of the Democrats who voted them in.

"I get nervous when I see the Democrats playing this [civil liberties] issue out too far. They had better be careful about the politics of it," said Mr. O'Hanlon, who says the Patriot Act is "good legislation."
These Democrats say attacks on anti-terrorist intelligence programs will deepen mistrust of their ability to protect the nation's security, a weakness that led in part to the defeat of Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, last year.
"The Republicans still hold the advantage on every national-security issue we tested," said Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster and former adviser to President Clinton, who co-authored a Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) memo on the party's national-security weaknesses.
Nervousness among Democrats intensified earlier this month after Democrats led a filibuster against the Patriot Act that threatened to block the measure, followed by a victory cry from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, who declared at a party rally, "We killed the Patriot Act."

Right, Harry, you're also killing your party's chances of regaining their former majority status on Capital Hill for another few years. On behalf of Republicans everywhere, I thank you. Keep running your mouth.

As for those Democrats who are wising up, you would do well to start acting like Americans again and rally 'round your President in time of war. To say "he's not my President" is to renounce or otherwise deny your American citizenship, because, whether you like it or not, he is the President of the United States.

Lastly,

White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy yesterday discounted the scope of the eavesdropping operation.
"This is a limited program," he told reporters in Crawford, Texas, where Mr. Bush is vacationing at his ranch.
"This is not about monitoring phone calls designed to arrange Little League practice or what to bring to a potluck dinner. These are designed to monitor calls from very bad people to very bad people who have a history of blowing up commuter trains, weddings and churches."

Posted by Seth at 10:09 PM |

Quagmire Of Corruption

The Times of London's James Bone comments on an incident in which U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan went off on him for asking a perfectly straightforward question whose honest answer might have implicated both Kofi and his Oil For Food profiteering, general purpose sleazeball son, Kojo, in a simple act of fraud by means of misuse of the elder Annan's diplomatic U.N. status.

It was with some amusement that I found myself the target of a decidedly undiplomatic tirade by the U.N. chief at a news conference last week. The usually mild Mr. Annan erupted in an ad hominem attack, calling me "cheeky" and belittling me as an "overgrown schoolboy." Although I have covered the U.N. in minute detail for The Times of London since 1988, and have known Mr. Annan for almost all that time, he suggested I was not a "serious journalist."

The cause of Mr. Annan's ire was a question I put to him about a Mercedes car that his son Kojo had imported into Ghana (and which cannot, now, be traced). The facts indicate that Kojo had bought the car in his father's name, thereby obtaining a diplomatic discount and a tax exemption totaling more than $20,000. The question about the car -- to which Mr. Annan again refused to give a satisfactory answer -- is part of the wider probe into his role in the U.N.'s Oil for Food scandal. Despite months of investigation, important questions about the integrity of public officials remain unanswered. If we are serious about U.N. reform -- as Mr. Annan claims to be -- they must be resolved.

It is a time-honored tradition at the U.N. to bury a scandal by conducting an inadequate inquiry and then declaring the matter closed. Mr. Annan did precisely that when news first broke in January 1999 of his son's involvement with a Swiss firm that won a U.N. contract in Iraq.

Read Bone's entire article here.

Posted by Seth at 09:26 AM |

Waiting For Real Aid

Mark Steyn with another great column, this one on the tsunami vs the bullshit rhetorical hypocritical useless windbag response by bullshit rhetorical useless windbag United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland and his colleagues at the U.N.

It's one thing to invent humanitarian disasters to disparage President Bush's unilateralist warmongering. But after the tsunami the U.N. was reduced to inventing a humanitarian disaster to distract attention from the existing humanitarian disaster it wasn't doing anything about.

LOL! Eloquently put!

Posted by Seth at 06:23 AM |

December 26, 2005

Something To Be Both Alarmed And Enraged About

There is no excuse for this.

According to federal officials, the theft of 400 pounds of high-powered plastic explosives in New Mexico is one of the largest high explosives heists in recent history.

The material was taken from Cherry Engineering, a company owned by Chris Cherry, a scientist at Sandia National Labs. The site, located outside Albuquerque, had no guards and no surveillance cameras. It was the site's second theft in the past two years.

No guards, no surveillance cameras.

Second theft in the past two years.

"We don't have any suspect," said Wayne Dixie of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. "We don't have any leads at this point."

The stolen goods include 150 pounds of C-4 plastic explosive and 250 pounds of thin sheets of explosives that could be used in letter bombs. Also, 2,500 detonators were missing from a storage explosive container, or magazine, in a bunker owned by Cherry Engineering.

"Believe me, this can cause a catastrophic explosion of unbelievable proportions in the right configuration," said Jack Cloonan, an ABC News consultant and former FBI agent. "So it's very dangerous. We have to find this stuff and find it now."

What's wrong with this picture, aside from the fact that persons unknown, possibly terrorists, have made off with enough highly versatile(that's right, because you can shape C-4 to meet the requirements of a given explosion), powerful explosives to bring down buildings and kill a lot of people?

Not only was this dumbfuck, Chris Cherry, inexcusably negligent by not properly securing the site, but just as irresponsible were whichever state or federal agencies that licensed him to store such quantities of explosives without first ascertaining that necessary security was in place. Especially given the fact that the site had been hit before.

Now, I'm the last person to endorse government micromanagement of private sector concerns, but that sentiment ends when materials or activities of a company are potentially dangerous to large numbers of people and property that have nothing to do with them.

Nuclear power plants, oil refineries, places where all manner of hazardous materials are stored in quantity and sites where explosives are stored should be held to high safety and security standards -- I don't mean that the agencies concerned should take the respective firms' word for anything, I mean that they need to send people onsite to ascertain that all standards, and I mean strict standards, are met to the letter. All too often, bean counters are permitted to gamble with the lives of hundreds or even thousands of innocent people. If companies don't want to comply because the expenses entailed cut into their profits, let them relocate their hazardous sites to remote, unpopulated areas.

As far as this bonehead Cherry is concerned, he should be barred forever from possessing so much as a firecracker.

Posted by Seth at 04:36 AM |

While Amusing, Not Unlikely These Days

This column by Mark Bazer is not only funny, but it also rings pretty true when you look at the average "running scared" corporate response to today's rampant and ridiculous litigious environment.

Posted by Seth at 04:21 AM |

December 25, 2005

Merry Christmas, ACLU

The illustrious Jay, at Stop The ACLU, wishes the ACLU a merry Christmas with a post titled Operation Nativity.

If you take a look to the left and right on my blog, you will see that I have already started decorating for the Christmas season. We all know how the ACLU hates nativity scenes, so we thought we’d put one up. We also put up the Homeland Holiday Advisory System, so we can inform you with colorful alerts throughout the holidays. What got me in this festive mood? This article.

Dr. Charles Nestor, director of The Truth Matters, is announcing a project called “Operation Nativity” with the goal of having Christians across the country set up nativity scenes on their own property.

Nestor states, “It’s that time of year again. We’re not even out of October and already the forces are aligning to prohibit the public celebration of the birth of Jesus.

“December 25 is the day in our culture that is set aside to acknowledge and to celebrate that Jesus of Nazareth was born. For Christians it is more than a day of feasting and the exchange of gifts, it is a holy and solemn time to join our voices in unison as the angels proclaimed on the hillside to the shepherds, ‘Glory to God in the highest.’

“I am calling for Christians everywhere to join me in Operation Nativity. While we continue to support the public displays, let’s flood the country with nativity scenes on our own properties!

“Think with me what could happen if on lawns in every community, on business property, on church lawns, at Christian schools, on empty land, and literally everywhere you looked, there was the depiction of the scene that recognizes the birth of Jesus.

“Simple cutouts are available. Many already own lighted sets. It could be a family project, filled with opportunities to teach children about the events surrounding the birth of the Savior.Source

We are all for this, and encourage everyone to join in this expression of Christmas. And we want to take this idea and run with it! Decorate your blog for Christmas with a nativity scene, in support of religious expression, and as a sign of your support for stopping the ACLU. The ACLU will be busy this Christmas season, lets be prepared.

Please download the pics, and host them yourself…I can not afford the bandwidth of hotlinking. If you want to put the nativity scene pic in support of Stop The ACLU, and to decorate your blog for the Christmas season, copy the code below, and replace the URL of the pics with the downloaded pic that you host. Also, if you haven’t done so, add a link to our blog, or bookmark us for a daily read. Get involved with our grassroots movement. We need all the support we can get.

There's more at the linked site(Stop The ACLU) than I'm able, via outsourced hotel Internet access, to publish, but it's all available here

Posted by Seth at 05:34 AM |

December 24, 2005

Season's Greetings

TO MY FELLOW JEWS,

HAPPY HANUKKAH

TO MY CHRISTIAN FRIENDS,

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Posted by Seth at 09:41 PM | Comments (2) |

Hanukkah

Hanukkah begins very late this year, commencing at sundown on Christmas.

Hanukkah, the "Festival of Lights," starts on the 25th day of the Jewish calendar month of Kislev and lasts for eight days and nights. In 2005 Hanukkah begins at sundown on December 25. With blessings, games, and festive foods, Hanukkah celebrates the triumphs—both religious and military—of ancient Jewish heroes. This year, tomorrow to be exact, the first day of Hannukah falls upon Christmas day, commencing at sundown.

Hanukkah is a relatively minor holiday in the Jewish year. In the United States, however, its closeness to Christmas has brought greater attention to Hanukkah and its gift-giving tradition. Amid the ever-growing flood of Christmas advertising, it may seem especially fitting that the Hanukkah story tells of Jewish culture surviving in a non-Jewish world.

This is The Hanukkah Story

Posted by Seth at 07:33 PM |

December 23, 2005

Ingesting PCS

Now here's a woman with a voracious appetite for modern technology.

Posted by Seth at 07:59 PM |

Can You Spot The Atheists?

Newsmax has a list posted of the 22 congressman who believe Christmas should be banned as an official U.S. holiday.

On December 15 the House of Representatives passed a resolution "protecting the symbols and traditions of Christmas" by an overwhelming 401-22 vote.

Representative JoAnn Davis (R-VA), the resolution's sponsor, said the resolution was necessary to counter "political correctness run amok."

"No one," she said, "should feel like they have done something wrong by wishing someone a Merry Christmas."

Twenty-two Democrats played Scrooge and disagreed.

Perusing the list at the end of the article, one can't help notice that all the anti-Christmas voters were Democrats. Amazing!

Davis lodged a preemptive response to critics who might question the constitutionality of her resolution.

"Celebrating Christmas is not a violation of separation of church and state," she said. "The Framers intended that the First Amendment to the Constitution would prohibit the establishment of religion, not prohibit any mention of religion or reference to God in civic dialogue."

The text of the resolution read as follows:

Whereas Christmas is a national holiday celebrated on December 25; and

Whereas the Framers intended that the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States would prohibit the establishment of religion, not prohibit any mention of religion or reference to God in civic dialog: Now, therefore be it resolved, that the House of Representatives –

(1) Recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas;
(2) Strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and
(3) Expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions, for those who celebrate Christmas.

If you ask any of them what they think about American Muslims observing Ramadan to the fullest, however, I'm sure the anti-God, PC, scum sucking, piece of shit leftists they would highly endorse it in order to demonstrate their solidarity with members of "The Religion of Peace."

Posted by Seth at 07:30 PM |

Comments From the Ketchup Gallery

Theresa Heinz-Kerry has some things to say regarding the Bush response to the anti-Israel ravings of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Teresa Heinz Kerry says she is "outraged" that President Bush didn't react more forcefully to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent recommendation that Israel be "wiped off the map," saying that the way to deal with Iranian threats is by issuing "the strongest possible condemnations."

Ain't that the modern Democrat way, verbally condemn the SOBs, that'll fix 'em! It'll show 'em we mean business and they'll humble themselves post-haste, prostrating themselves before the oracle of sheer goodness. Right.

"The only way to prevent the virus from surviving and spreading," the former Mrs. Heinz advises, "is to attack, killing it with the strongest possible condemnations before it has a chance to mutate and spread."

Take that - Ahmadinejad!

Sometimes, the only way to promote more peaceful output from people like Ahmadinejad is to go over there and kick their beheinz!

Posted by Seth at 05:16 PM |

Jumpin' Jehoshaphat!

And now more stuff that should not go anywhere near a public forum makes the news.

A classified radiation monitoring program, conducted without warrants, has targeted private U.S. property in an effort to prevent an al-Qaida attack, federal law enforcement officials confirmed Friday. While declining to provide details including the number of cities and sites monitored, the officials said the air monitoring took place since the Sept. 11 attacks and from publicly accessible areas — which they said made warrants and court orders unnecessary.

U.S. News and World Report first reported the program on Friday. The magazine said the monitoring was conducted at more than 100 Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C. area — including Maryland and Virginia suburbs — and at least five other cities when threat levels had risen: Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York and Seattle.

The magazine said that at its peak, three vehicles in Washington monitored 120 sites a day, nearly all of them Muslim targets identified by the FBI. Targets included mosques, homes and businesses, the magazine said.

This is what I would most definitely call irresponsible journalism, just as I would the recent New York Times reporting on the monitoring of international telephone conversations by individuals suspected of al-Qaeda ties, which started a barrage of accusations from the left of George Bush and the NSA spying on the average American and likening the President to a dictator.

I blogged not long ago on the strong possibility that terrorists have already acquired such nasty items as suitcase nukes.

How is it a violation of anyone's rights if the government runs radiation detection scans over their property, whether it is public or private?

How many normal, law abiding American households, places of worship or business are likely to emit sufficient radiation to warrant the FBI to believe they may possess quantities of HEU(highly enriched uranium) or perhaps even a suitcase nuke or dirty bomb?

Sure, we've had crazes over pet rocks and such, but since when have we come into a fad for "the family atomic bomb?"

This is insane! The Bush Administration is trying to protect our country and its citizens against horrors that are not only possible, but very likely to occur if we let our guard down, and the Mainstream Media, because they can sell newspapers to leftists by casting aspersions on Bush, pure and simple, are reporting programs that should remain secret(I'll say it again, al-Qaeda reads the newspapers and watches CNN, just like a hundred million other people), in order that the programs' effectiveness be maintained, in their continuing efforts to ignite dialogue against the President's policies.

Okay, so we know where the MSM stands on patriotism, or better still, where they do not stand, and on common sense, again, where they do not stand.

Those insiders that leak this kind of information need to be found(even if irresponsible journalists protecting sources must set up housekeeping in the slammer for indefinite periods) and prosecuted for treason.

You cannot play politics with survival and expect to survive.

Posted by Seth at 04:21 PM |

The Carnival Of Christmas

No matter what, point your sleigh over to Adam's Blog for a gander at The Carnival Of Christmas.

Ho-Ho-Hat Tip to my friend Romeokat, of Cathouse Chat, for the heads up!

Posted by Seth at 07:22 AM |

December 22, 2005

Some Seasonal Inspiration

Raven has posted a wonderfully written Christmas greeting, complete with disclaimers where appropriate, that should take care of everyone of every possible denomination or lack thereof, everywhere on earth.

Posted by Seth at 04:56 AM |

Hypocrisy Of The Times

You know, I've commented on the tendency of many liberals, in the past, to not only deny that the Mainstream Media leans so far to the left that it's amazing they don't fall down, but to even venture that the MSM is biased toward the right. I've recently reached the point of simply shaking my head -- it has been said that trying to argue with a liberal is like standing in a bucket and trying to pick yourself up by the handle, and in most cases I couldn't agree more.

Those who try to tell me that the MSM leans to the right are either not paying very close attention, if any at all, to news "reports," are lying through their teeth fabricating as to their perceptions of what they read in the papers and see on television news shows or, as the only other alternative I can figure, they are hopeless cretins.

It is truly shameful that newspapers like the New York Times are not honest with their readership, filtering the news they print to meet their leftward bias and anti-Bush agenda, thereby giving that readership only the fraction of current events they deem safe(for their political goals) to let the people know. This is highly reminiscent of another publication, called Pravda, during the years of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The NYT has become, over the years, little more than a giant propaganda mill for the left.

As alternative media sources and conservative blogs have begun to fight back against the disinformation put out by the New York Times and other MSM "news" venues and more and more people have begun to acknowledge the profound bias of the MSM, subscriptions have reportedly begun falling off rather noticeably. In their on-line venue, the NYT has recently begun charging a subscription rate for access to their Op-Ed columns, possibly to offset the decline in hard copy revenues.

They crowed loudly at the height of the Valerie Plame affair, hoping to see an indictment for "outing" her come directly out of the White House, claiming that national security was compromised by some traitor or other within, yet they themselves did exponentially worse when they recently "exposed" a Bush/NSA program that has prevented post 9/11 U.S. terrorist attacks they labelled as domestic spying, and inferring that George Bush illegally exceeded his authority as President.

National Security authority and columnist Max Boot has the treasonous and reckless hypocrisy displayed by the New York Times defined perfectly here.

...I eagerly await the righteous indignation from the Plame Platoon about the spilling of secrets in wartime and its impassioned calls for an independent counsel to prosecute the leakers. And wait … And wait …

I suspect it'll be a long wait because the rule of thumb seems to be that although it's treasonous for pro-Bush partisans to spill secrets that might embarrass an administration critic, it's a public service for anti-Bush partisans to spill secrets that might embarrass the administration. The determination of which secrets are OK to reveal is, of course, to be made not by officials charged with protecting our nation but by journalists charged with selling newspapers.

Good column, read it all.

Posted by Seth at 03:36 AM |

Some Good News From The Hill

President Bush's barrage of criticism of the treasonous, suicidal, just plain moronic filibustering aimed at derailing the Patriot Act has paid off,

The terror-fighting USA Patriot Act may have a new lease on life. The GOP-controlled Senate on Wednesday approved a six-month extension of the USA Patriot Act to keep the anti-terror law from expiring on Dec. 31. President Bush gave it his grudging blessing.

The Republican-controlled House is now expected to come back and consider the Legislation keeping the 16 provisions of the law passed after the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington from expiring.

Well, that's something, we've gotten a reprieve, anyway, and perhaps this will provide those on the Hill with common sense to convince those whose common sense is on hiatus and maybe even those whose political ambitions or leanings override what common sense they do have to reconsider their profoundly dangerous opposition to the Patriot Act's renewal.

Posted by Seth at 03:24 AM |

December 21, 2005

Support Chaplains' Religious Freedom

This latest alert from RightMarch addresses a very disturbing situation regarding the legal right of Chaplains in the United States Armed Forces to administer their religious duties, commanders who are illegally forbidding them to do so and how we all can help do something about it.

ALERT: Time and again, our President has correctly stated that "Freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world." The recent elections in Iraq visibly demonstrated the wonders of liberty.

Unfortunately, there is a threat to freedom within the United States that is surprising to the average observer and gravely disappointing to those closer to the situation. It has come to our attention that many chaplains in the military, specifically the Air Force and Navy, are being prohibited from faithfully practicing the faith of their civilian sponsor in accordance with the doctrinal and practical standards of the same. While US Code Title 10 Section 6031 directly permits chaplains to preach and practice their particular faith, various rulings by military superiors have stripped this law of its effectiveness.

One example in particular is that of an Evangelical Episcopal chaplain with status as a Catholic lay-reader. This chaplain has been cited negatively by his superiors for, among other things, praying in the name of Jesus, seeking to procure kosher foods for a Jewish sailor, and opposition to quota-induced attendance at a homosexual-led service during fleet week.

According to the First Amendment and US Code Title 10 Section 6031, this chaplain has perfect freedom to minister according to the dictates of his faith, but currently his job is on the line for these activities due to reckless disregard of his freedoms. This is OUTRAGEOUS, and must be fixed.

President Bush has the power to fix it -- and we need to ask him to do so.

TAKE ACTION: This week, a letter signed by many conservative leaders, representing millions of members nationwide, is being sent to the President, asking him to sign an Executive Order to enforce the law that's been written since 1860. RightMarch.com is one of the signers of that letter -- but to be really effective, President Bush needs to hear from YOU.

Join with millions of Americans committed to the freedoms that have made this country great. At this time of year, Christians, Jews, and Muslims all enjoy the freedom of religion that was seminal at the settling and founding of this beacon of freedom called the United States. Click below NOW to urge President Bush to sign an Executive Order to enforce US Code Title 10 Section 6031, which says "An officer in the Chaplain Corps may conduct public worship according to the manner and forms of the church of which he is a member":

http://capwiz.com/sicminc/issues/alert/?alertid=8332616&type=PR

NOTE: President Bush's commitment to freedom, his commitment to the military, and his commitment to faith all are obvious and admired. Let's all ask him to act on each of these commitments simultaneously by signing this Executive Order. Be sure to forward this Alert to EVERYONE you know who wants to help enforce true religious freedom for our military chaplains. Thank you!

Sincerely,

William Greene, President
RightMarch.com

The work of RightMarch.com is funded entirely by voluntary contributions. Help us spread the word with a donation to RightMarch.com!
https://secure.responseenterprises.com/rightmarch/?a=7

Posted by Seth at 01:52 PM |

Three Times The Charm

A really excellent new post by Michael Yon is here.

Posted by Seth at 01:45 PM |

December 20, 2005

Once Again, And --

-- as usual,

Bush Was Right.

Posted by Seth at 09:04 PM |

The Law Is The Law

And another one from my conservative Democrat(old school as opposed to liberal dominated) Aunt Brenda,

THE LAW IS THE LAW!!

So if the US government determines that it is against the law for the words "under God" to be on our money, then, so be it.

And if that same government decides that the "Ten Commandments" are not to be used in or on a government installation, then, so be it.

And since they already have prohibited any prayer in the schools, on which they deem their authority, then so be it.

I say, "so be it," because I would like to be a law abiding US citizen.

I say, "so be it," because I would like to think that smarter people than I are in positions to make good decisions.

I would like to think that those people have the American Publics' best interests at heart.

BUT, YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE I'D LIKE?

Since we can't pray to God, can't Trust in God and cannot Post His Commandments in Government buildings,

I don't believe the Government and it's employees should participate in the Easter and Christmas celebrations which honor the God that our government is eliminating from many facets of American life.

I'd like my mail delivered on Christmas, Good Friday, Thanksgiving & Easter. After all, it's just another day.

I'd like the US Supreme Court to be in session on Christmas, Good Friday, Thanksgiving & Easter as well as Sundays. After all, it's just another day.

I'd like the Senate and the House of Representatives to not have to worry about getting home for the "Christmas Break." After all it's just another day.

I'm thinking that a lot of my taxpayer dollars could be saved, if all government offices & services would work on Christmas, Good Friday & Easter.

It shouldn't cost any overtime since those would be just like any other day of the week to a government that is trying to be "politically correct."

In fact....

I think that our government should work on Sundays (initially set aside for worshipping God...) because, after all, our government says that it should be just another day....

What do you all think????

If this idea gets to enough people, maybe our elected officials will stop giving in to the minority opinions and begin, once again, to represent the 'majority' of ALL of the American people.

SO BE IT...........

Please Dear Lord, Give us the help needed to keep you in our country!

'Amen' and 'Amen'

These are definitely things I never thought about but from now on, I will be sure to questions those, in government, who support these changes.

Posted by Seth at 08:50 PM |

Unionized Critical Infrastructure vs Responsibility

This is what can happen when the public transportation system of a highly populated major city is permitted to be unionized.

NEW YORK - Commuters trudged through the freezing cold, rode bicycles and shared cabs Tuesday as New York's bus and subway workers went on strike for the first time in more than 25 years and stranded millions of riders at the height of the Christmas rush. A judge slapped the union with a $1 million-a-day fine.

Certain jobs entail a higher degree of responsibility than others, one of these keeping an entity like the Metropolitan Transit Authority(MTA), the vast system of subways and buses that keeps the City of New York up and running, well, up and running. When you go to work for such a concern it is a lot different from selling clothes, running a machine in a factory, building cabinets, plumbing or repairing computers. It is an occupational field in which millions of people are depending upon you to get to and from work, including thousands of employees of other city agencies that are essential to the day-to-day operation of the giant machine that is the city government. You know this going in, and you know, just from years of residing in the city, that there will occasionally be differences with the agency that employs you.

You also know, given the profound necessity of your city agency as vital infrastructure, that going on strike is against the law...

If you have a problem with that, don't take the job.

Now we know, of course, that union members have to do as their leaders tell them, which puts them in the middle of a management-to-management dispute. They belong to the union, but they work, in this case, for the MTA. For the City of New York. For the millions of taxpayers in the five boroughs of New York. But they owe their allegience to the union.

So maybe critical infrastructure shouldn't even have the option of being unionized, as the Armed Forces don't have the option of same, and for good reason -- in some situations, for the good of the public, certain organizations should only serve one master.

The $1,000,000.00 per day fine imposed against the transit workers' union for striking, in my opinion, is well justified, just as Ronald Reagan was justified in firing the air traffic controllers during his term as President. Their strike is not only costing the city hundreds of millions of dollars, but it is negatively affecting some 7 million citizens every day it continues.

The strike over wages and pensions came just five days before Christmas, at a time when the city is especially busy with shoppers and tourists.

The heavy penalty could force the union off the picket lines and back on the job. Under the law, the union's 33,000 members will also lose two days' pay for every day they are on strike, and they could also be thrown in jail.

Go for it!

There are a lot of unemployed workers who would love New York City jobs but can't get them because of long waiting lists. Maybe this is a good time to create some vacancies, pass a law prohibiting union involvement in the city government's critical infrastructure venues and rebuild the transit system's employee roster from the sizeable pool of men and women on those waiting lists.

Posted by Seth at 05:34 PM |

MSM: The Truth Doesn't Count

In another column at JWR, David Limbaugh has a rather inclusive list of issues upon which the Mainstream Media lies or distorts as a matter of policy.

These people are not only outrageous, they may as well be propagandists for the enemy.

Posted by Seth at 02:55 AM | Comments (9) |

To The Point

Debra J. Saunders could not have put things more in perspective.

Some D.C. Democrats are demanding an investigation — impeachment even — in the wake of last week's New York Times' story about the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping on international calls and e-mails from suspected terror players to Americans. The shriller they get, the more President Bush looks like a strong leader who is willing to stick out his neck and take the heat to protect the American people.

George W. Bush protects our country against terrorism, the Democrats find anything they can at fault with him in that regard: They seem to think that playing with our very lives is no big deal, as long as they have the opportunity to score their cheap, scuzzy little political victories. They can obstruct Bush's Homeland Security endeavors and we can get creamed as a result, no problem, if a few thousand Americans die because of them, they'll just blame it on Bush.

These are U.S. senators and representatives and the Mainstream Media. People we're supposed to trust, point blank: committing treason to further their own political interests.

They seem to think that our lives are just fodder for their politics, nothing more. They are the Democrats.

Debra makes an excellent point, before the fact:

As for the get-Bush crowd, I have a little suggestion: Don't tie the hands of the intelligence community — and then hold hearings about intelligence breakdowns if there is another attack on American soil.

Exactly -- the next 9/11 will be as much the fault of the Democrats as it will consist of blame upon the terrorists, because the Democrats are so intent upon sabotaging the Bush defense efforts for political reasons. Our homeland security, yours and my lives, mean nothing to them, their only agenda is attacking George Bush.

Give the column a read, here.

Posted by Seth at 01:51 AM | Comments (3) |

December 19, 2005

A Surprise From Europe

This is the last thing I ever expected to see.

The European Union is threatening to cut off aid to the Palestinians, after the Islamic militant group Hamas won key local elections in the West Bank. The rise of Hamas could have dire consequences for the peace process.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana says the organization could halt tens of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority, if Hamas wins landmark parliamentary elections next month. The Islamic militant group appears headed for victory, after it won municipal elections in the West Bank's biggest cities.

Europe(particularly the weasel states) has been neither a supporter of Israel nor a detractor of Palestinian terrorism, if anything they have seemed less the former and more the latter.

This is good news, although the response from the Palestinian Authority is predictable,

Such kind of fundamentalist terrorist organization, like Hamas, cannot play a political role," he said. "As long as they are terrorists, and they are bloody terrorists, it is obvious that they cannot play a political role."

The Palestinian Authority rejected the criticism, saying it is interference in an "internal Palestinian affair." Palestinian Chief negotiator Saeb Erekat.

"It is not acceptable. People must respect the democratic choice of the Palestinian people," he said.

And therein lies the essence of the welfare state, in this case the state that is on welfare.

"It is not acceptable." As with all welfare recipients, the PA believes that what handouts they receive from other governments are an entitlement, that they are free to set the conditions.

They're probably targeting France with their protests, knowing which side of the croissant their surrender is on.

Posted by Seth at 06:29 AM | Comments (2) |

Fruits Of Sharon's Labor(no pun intended)

Yes, we can see that ceding Gaza to the Palestinians is paying some real dividends.

Palestinian terrorists in Gaza have fired an almost daily portion of Kassam rockets towards Israel over the past two weeks, and yesterday's serving included a rocket that landed in the southern areas of Ashkelon. Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz convened a meeting of senior defense establishment figures, and demanded that the army continue to fire artillery at northern Gaza as a deterrence measure.

And now it looks like some Israeli politicians are borrowing a chapter from the American Democratic Party, the chapter titled, "Politics Before Country."

Mofaz was running for head of the Likud until last week, when he suddenly decided to transfer to Ariel Sharon's Kadima party, where he is guaranteed a Knesset seat and, most likely, a Cabinet position. In light of what many viewed as his unabashed opportunism, many questions were raised as to his fitness to make life-and-death decisions in the capacity of Defense Minister.

I know I'm going to hate to see where this all ends...

Posted by Seth at 05:56 AM |

Hanging Out In The Aisle

Senator John McCain(R/D Arizona) is getting quite a bit of exercise, standing at center aisle and leaping from foot to foot, left side to right side, doing his almighty best to please both Democrats and Republicans. Boy, he really wants to be elected President.

In the end, of course, he'll find very few takers on either side.

Sen. John McCain disappointed Democrats on Capitol Hill on Sunday by defending the Bush administration's decision to use the National Security Agency to monitor a limited number of domestic phone calls in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Here's the article.

Posted by Seth at 04:43 AM | Comments (2) |

You Gotta Love This Guy!

Here's the latest column from Mark Steyn, right-thinking master wordsmith, titled Iraq Vote Leaves Dems Looking Like Losers.

One day Iraq will be a G7 member hosting the Olympics in the world's No. 1 luxury vacation resort of Fallujah, and the Defeaticrat Party will still be running around screaming it's a quagmire. It's not just that Iraq is going better than expected, but that it's a huge success that's being very deftly managed: The timeframe imposed on the democratic process turns out to have worked very well — the transfer of sovereignty, the vote on a constitutional assembly, the ratification of the constitution, the vote for a legislature — and, with the benefit of hindsight, it now looks like an ingeniously constructed way to bring the various parties on board in the right order: first the Kurds, then the Shia, now the Sunni. That doesn't leave many folks over on the other side except Zarqawi and Dean. What do the two have in common? They're both foreigners, neither of whom have the slightest interest in the Iraqi people.

LMAO!!!!

Posted by Seth at 02:43 AM |

ILL Literacy?

According to an article by Sam Dillon in Treason Central the NYT,

The average American college graduate's literacy in English declined significantly over the past decade, according to results of a nationwide test released yesterday.

The National Assessment of Adult Literacy, given in 2003 by the Department of Education, is the nation's most important test of how well adult Americans can read.

It seems to me that the literacy levels of young adults have been declining in direct correlation to our advances in technology.

It's interesting to note that while black and Asian students' scores have increased, white and hispanic literacy levels have decreased.

Read the rest here.

Posted by Seth at 02:09 AM | Comments (2) |

December 18, 2005

Senators From Hell

First We Have John McCain's "Al-Qaeda Bill Of Rights," now President Bush has to do this because lawmakers are now seeking to put our nation in danger of sequels to 9/11.

President Bush, at the White House yesterday, calls for renewing the anti-terror act because "we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment." President Bush yesterday blasted senators using a filibuster to block renewal of the Patriot Act, calling the move irresponsible and saying it puts American lives at risk.

Are these people nuts?

"In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment," Bush said in a rare live version of his weekly radio address.

He demanded full reauthorization of the act, parts of which are set to expire within two weeks.

"The terrorist threat to our country will not expire in two weeks," Bush said. "The terrorists want to attack America again and inflict even greater damage than they did on September the 11th."

These suicidal, stupid effin' anti-Bush vote-chasers U.S. Senators are thinking through organs other than those inside their craniums.

Bush also took aim at leaks that have exposed a secret National Security Agency eavesdropping program that he authorized after the 9/11 attacks.

"Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies and endangers our country," he said.

A report about the domestic spying appeared in Friday's New York Times. Bush described the program as narrowly designed and called its use "consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution."

He added that it had only been used to intercept international communications of people inside the United States determined to have "a clear link" to al Qaeda or related terrorist organizations.

"This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security," he insisted.

The program is reviewed every 45 days, using fresh threat assessments, legal reviews by the Justice Department, White House counsel and others and information previously obtained under the program, he added.

It's good to know{NOT!} that these boneheads elected U.S. officials at least have some soul mates(cell mates would be better, I mean treason is still illegal, isn't it?) over at the New York Times, in terms of irresponsible journalists who'll publish anything they believe might hurt the administration without first looking thoroughly at the legalities, pretending as though members of al-Qaeda don't also read the newspapers.

If there really is a quagmire anywhere in the War On Terror, it's located on Capital Hill.

Raven has more on the New York Times issue.

Posted by Seth at 10:53 PM |

Gimme A Break!

And there's this, LOL, the episode of the Rampaging Santas.

Posted by Seth at 10:40 PM |

Election Day

First, congratulations to Michael Yon for winning Best Media Blog in the 2005 Weblog Awards.

The latest entry in Michael Yon's Online Magazine is a great piece of video on Election Day in Iraq.

Posted by Seth at 10:05 PM |

December 16, 2005

Putting The Oy Back In Joy

Jewish Comedian Jackie Mason, speaking for me and for millions of other American Jews, says it best.

We have the right to pornography. Erections are allowed to be mentioned every day!

"But you can't say, 'Merry Christmas!'"

Merry Christmas to all my Christian friends, and take a hike to all my fellow Jews who shame us by aligning themselves with the Marxist shmutz of the ACLU.

Posted by Seth at 05:04 PM | Comments (3) |

At Least This Wasn't Like the Last Go-Round...

Thank God this was a non-meltdown kind of accident.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — An explosion ripped through a smelter at a nuclear power plant outside the northern city of St. Petersburg, badly injuring three people, Russia's nuclear agency said Friday.

Rosenergoatom said radiation levels were not affected as the reactor in that part of the Leningrad nuclear plant was undergoing repairs and not in operation at the time.

This may be considered by some to be in poor taste, but it reminded me of a joke Yakov Smirnoff told when I saw him at Harrah's Reno about fifteen years ago:

"Here in America, you have all these wonderful medical advances, but we have them in Soviet Union, too.
There, they have invented a way to X-ray whole population at once, is called Chernobel."

Posted by Seth at 05:36 AM | Comments (2) |

Bush Agrees To McCain Torture Ban

As I wrote in a previous post, I don't believe there should be a set-in-stone policy regarding treatment of all prisoners we take in Iraq and elsewhere in the course of the War on Terror.

To be a little more specific, there are two general factions we are fighting in Iraq, the Sunnis who are themselves Iraqis and are, therefore, attempting to regain their former status in their own country, and the so-called "foreign fighters," al-Qaeda members and others whose presence in Iraq is strictly to disrupt the democratization of a country that is not even theirs.

Arguably, then, while the latter group can only be called terrorists, the former might rightly be called insurrectionists. Both groups are the enemies of the overwhelming majority of Iraqis who want their new democracy to flourish, therefore members of both groups must be captured or killed until their respective forces have been broken.

While we may consider rules of conduct for blanket humane treatment to the insurgents we capture, this should not apply to terrorists nor to anyone else who has been involved in the murder of innocent civilians or the beheadings of abductees -- al-Qaeda members are mass murderers who deserve no consideration as human beings. Some speak of a moral high ground, that's all well and good, but when applying such concepts to fighting terrorists, we are doing so at our own peril and that of our troops and of civilians. I don't believe that a terrorist's rights, comforts or life should even be a consideration if the life of a single U.S. or Iraqi soldier or citizen might instead be saved.

In today's Washington Times:

President Bush yesterday abandoned his opposition to expanding a ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of terror suspects, but only after winning legal protections for CIA interrogators. The agreement was a victory for Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, who for months has pushed for an expansion of the ban in spite of strong opposition from the White House, including threats of a veto. "It's a done deal," Mr. McCain said after meeting with the president at the White House. He said the legislation would protect "all people, no matter how evil or bad they are."

Well, Senator McCain, that last part definitely disqualified you from my list of possible candidates to vote for in the next Presidential election.

Conservatives were not impressed. Legal scholar Mark Levin of the Landmark Legal Foundation called the McCain proposal "the al Qaeda Bill of Rights." He predicted it would subject U.S. soldiers to civilian courts. Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh said the proposal would harm Mr. McCain's expected run for the White House in 2008, but he acknowledged the Arizona Republican was relentless in pressuring the Bush administration. "He wasn't going to back down," Mr. Limbaugh told his audience. "He's attached this to the defense appropriations bill, and the president, really, I think was up against a wall because money for the military runs out at the end of the year."

Read the rest here.

Posted by Seth at 04:44 AM | Comments (2) |

Another One From Joe Scarborough

I fly a lot -- not like Superman or Sister Bertrille, lacking in their skills I'm limited to airplanes, mostly those operated by American and United Airlines.

As a result, I pass through the TSA's screening menage enough that I'm familiar with every variant -- despite the fact that all airport screening crews work for the same gubmint agency, they seem to do things differently at different airports.

I'm not a very well organized traveller, I tend to procrastinate, during multi-destination trips, when it comes to booking my next flight, from, say, point B to point C, and sometimes do so only a day before making a flight. This sends up a flag at the respective airline itself, and their computers put through an automatic request for a behind the scenes baggage inspection and a session at the screening point with Mr. Wand.

I've been through airports that required removing shoes, a few that didn't, some that restrained you from leaving the scanning area until all your possessions(pocket items, laptop, etc) had cleared the conveyor belt, and many whose agents were not very thorough. I blogged back in October about how a Swiss Army knife I'd totally forgotten about, buried deep in my computer carrying case in August, had travelled through a whole bunch of airports, including O'Hare, Midway, Dulles, National, Orlando, JFK and others before being found by a diligent screener at Logan in early October.

While headed for a recent flight from Reagan National to O'Hare on a day that was really, really quiet, I found myself in a quagmire of utter confusion at a screening point because some idiot had left the shoulder strap from a carry-on bag hanging outside the plastic bin you put your stuff in for scanning and it got itself jammed in the conveyor belt. Suddenly several of the screeners were over there attempting to wrestle the strap loose(they looked like the Keystone TSA Screeners) while others tried to reroute the line to the adjacent conveyor belts. Talk about professionalism, it was indeed a professional mess.

But beyond these vagaries in the millieu(man, too much French for this time of the morning --meeelyiewww-- gag--choke!) of being established as a probable non-terrorist and a safe bet to allow aboard the airplane, there is still the issue of political correctness that overshadows the entire experience.

And that is the policy of including every kind of person in the "special attention" category... except those whose profiles most match those of the kind of terrorist all this extra security and extra hassle was added on to keep from getting aboard airplanes to begin with.

Young Arab males, one of the ACLU's protected categories, along with pedophi-- oops, there I go, off on one of my digressions -- okay, this time I'll stay on topic.

Sure, we've all been over this many times, but our entreaties seem to be falling on deaf ears. Instead of responding to realistic criticism, the TSA is indulging in appeasement tactics. Sure, this pass card program they're gearing up for will make things a little more convenient for us frequent flyers, at least until we all have them and the lines we access become longer than the lines of those who don't, and sure, it will be nice for those who have little pairs of scissors and souvenir letter openers in their carryons to be able to keep them -- it really doesn't matter, anyway: A terrorist can order a can of ginger ale and rip it open to make a nasty slashing weapon, for one of many examples I could make but won't, I don't want to give anybody any even "better" ideas they don't have already.

The point is, those who most fit the terrorist profile are the ones who need to be given the most attention, not a little old lady from Kalamazoo or a four year old girl clutching the latest Barbie and sucking her thumb.

I'll say no more, and let former Congressman Joe Scarborough say the rest.

Posted by Seth at 02:47 AM | Comments (2) |

December 15, 2005

And They Said It Wouldn't Happen

The Iraqi elections were a big success, to judge by the numbers of voters that showed up at the polls, including the selfsame Sunnis who had boycotted the last election. In fact, many of the polls at which Sunnis voted were secured by Saddamist Sunni guerillas to protect voters from their al-Qaeda fellow travellers, who had, in advance, proclaimed that anyone who took part in the democratic process would be branded infidels and treated accordingly.

Many "experts" completely ignore these developments and say that Iraq is engaged in a civil war. Well, there aren't a whole lot of civil warriors over there, the insurgency by actual Iraqis, while perhaps larger than the number of so-called foreign fighters, is still a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of pro-democracy Iraqis.

Then there are those who claim that there is no chance of Iraq ever achieving democracy, "because it isn't the way of such people, they have lived under the rule of dictators and monarchs for too many centuries and it is all they know."

Well, it would appear that the Iraqi people let their fingers do the talking -- the purple ones, that is, cheerfully and enthusiastically.

They have shown that they welcome the opportunity of self government, that they cherish the right to speak freely(as evidenced by all of the newspapers that have appeared in the wake of the Hussein regime's demise), and that their courage is up to the task of fighting for their freedom.

Prior to the elections,

One anecdote from Mosul," said General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when he spoke at the National Defense University earlier this month. "There was a police recruiting station. Forty young men lined up to sign up to become Iraqi policemen. A vehicle-borne IED explodes — kills or badly injures 12 of them. The next day, the 28 remaining return to the same spot to sign up to be policemen.

"And that kind of courage," the general told his audience, "is being shown across Iraq by literally thousands and thousands of Iraqis who want to serve their country."

After the elections,

The basic gist: Iraqis were pleased as punch to be able to choose whomever they wanted to run their country.

So now we're there, we're at the point in Iraq that they have established the government that will lead them for the next four years, a government by the people, of the people and for the people(wish I'd said that). We've helped establish an educational system that is already teaching thousands of knowledge hungry children, including girls, who might otherwise have never had the opportunity to learn and we're training their army and police to carry on after our troops have been pulled out.

We are successfully engendering a democracy where there was none in the Arab world, despite overt and covert resistance by many of Iraq's neighbors, and in so doing starting a chain reaction that must certainly lead to positive political changes throughout the region, changes that will inevitably be of benefit to our own national security.

We saw the future the terrorists intend for our nation on that fateful morning of September the 11th, 2001. That day we learned that vast oceans and friendly neighbors are no longer enough to protect us. September the 11th changed our country; it changed the policy of our government. We adopted a new strategy to protect the American people: We would hunt down the terrorists wherever they hide; we would make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbor them; and we would advance our security at home by advancing freedom in the Middle East.

Our President is right(yes, he is, thank God, both ways), and despite the anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-America, anti-American way rantings of the Angry Left, who couldn't care less that we've freed a nation from a murderous, oppressive tyrant and planted the seed of democracy in a region that spawns the worst possible enemies of the American way of life, are more concerned with their hatred of the Chief Executive(he won, you see, beat both straw man Algore and traitor Kerry, so they are very angry, indeed) than they are with less important issues like homeland security and freedom for the citizens of countries ruled by people who would make Idi Amin Dada look benevolent.

George W. Bush is 100% correct. We must stay the course in order to give the Iraqi people a chance to get their democracy sorted out, now that they have voted.

Sure, we have politicians like Durbin, Dean and Kerry committing verbal treason, making statements that would cause them to disappear in the kind of country they would have the United States become, their words serving only to embolden our enemy and get more U.S. military people killed, but that's of no concern to them: They can blame the results of their crimes on the Bush Administration in an effort to further their own careers while concealing their own complicity.

These are true scumbags, traitors whose only concerns are their own political fortunes, who are elected and reelected by morons and both witting and unwitting fellow traitors. These followers, those who march to their baseless ideals and bumper sticker slogans are simpletons, cowards, gullible fools, pseudointellectuals and fellow wannabe socialists. People who either haven't a clue as to how good they've got it as Americans or who would prefer life under a regime more in tune with Karl Marx than with Samuel Adams.

The cartoon-like, fanatic rantings of self-seeking politicians like Kerry and Dean or lying moonbats like Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan are actually palatable to these poor, stupid souls, the anti-American, anti-life and anti-God policies of organizations like the ACLU their sources of "spiritual" nourishment, their well received anti-Christ, their life's message anti-based. They want to destroy the most precious political philosophy-cum-reality in the history of the earth and don't even know why, or that they are even trying to do so.

Iraq is the focal point of a great battleground whose alternative may well be the road to Armageddon(and here I am, a Jew whose religious beliefs end with the Old Testament), not that which ends the New Testament, but one which could well culminate in catastrophes whose effects could easily make even the least religious among us wish for the Biblical version.

Posted by Seth at 05:11 PM |

Dubya Speech, Woodrow Wilson Center

I had wanted to post on President Bush's speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center and include excerpt links, but I ran into the usual problem: MSM articles on Bush speeches only pick out one or two statements he makes that they can spin and turn into a false theme for the entire speech.

Yes, fair, balanced reporting. Not!

Instead, straight from the White House website and in its entirety, the transcript of the speech can be read here.

Posted by Seth at 08:18 AM |

A Must Read

You gotta read this, it's great!

Ann Coulter asks, Why Can't I Get Arrested?

Posted by Seth at 07:00 AM | Comments (2) |

Stealing McCain's Thunder

James Joyner, at Outside The Beltway has posted on the new, classified policies for interrogation being set up by the U.S. Army, which the New York Times speculates will anger U.S. Senator John McCain(R, Arizona) as he is presently negotiating with the White House and the House of Representatives on a set of guidelines to prevent cruel treatment of prisoners taken in the Global War On Terror(GWOT).

Joyner writes,

Not having seen the rules, I have no view on whether they go "too far." I would note, however, that by definition having precise legislative guidelines means there is a line between legal and illegal conduct. So, if going "right to the edge" is a problem, that line needs to be redrawn.

Further, the Army, like any government agency, will naturally issue regulations for their employees giving them precise guidelines to stay within compliance with the law. While doing so may have the effect of giving them encouragement to go right up to the limits of the law, that is not necessarily the intent. Indeed, from the little information provided by the article, it would seem the opposite is true:

From the Times: One Army officer expressed exasperation that senior military and civilian officials were failing to articulate a coherent approach toward interrogation, saying much of the confusion centered on disparate definitions of abuse. "Everybody's talking past each other on this," the officer said. " 'Cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment' is at the crux of the problem, but we've never defined that."

The new manual, the first revision in 13 years, will specifically prohibit practices like stripping prisoners, keeping them in stressful positions for a long time, imposing dietary restrictions, employing police dogs to intimidate prisoners and using sleep deprivation as a tool to get them to talk, Army officials said. In that regard, it imposes new restrictions on what interrogators are allowed to do. Those practices were not included in the manual in use when most of the abuses occurred at Abu Ghraib in Iraq in the fall of 2003, but neither were they specifically banned.

I'm not all that sure a fixed set of interrogation guidelines is what is needed here, at least not one that is uniform for all prisoners.

If, say, our(or the Iraqi) forces capture a terrorist from al-Qaeda-in-Iraq, one who has been involved in the bombing murders of children and the beheading of innocent abductees, and it is believed that the man possesses information that can be valuable toward saving the lives of soft targets or coalition troops or further damaging the terrorist infrastructure, I see absolutely no reason to accord that animal any rights whatsoever when it comes to extracting information from him. I'm all for doing whatever it takes to wrest the intelligence from him, and I could care less what becomes of him afterwards. This is war, not a game of patty cakes, and you can be damn sure that if the roles were reversed, he would do the same to you, and probably laugh in your face in the process. These are not human beings as we know human beings, they are rabid murderers who kill for the sake of killing and use religion as their justification.

Making nice and making it law that we make nice will only embolden them further. It has been proven time and time again that whenever we show mercy to Islamofascist terrorists, they perceive it as weakness and as a victory for themselves, and their attacks increase both in volume and viciousness.

By upstaging the senator's efforts with their own set of rules that might be deemed legally acceptable (if possibly slightly more harsh than Mr. McCain's own suggestions are likely to be), I believe the Army is, in effect, doing the right thing, especially in keeping their proposed interrogation methods a secret to prevent the enemy from being able to devise ways to resist them. The people do not have a "right to know." Terrorists watch CNN, too.

I am not, by nature, a vicious person, but I believe that certain circumstances, particularly those dealing with the defense of the innocent and of country against an enemy such as the one we face in the GWOT, require realism-based responses.

Posted by Seth at 05:06 AM | Comments (2) |

December 14, 2005

Iraq: Democracy Works

Michael Rubin's Op-Ed in today's WSJ Online is as definitive as one can get on the influence of Iraq's new democracy upon the rest of the Arab world.

The coalition's ouster of Saddam may have created a template for change, but it is Iraqis who have pressed forward to hold not only Saddam, but also subsequent politicians, to account. On June 28, 2004, Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer appointed Iyad Allawi as interim prime minister. Mr. Allawi, a former Baathist, was a favorite of the U.S., British and Jordanian intelligence services. He projected an image of strong leadership to an Iraqi audience craving security. He promised to jumpstart reconstruction. But he failed. Corruption exploded. Iraqis blamed his empowerment of senior Baathists for the spread of insurgency and decline in security. Furthermore, he treated U.S. diplomats, not Iraqis, as his most important constituency. He campaigned surrounded by American security agents. Iraqis had enough. On Jan. 30, millions braved bombs to bounce him from office. Even with the trappings of incumbency--media coverage and a bully pulpit for his campaign--he barely mustered 14%. As Egyptians, Libyans, Tunisians and Syrians watched with envy, Iraqis held a failed incumbent to account.

They will do it again tomorrow. Like Mr. Allawi, current Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has failed. Local humor is telling. A popular Baghdad joke tells of how he walks into his office to find a rooster, dog and donkey. "I'm here to wake you up so you can do your job," the rooster crows. "I'm here to provide security," the dog barks. "Why are you here?" Jaafari asks the donkey. "I don't know. I'm no different from you," the donkey brays.

Read the entire story here.

Posted by Seth at 08:09 PM |

Bush Was Right

RightMarch now has a TV spot featuring the patriotic Right Brothers and their song, Bush Was Right.

Bill Greene, President of RightMarch, can use some help from all of us to get it on the air and get it some exposure. Up until recently, the left, via the dumbass, treasonous stooges of liberalism Mainstream Media were creaming us with their propaganda, now the right thinkers in Washington{not the apples and Bill Gates one, the District of Columbia one}, from George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Carl Rove on down are finally speaking out and turning the tide from anti-American leftist B.S. to the truth and consequently bringing up the approval ratings of the administration as more and more Americans learn what's really going on in our nation's capital, the economy and Iraq.

The tireless(I don't know where he gets it, he's a pretty big guy), tenaciously patriotic Mr. Greene tells all about it in the latest RightMarch alert.

ALERT: Doesn't it feel good to say "I told you so" when you're proven right?

Wouldn't you like to say it right in the face of all those liberals who have been trashing President Bush for five years?

Now you can.

Take a look at this 30-second TV ad we're planning to run nationwide - you're gonna LOVE it:

http://www.rightmarch.com/bwrad.htm

I know, I know -- it just doesn't seem right, kicking the liberals when they're down. After all, the economy is up thanks to tax cuts; the Iraqis are holding free elections; Saddam Hussein is on trial; our brave troops are making great progress in the War on Terror; and the President's poll numbers are climbing again.

It's enough to make Ted Kennedy cry in his drink. It's enough to flip Carl Levin's comb-over. It's enough to put a sour look on Nancy Pelosi's face. It's enough to turn MoveOn into RollOver.

And our ad is designed to keep it up -- and keep it in their faces.

We've been pushing our "Tell the TRUTH About Iraq" campaign for months now, with print and radio ads delivered to millions nationwide. And thanks to YOU, that campaign is WORKING -- we're hearing more and more about all of the GOOD news coming from Iraq, instead of just the small amount of BAD news that the mainstream media has been bombarding us with. Even the Administration has finally started holding "good news" press conferences, after "holding back" for so long.

And, we're in the middle of our grassroots campaign to force MTV to play the new song by The Right Brothers, "Bush Was Right!" We've crashed MTV's website several times with all of the requests from our members to see the video on their show, "Total Request Live." We ARE getting their attention -- and we'll keep pushing hard for them to show at least a LITTLE balance in what they're presenting to America's youth.

Now, though, it's time to REALLY grab some attention -- from the mainstream media; from liberal politicians; and especially, from average Americans who need to hear the TRUTH about all of these FACTS.

This ad is a GREAT way to do that -- but we need YOUR help to get it on the air:

https://secure.responseenterprises.com/rightmarch/?a=7

We want to start out by airing the ad on Fox News, especially during the top-rated shows "The O'Reilly Factor" and "Hannity & Colmes". O'Reilly's show alone attracts over TWO MILLION viewers per show!

With all of the media coverage that will get us, we can then move on to airing the ad -- where else? -- on MTV.

Unless they continue to censor us -- in which case, it will get even MORE media coverage, and even MORE Americans will be reminded that "Bush Was Right"...

And YOU will get to say "I told you so" to even MORE liberals.

This is a BIG move for us, and it's going to cost BIG bucks. A 30-second ad on "The O'Reilly Factor" alone costs over $30,000. Even MTV charges $8,000 for an ad like this.

But we KNOW that this ad will have a HUGE effect. It can't be helped -- liberals already HATE the song in this ad, and they've been screeching about it for weeks (everyone from Al Franken on Air America, to leftist Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, to bloggers like the Daily Kos). And can you blame them? They can't STAND the fact that "BUSH WAS RIGHT!"

PLEASE HELP US get this ad aired where it will have the most effect: Fox News... Bill O'Reilly... Hannity & Colmes... MTV... and beyond!

If you can afford to donate $30,000, great -- we'll get this ad on right away! Most of our members can't do that, of course -- but if 6 people give $5,000, or 10 people give $3,000, or 15 people gave $2,000, or 30 people gave $1,000, we'd reach our goal!

In fact, if just 300 people gave $100 each... or just 600 people gave $50 each... or just 1000 people gave $30 each... this ad would immediately be seen by TWO MILLION people!

WILL YOU HELP? Whether it's $30 or $30,000, every bit counts! This is YOUR chance to grab some attention for the TRUTH -- and have fun doing it! Click here to donate now:

https://secure.responseenterprises.com/rightmarch/?a=7

If you'd like to donate by check, please send to:

RightMarch.com
Dept Code 7
PO Box 20275
Washington, DC 20041-2275

Sincerely,

William Greene, President
RightMarch.com

Posted by Seth at 06:10 PM |

Traitoress Gone Mad?

According to NewsMax, traitoress Jane Fonda now says that U.S. soldiers are specially trained killing machines, presumeably, I suppose, like the Terminator, LOL.

"Hanoi Jane" Fonda is claiming that ever since Vietnam, U.S. troops have been trained to commit atrocities against innocent civilians as a matter of military policy.

"Starting with the Vietnam War we began training soldiers differently," the anti-American actress says in an email to the Washington Post.

Read the story here.

Posted by Seth at 09:42 AM | Comments (2) |

December 13, 2005

Purple Fingers

This RightMarch alert arrived yesterday, but as I was working to overcome technical difficulties that weren't solved to the extent I was assured they were, and posting this alert involved reinforcing all the links herein, I am only now getting it published:

Alert: On December 15, the people of Iraq will do what no American should ever have to contemplate. They will risk their lives to vote. For the third time this year, the brave people of Iraq will go to the polls to determine their future. This time they will do so to elect a new government under the constitution that they approved in an October referendum.

On January 30, 2005, AP photographer Andrew Parsons took an iconic photo of an Iraqi woman flashing a "V" for victory after she voted:

http://www.rightmarch.com/images/iraq3.jpg

Her finger, stained purple by poll workers to show that she voted, became a symbol of defiance to the terrorists, a symbol of pride, and a symbol of freedom.

Last January, 10 year-old Shelby Dangerfield from Montana demonstrated her solidarity with the freedom-loving Iraqis by inking her finger:

http://www.rightmarch.com/images/shelby.jpg

Join Bill Bennett, Sean Hannity, Martha Zoller and other radio hosts who are encouraging Americans to follow her example by asking them to ink their right index finger purple from December 12-15 to show support for the freedom loving people of Iraq as they prepare to vote on December 15th.

Here are some other things you can do to show support for a free Iraq:

* From December 12-15, ink your right index finger purple or wear a purple ribbon.

* Encourage your family, friends, and neighbors to do the same.

* Email photos of yourself flashing your "Purple Finger 'V' for Victory in Iraq" to Pictures@PurpleFingerForFreedom.Org for posting to the PurpleFingerForFreedom.Org web site.

* Visit PurpleFingerForFreedom.Org

* Encourage local schools to download the Purple Finger for Freedom Model Lesson plan from PurpleFingerForFreedom.Org and ask teachers to teach a current events class about the upcoming Iraqi election based on it.

"Look at how long it took us to move from independence to the Constitution. Well, let's see 1776 would be a good place to start with independence. It was 1788 before we had our first election under the constitution. So, we should take such pride in what's going on in Iraq because it was the process we've gone, we went through as a new nation that has set a model for the world. And the Iraqi people of course we should very proud and supportive of what they're doing, but we should notice that it is the American example that has led people to the idea of constitutions all around the world, the idea that you need a plan of government, a framework for governing. And, gosh, it makes me almost want to be a teacher, you know, on December 15th to be in classrooms across this country and talking to kids about what's happening in Iraq and how our own history is reflected in it."
--Mrs. Lynne Cheney
Diane Rehm National Radio Show
November 30, 2005

Let's show the world that freedom loving peoples are united.

* Post the "SHOW SUPPORT for FREE IRAQIS" graphic below on your website with a link to PurpleFingerForFreedom.Org:

http://www.purplefingerforfreedom.org/images/Index/freeiraq.gif

* Email support@purplefingerforfreedom.org to tell them that you want to be listed on PurpleFingerForFreedom.Org as a Supporting Organization.

Thanks for your support!

The Ad Hoc Committee in Solidarity with Free Iraqis PurpleFingerForFreedom.Org

P.S. Be sure to forward this Alert to EVERYONE you know who wants to help support this giant move towards democracy in Iraq. Thank you!

Sincerely,

William Greene, President
RightMarch.com

The work of RightMarch.com is funded entirely by voluntary contributions. Help us spread the word with a donation to RightMarch.com!
https://secure.responseenterprises.com/rightmarch/?a=7

Posted by Seth at 03:02 PM |

Good Advice For Democrats: From A Republican

Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough has some great advice for congressional Democrats that they'll naturally prove too... well, Democrat to heed.

According to Mr. Scarborough, the Democrats are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Posted by Seth at 02:43 PM |

Michael Yon: Vote For Time's Photo Of The Year

Freelance Journalist Michael Yon, who has gone into harm's way in Iraq to bring us the real deal rather than the spun, twisted and sanitized left wing, Bush hating, politics-over-truth, shameless Mainstream Media's version of events, while showing the compassionate humanity of the American soldier that the liberal media blatantly ignores, is one of the finalists for Time Magazine's Photo of the Year for his emotion-inspiring photo of an American officer, Major Beiger, comforting the fatally wounded little Iraqi girl named Farah after a terrorist blew himself up in a crowd of children.

Read about the voting for photo of the year, view the pics and then vote, from here, at Michael Yon's Online Magazine.

Posted by Seth at 12:31 PM | Comments (2) |

December 12, 2005

Steyn On Mad Mahmoud

Mark Steyn has written another of his usual great reads, this one on anti-Israeli Iranian madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the suicidal diplomacy he enjoys from the fucking idiots fine folks at the U.N. and in our own State Department.

"Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces," Ahmadinejad told Iranian TV viewers. "Although we don't accept this claim, if we suppose it is true," he added sportingly, "if European countries claim that they have killed Jews in World War II, why don't they provide the Zionist regime with a piece of Europe? Germany and Austria can provide the regime with two or three provinces for this regime to establish itself, and the issue will be resolved. You offer part of Europe, and we will support it."

Big of you. It's the perfect solution to the "Middle East peace process": out of sight, out of mind. And given that Ahmadinejad's out of his mind, we're already halfway there.

So let's see: We have a Holocaust denier who wants to relocate an entire nation to another continent, and he happens to be head of the world's newest nuclear state. (They're not 100 percent fully-fledged operational, but happily for them they can drag out the pseudo-negotiations with the European Union until they are. And Washington certainly won't do anything, because after all if we're not 100 percent certain they've got WMD — which we won't be until there's a big smoking crater live on CNN one afternoon — it would be just another Bushitlerburton lie to get us into another war for oil, right?)

Read the entire column here.

Posted by Seth at 03:09 AM |

Good News For Many, If True

If this is true, it could be good news for those of us wishing to buy a house as a home rather than as an investment.

Sales of new homes jumped to an all-time high in October in what could be a final spurt from a housing market that is expected to slow after five record-breaking years. The Commerce Department report released Tuesday showed sales of new single-family homes climbed to a record annual rate of 1.42 million units last month. The 13 percent increase from September was the largest percentage gain in more than 12 years.

Analysts said the unexpected surge was probably influenced by fence-sitters rushing to buy homes before mortgage rates climb higher.

"The housing market is peaking despite what today's data suggest," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.

He said part of the rise in October could have occurred because worried builders have started cutting prices and offering other incentives to move unsold homes.

Home values are not a tangible phenomenon, nor is there any precise formula that can be applied to them. They are a product of the marketplace and therefore completely reliant on the good old concept of supply and demand.

When there is a strong demand, everybody on the selling end cashes in; Realtors make more money on their average 6% fees, sellers make a bundle in profits based on their initial investments in the properties and on the buyers' end, banks make the money by raising mortgage rates to take advantage of the demand -- in a manner of speaking, they are the pilot fish of the transaction, though their necessary function brings them a much better return than that enjoyed by their cousins whose only satisfaction is that of a job well done in the cleaning of a shark's teeth.

When the price of a house becomes prohibitive to all but a few and the cost of borrowing the money to buy increases along with it, the "buy as an investment" crowd becomes cautious because they see their potential for earning a substantial "hold on to it while prices go up, then sell it" profit margin begin to dwindle.

That's pretty much what's happening now, so,

Economists believe the momentum so far this year will result in a fifth year of record sales for both new and existing homes in 2005, but they forecast sales declines in 2006 as potential buyers react to sustained increases in mortgage rates.

Rates for 30-year mortgages have been above 6 percent for seven consecutive weeks and economists are predicting they will rise even higher in coming months as the Federal Reserve keeps raising rates to combat inflation pressures.

Patrick Newport, an economist at Global Insight, a private research firm, predicted that sales of both new and existing homes would drop by around 10 percent next year.

"We are not expecting a crash or anything dramatic but a slowdown from the sizzling numbers that we have been seeing," he said.

On the other hand,

The concern of some economists is that the booming housing market could have a bigger downturn similar to the bursting of the stock market bubble in early 2000.

The worry is that activity in recent years has been pumped up by investors buying homes and condominiums in hopes of quick gains. If they suddenly decide to dump those properties, it could cause a glut on the market that would further depress prices.

What is indicated here, if the "experts" are correct, is that the seller's market that now dominates the real estate industry in most of the United States is about to become a buyer's market, which will move home buying out of the short to midterm investor's court and into that of the "common man."

Posted by Seth at 01:43 AM |

Testing, Testing, 1,2,3...

It is 4:17 on a partly cloudy, thirty two degree morning here in Charlotte, North Carolina and I have just been assured by the third technical support weenie I've talked to in the last 14 hours that my Internet access from the hotel in which I'm presently ensconced is now in good working order.

According to said representative of the outsourced contractor, the problem had something to do with an online "disclaimer" of some sort that is not made available to individual recipients of the service to access and diddle with, and he said he accessed and diddled with it{my terms, not his}, setting it so that I would have no further trouble for the duration of my thirty day stay here at the Staybridge Suites "by Holiday Inn."

That is, he said, and I quote, "I have set it up so you will have no problems with your Internet access for the next thirty days."

As I said in my reply in the last thread to a comment by Michael, "Once in a blue moon, you get the 1% of tech support people who hasn't yet moved on to a job that pays more than coolie wages, and the problem is solved, more often from their end than not."

I can but hope that the above mentioned master of tech support is indeed in that 1%, and not just another professore of the brush-off as are most of his esteemed colleagues.

The proof, as they say, will be in the proverbial "pudding".

Posted by Seth at 01:17 AM |

December 11, 2005

Technical Difficulties

The hotel I am presently staying at in Charlotte, NC is having a "jump" problem with their ISP, and having just lost a lengthy post as a result, I will be temporarily refraining from blogging while Level 2 technicians at the outsourced(as usual) Internet service company attempt to correct the problem.

Posted by Seth at 11:06 AM | Comments (4) |

December 10, 2005

On The Iraqi Economy

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, an Op-Ed by U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert Kimmitt gives a solid, well defined analysis of the state of the Iraqi economy today with a forecast for the future.

Only a year-and-a-half after regaining its full sovereignty, Iraq is laying the groundwork for a self-sustaining, market-based economy which can serve as an engine of growth for that nation and for the broader Middle East. While the world's attention has been focused on security and political developments, Iraqi authorities have been working steadily to reverse decades of economic decline -- which under Saddam Hussein was marked by triple-digit inflation, crushing debt and rising poverty. And as President Bush made clear Wednesday, we have a strong stake in helping the Iraqi people succeed in achieving their economic potential.

Liberals, ignore it as usual, there's nothing in there that attacks the Bush Administration. Right thinkers and other open minded readers, read the rest of the article here.

Posted by Seth at 07:45 AM |

Why Am I Not Surprised?

A Manhattan judge ruled that the searching of bags on subways is constitutional.

But of course,

The NYCLU said it will appeal Berman's 41-page ruling.

"The NYPD's unprecedented program of searching hundreds of thousands of innocent people using the New York City subway system violates one of our most basic freedoms," said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman.

Donna Lieberman and the rest of the ACLU club simply must do their share when it comes to endangering a large number of American lives by making us as vulnerable as possible to terrorist attack -- through the aiding and abetting of chaos, they aspire to undermine the faith of the people in our government.

These, along with undermining religion and disarming the people, are the textbook tactics of communist revolutionaries.

Posted by Seth at 05:26 AM | Comments (2) |

One Antithesis To A San Francisco Attitude

Whereas the pinkos people of San Francisco have no use for the same military that ensures their freedom to verbally trash the government express their political opinions freely to the point of disallowing anyone from the U.S. Armed Forces to address students in their high schools, other schools, three thousand miles away, welcome our military.

High School ROTC programs in Maryland are enjoying strong enrollment numbers, according to a Washington Times report, nationwide programs having doubled in the last five years.

SNOW HILL, Md. (AP) -- More students at Eastern Shore high schools are joining the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps, part of a national rise in popularity that has some high schools reporting up to a fourth are enrolled in the program. JROTC programs numbered 3,184 last year nationwide, up from 1,493 in 1990. Last year, more than 500,000 students in the United States were JROTC cadets.

From Lt. Col. Ron Harrington, USMC (Ret), at Snow Hill High School on Eastern Shores and Capt. Warren Harris, Army, at Crisfield High School,

Col. Harrington called the JROTC program a positive experience for the students, who are not required to join the military as adults. "What I like to say is that we don't teach the Marine Corps, we teach Marine Corps values,"{emphasis mine} he told the Salisbury Daily Times. On the Eastern Shore, schools from Wicomico High School to Crisfield High School all have programs in place with solid followings. Capt. Warren Harris, an instructor for Crisfield's Army JROTC program, said about 70 students usually sign up for classes each year. "Last year we had about 78 students enrolled, and being a small school, that makes about 20 [percent] to 25 percent of the school's population," he said.

This is a good sign, in my opinion, that despite efforts by the left to indoctrinate public school students to despise their country and its military, much of our youth is demonstrating through action that their own feelings are those of patriotic Americans wherein the anti-American dogmas of the liberal are of little or no import.

It's too bad that the majority of San Francisco parents and teachers choose to raise and indoctrinate the next generation of Murthas, Deans, Kerrys, Durbins, Pelosis, Teddy Ks and other left wing elements to continue their work of undermining the United States and all that America stands for, and to form the next wave of the liberal assault on our country's ability to defend itself.

Posted by Seth at 04:17 AM | Comments (4) |

December 09, 2005

The Very Real WMD Threat

One of the things our Bush bashing liberals and U.N. officials seem oblivious to, and I hope that's the case because if not, their hatred of the President far outweighs their will to survive, is the probability that terrorists will eventually possess, if they do not now, portable weapons of mass destruction{WMDs}, and will attempt to use them here in the United States and in other countries Islamofascism considers their enemy.

According to Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer,

We have to face up to the fact that terrorists are actively endeavouring to try to get access to, in particular, chemical and chemical, biological and radiological weapons, the easiest of which would be radiological weapons. They could create what is sometimes called a "dirty bomb" very easily with conventional explosives around some nuclear material, which wouldn't create a nuclear explosion but would disperse radioactive material.

And we have to face up to the fact that terrorists are actively trying to obtain these weapon systems. And in South East Asia there may be a real sense of urgency in a country like Indonesia, of course.

But when you get to the United Nations in New York, it has to be said that there are quite a number of members there who don't see the urgency of addressing these issues, which I believe there should be.

It seems that it's always the so-called intellectuals of the left who reason that if we "make nice," and attempt to negotiate peace with terrorists like the ones who shattered our world on 11 September 2001 rather than waging war against them, they would convey their best wishes and leave us alone.

Thank God there are more people around who focus on reality rather than the Utopian pipe dreams of these "elite thinkers."

If we believe the tragedy that occurred on 9/11 was horrible, imagine how we would view the setting off of a suitcase nuke in midtown Manhattan, the Loop in Chicago, downtown Los Angeles or Washington, D.C. in the middle of a business day. The death toll would make that of the World Trade Center appear picayune by comparison, easily into seven digit figures, laying waste an entire metropolitan area and spreading severe, lethal radiation into the suburbs.

It is speculated that after the break-up of the Soviet Union, a number of so-called "suitcase nukes" went missing.

In late September, Alexander Lebed, Russia's former chief of national security, repeated his assertion, first made earlier in the month, that Russia may have 'lost' up to 100 1-kiloton 'suitcase-sized' nuclear bombs. Speaking in Tokyo on 22 September, Lebed said that despite unequivocal denials of his claim by the authorities, "the problem still exists." "Unfortunately," he added, "some people chose to protect their name or laugh off the issue." He repeated his view of the gravity of the situation: "These are ideal weapons to conduct nuclear terrorism... We must seriously look for them or else humankind cannot rest in peace."

In his book Al Qaeda, Brotherhood of Terror, former F.B.I. consultant on international terrorism Paul L. Williams contends that Osama bin Laden purchased as many as twenty suitcase nukes from former KGB agents.

While various former Soviet officials deny that such nukes were ever produced by the U.S.S.R., others point out that such denials are to be expected under the heading of CYA, and still others, like Lebed, give evidence that these compact WMDs were indeed built, for intended use by Spetznaz{Soviet Special Forces} units.

Naturally, our ever optimistic liberal airheads intellectuals will insist that such terrible things as suitcase nukes couldn't possibly be out there in the hands of terrorists, because after all, only responsible men and women would have had access to them -- had they existed at all.

Yet it is fact that on the U.S.S.R.'s dissolution, a number of their military officials absconded with a wide variety of weaponry and sold it on the international black market as a way of generating investment capital, to ensure future personal financial security in an environment turned capitalist.

Would unscrupulous former members of the Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopastnosti have been any different if they had access to these nukes?

A book I would highly recommend to put this issue into perspective is Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe by Graham Allison.

By continuing to prosecute the Global War On Terror as aggressively as we are{and do your reading, there were negotiations between Iraq and Russian nuclear personnel in the years prior to the downfall of Saddam Hussein!}, we reduce the odds that a nuclear catastrophe will occur here in the United States or in other western countries. If an al-Qaeda member has no compunction about detonating himself with conventional explosives to kill a handful of American soldiers or crash an airplane into a building to kill a few thousand, it's a given that he'll simply love the idea of sacrificing his life to murder a million of us.

Liberals, wake up!

Posted by Seth at 07:49 AM |

December 08, 2005

THE American Steak House

Back in September, while I was in Washington, DC and involved in a counter-demonstration at Walter Reed against a bunch of anti-America war cockroaches activists, I mentioned Fran O'Brien's Stadium Steak House, an establishment that buses in patients from Walter Reed who have been severely disabled while fighting the Global War On Terror and gives them a comped dinner to show a part of their gratitude to these brave warriors who represent America in the fight for freedom around the world and for the continued security of the United States of America.

While I was in Washington in the last few days, I took a couple of wonderful people to dinner there, and it was a marvelous experience.

The establishment is decorated with genuine football memorabilia(remember great tackle Fran O'Brien?) and photos of numerous celebrities and members of major political families and political figures on a background of wood panelled walls(the atmosphere is incredible). There are both bar and dining room seating{my party and I sat in the bar}, and the crowd on any given evening consists of a mix of formal and casual. There is a lively bar filled with a mixed clientele of locals and tourists(the eatery is located in the basement of the Washington Hilton).

The food is to die for.

On the last visit, I enjoyed a crab cake appetizer that contained no fillers(in a delicious lobster cream sauce), then an entree of rare ribeye steak that literally melted in my mouth and a sizeable, succulent, meaty lobster tail that could only be described as awesome.

On the side was this enormous bowl of home-made mashed potatoes that deserved some sort of global award(a famous house specialty).

I'm one of those people who travel with a voracious apetite, but there was so much density to the nectar-of-the-gods provender that I couldn't finish it all.

My companions revelled in Maryland Cream of Crab soup, a platter of jumbo lump crab cakes and a mouth watering, lobster-dominated seafood platter.

I had the opportunity to meet and chat with Hal Koster, one of the two owners, and he was every inch the patriotic American I expected he would be given the restaurant's "do rather than talk about" policy of honoring the soldiers who have sacrificed so much in the name of freedom.

I'll be spending a lot of time in the Nation's Capital in the future, and Fran O'Brien's Stadium Steak House will be my Number One Eatery.

Anyone who visits Washington, D.C. and doesn't have dinner and libations at Fran O'Brien's will be missing out on an essential dining experience.

Trust me on this one.

Posted by Seth at 09:05 PM |

December 07, 2005

SECDEF Speaks

Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, in a speech on Monday at Johns Hopkins, very easily, calmly and well, chastised the media for their partisan reporting on the war in Iraq.

The other question I posed is of critical importance: why does Iraq's success or failure matter to the American people? Consider this quote: "What you have seen, Americans, in New York and Washington, D.C., and the losses you are having in Afghanistan and Iraq, in spite of all the media blackout, are only the losses of the initial clashes."

The speaker is Ayman al-Zawahiri, a senior member of the terrorist group al Qaeda and a top leader in the effort to defeat U.S. and coalition forces around the world. The terrorists' method of attack, simply put, is slaughter. They behead. They bomb children. They attack funerals and wedding receptions.

This is the kind of brutality and mayhem the terrorists are working to bring to our shores. And if we do not succeed in our efforts to arm and train Iraqis to help defeat these terrorists in Iraq, this is the kind of mayhem that a terrorist, emboldened by a victory, will bring to our cities again--let there be no doubt.

Indeed, the most important reason for our involvement in Iraq--despite the cost--is often overlooked. It is not only about building democracy, though democracies tend to be peaceful and prosperous and are in and of themselves good things. It is not about reopening Iraqi schools and hospitals or rebuilding infrastructure, though they are proceeding apace and are desirable and essential to ensure stability.

But, simply put, defeating extremist aspirations in Iraq is essential to protect the lives of Americans here at home.

And he tells the media,

So I suggest to editors and reporters--whose good intentions I take for granted--to do some soul searching. To ask: how will history judge--if it does--the reporting decades from now when Iraq's path is settled?

I would urge us all to make every effort to ensure we are telling the whole story. To take a moment for self-reflection and reassessment.

Further it is worth noting that there are 158,000 Americans in uniform who are sending e-mails back to friends and families, telling them the truth as they see it. And much of it is different than what those in the United States are seeing and reading about every day.

Yes, this is an angle the liberal Mainstream Media doesn't seem to be considering all that much -- that while they are now playing footloose and fancy free with the news they deliver to the American public, when the smoke of Iraq clears and all the truths are lain on the table of public scrutiny, they will be exposed before the American people as purveyors of half truths and downright lies who misled their trusting readers, viewers and listeners in order to peddle their liberal agendas.

Posted by Seth at 10:00 PM | Comments (2) |

A New Post From Michael Yon

Michael Yon has posted another of his well received journals, filled with photos and great commentary, this one titled Birds Of Baghdad.

Posted by Seth at 07:03 PM |

Right March Alert, Tax Reconciliation Bills: Important!

ALERT: How about some FACTS on our economy for a change -- instead of the negative LIES that keep coming from the liberals and the media (but I repeat myself)?

Here's a FACT: The 2003 Tax Reform Package helped boost our economy with revolutionary incentives for investment. The top rate for capital gains was slashed to 15% and for the first time, dividends are now taxed as capital gains rather than ordinary income. Without these fundamental, common sense reforms, our economy would not be as healthy and capitalized as it is today.

However, unless Congress acts in the next two weeks, these reforms and many more will start to expire at the end of 2005. Fortunately, tax reconciliation bills have been passed by the House of Representatives (H.R. 4297) and the Senate (S. 2020) that could give these tax provisions a new lease on life. What is uncertain is how the final bill will emerge from conference.

While both bills include some popular tax-cut extensions that have received bipartisan support in the past, there are major differences between the measures. The House bill extends the reduced tax rates on capital gains and dividends for two years, which are currently scheduled to expire at the end of 2008. The Senate bill does not extend the reduced rates.

The differences between the House and Senate bills could set up a difficult conference between the two chambers as lawmakers attempt to trade and bargain for their favored provisions. Conservative action is needed NOW to make sure that capital gains reduction and dividend tax reforms are in the final conference report.

TAKE ACTION: You and I have worked hard to get Congress to start "sunsetting" (expire) certain laws and even agencies in the past. What we DON'T need to "sunset" are the very reforms that have BOOSTED our economy and kept it HEALTHY, in spite of the onslaught of the Clinton inflation in 2000 and 9/11 in 2001. The Democrats and liberal Republicans that want to "sunset" the beneficial reforms need to be STOPPED.

Congress is back in session for only TWO WEEKS -- so they need to hear from YOU and I NOW. Click below now to send a FREE message to your BOTH your U.S. Senators and Representative, asking him or her to KEEP the vital 2003 capital gains and dividend reforms in the tax reconciliation bills:

http://capwiz.com/sicminc/issues/alert/?alertid=8298606&type=CO

NOTE: Be sure to forward this Alert to EVERYONE you know who wants to help get Congress to keep our economy healthy with these tax reforms. Thank you!

Sincerely,

William Greene, President
RightMarch.com

Posted by Seth at 04:32 PM |

The Government Is Not Your Mom And Dad

Jonathan Turley gives his take on parents' rights in the issue of their minor childrens' abortions here.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood, a case concerning the right of parents to be notified on abortions given to minor children. The case is seen as a bellwether on the court's shifting majority on abortion as well as the future of parental notice and consent laws in 43 states.

and continuing later in the Op-Ed,

Pro-choice advocates would make abortion the only absolute right in our Constitution, even though it was not fully recognized by the Supreme Court until 1973. Conversely, parental rights have been recognized since the founding of our Republic but are routinely dismissed when they collide with the almighty right to an abortion.

The pro-choice crowd is represented almost exclusively by liberal socialist leftist anti-American scum progressives.

Moving along, there are two sides to this debate, one here,

GENEVA - Efforts so far by the food and drink industry to improve the nutritional value of their products to fight childhood obesity are simply not good enough, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

"The industry's efforts are commendable, but inadequate. They are only a drop in the ocean," Colin Tukuitonga, who oversees the WHO's global strategy on diet and physical activity, said before a meeting with representatives of the food and soft drink industry.

Some industry giants such as Kraft, Nestle and Unilever have recently reviewed their recipes and reduced the salt, sugar and fat content of some of their products. They have also pledged to change some of their advertising and marketing practices.

and the other here.

There’s no correlation between ad exposure and childhood obesity. George Mason University's Todd Zywicki noted at a forum last summer that the average American child actually watches less TV than he did 15 years ago. What’s more, children face less exposure to food ads now than they did then, for a variety of reasons. The remote control has made ad-watching optional over the last 20 years, and more recent technology like TiVo may make traditional commercials completely obsolete.

Broadcast television is also losing younger viewers to cable, where ads in general are 40 percent less prevalent and where food ads comprise about half the percentage of overall ad time that they do in broadcast. Cable also offers more options for channel-flipping during commercials, and premium cable stations like HBO, which have no commercials at all, have become popular. All told, the average American child viewed 900 fewer food commercials in 2003 than he did in 1994. That this same average child gained weight amounts to a pretty solid rebuttal to the theory that food marketing is a significant contributor to childhood obesity.

You’d need to ban ads in adult programming. The fact is, you simply can’t limit a kid’s exposure to food ads, unless you’re prepared to ban all food advertising. Most children’s television viewing isn’t limited to children’s television programming. Kids watch shows intended for adults, too.

In fact, the kids most prone to obesity – those with minimal parental supervision – are also very likely those most likely to watch adult programming. Former Federal Trade Commission administrator Timothy Muris pointed out in a conference last June that if Congress had caved and banned food ads aimed at kids the first time the idea was proposed in the 1970s, the only television show that would have been affected would have been Captain Kangaroo.

Today, such a ban would probably hit a few other programs as well, which brings us to the next point…

The ban would cripple children’s television. The FCC already mandates that broadcasters devote a portion of the broadcast day to children’s programming. Food ads make up a huge portion of the ad revenue for those programs. Cut off that ad revenue, and the broadcasters subject to FCC regulation lose any incentive to invest in high-quality children’s television. Why put money into a sure loser?

Furthermore, television not subject to FCC regulations -- cable, for example -- would likely drastically cut back on the amount of television time it carves out for children, or just disregard children’s programming entirely.

The cause of childhood obesity lies elsewhere. Several recent studies have suggested that the single best indicator of a child’s health, diet, weight, and activity level is the health, diet, weight, and activity level of that child’s parents. Children of active parents tend to be active. Kids tend to eat what their moms and dads eat.

That said, there’s also some evidence that the caloric intake among kids hasn’t changed much over the last quarter century. What has changed is the amount of time kids are active, outside, and exercising. Kids today may watch less television, but they more than make up for it with video games, Internet activity, DVDs, or some combination of the three.

On the latter side of the debate, the Cato Institute rightly points out that the true status of childrens' respective states of fitness result from their emulation of their parents' dietary and exercise habits and their own sedentary passtimes.

The former, based on the World Health Organization statistics, places the blame for childhood obesity on food producers and their marketing programs.

The WHO conclusions, as can be expected, are those championed by the left, who, bless their litigious little hearts, have of course been doing everything in their power to place all burdens for preventing childhood obesity on the evil food producers.

So, they seek to take away the rights of parents to have any knowledge of or involvement in decision making where their adolescent children's having abortions are concerned while absolving parents of any blame for their children's obesity, in all cases via the courts so as to place the law between parents and their responsibilities as parents.

In public schools, the left, again using the courts, this time the far left 9th Circus Circuit Court Of Appeals, has obtained a ruling that

"We ... hold that there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children ...." Judge Stephen Reinhardt, Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

In the same schools, where the right to prayer or any sort of religious reference was some time ago outlawed{except in the case of schools where the only religion permitted to be represented is Islam, via required Koran studies by Judeo-Christian children}, teachers and faculties are permitted to preach liberal doctrine to students or to revise history to meet the standards of the left.

In short, by small step after small step, each processed through the courts, the left is slowly but surely usurping the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit, excluding them gradually ever more from any kind of parental rights and indoctrinating their children into a leftist school of thought not unlike the methods used in Chinese, North Korean and former Soviet schools.

This is an occurrance that should be of some concern not only to parents, but to all right-thinking Americans and something that needs to be addressed as the tenacious left, headed up by organizations like the ACLU, are yet again applying methods of gaining their ends that are slowly termiting the America we know and love out from under us.

Posted by Seth at 06:36 AM | Comments (8) |

Croissant Network News?

The French have decided to start up a CNN-like news network.

The French government has given the green light for an international TV news channel to start broadcasting in French by the end of next year, with the aim of spreading the country's vision to the world.

That easily qualifies for the comic quote of the day.

France's "vision?"

Hah! More than ten percent unemployment? The large, violently hostile Muslim community they allowed to proliferate on their soil, then agitated by treating them like red headed stepchildren? A healthcare system that managed to help kill off some ten thousand senior citizens during a summer heat spell three years ago? A corrupt government that continued to sell war materials to Saddam Hussein after signing off on a UN resolution forbidding any country from doing just that? A well earned reputation for using immediate, unconditional surrender as their first line of defense?

"France must ... be on the front line in the global battle of TV pictures," a spokesman quoted Chirac as telling the cabinet, which approved the establishment of a company to run the French International News Channel (CFII).

"The aim is to bring France's values and its vision of the world to everywhere in the world," he said.

Just what we all need, a continuous international broadcast of French bullshit.

For a more realistic look at French "values and vision," let's go talk to GM Roper.

French values and vision, heh heh heh...

Posted by Seth at 05:30 AM | Comments (4) |

December 06, 2005

Citizens' Self Sufficiency In Action

In the face of deteriorating security, Jewish residents of Karmei Tzur are taking matters into their own hands.

Shlomo Ne'eman, a member of Karmei Tzur's municipality told Arutz-7 that residents have become fed up with the IDF's systematic ignoring of all their requests to deal with the Arabs who target vehicles driving on the Hevron-Jerusalem road with rocks and firebombs.

Residents say they refuse to abandon their homes, as they suspect the IDF response is intended to induce them to do. "But we are also no longer willing to be placed at the mercy of the Arab hooligans and watch as our children are targeted on their way to and from school each day," Ne'eman said.

Tuesday morning, at 7 AM, residents deployed along the main road, armed with their weapons used for guard-duty in their community. "We stood all morning near the neighboring Arab villages of Beit Umar and El Aroub and we guarded the road," Ne'eman described. "And we intend to continue guarding until the army comes to its senses and takes matters into its own hands."

This seems like the only real option they have to ensure the safety of themselves, their families and their community, and a prime example of the necessity for citizens to be armed. The situation they face is the result of their government's failing to provide them adequate protection from the animals who pursue terrorism as a substitute for compromise.

Luckily, in their case, they are issued weapons for the purpose of guarding their town, but imagine if the defeatist Sharon administration had followed the American liberal doctrine of limiting firearms ownership to military, police and criminals. The entire community might have been butchered by now, men, women and children as the local Palestinians would have known there would be no one returning fire during a terrorist attack.

The armed presence of these citizens began working right off the bat, as the "brave" Palestinians have no stomach for fighting, only for murdering unarmed children who can't shoot back and so were nowhere to be found where they had previously congregated, awaiting the passing of these school children to assault them.

American criminals of the armed robbery and home invasion persuasions are pretty much the same in that regard, they do not want a firefight during which they may be injured or killed, they want an unarmed, helpless victim as they, like their terrorist cousins, are cowards.

If they knew that prospective targets were armed, they would take their dubious "business" elsewhere, or perhaps find a new line of work.

Posted by Seth at 07:22 AM |

December 03, 2005

What I've Been Saying...

Tony Snow's latest column, "Cowardice, not corruption, plaguing GOPers" is very much on point, even in the White House but more particularly on the Hill.

The Republican Party in Washington is in trouble not because it's overrun by crooks, but because it's packed with cowards — and has degenerated into a caricature of the party that swept to power 11 years ago promising to take on the federal bureaucracy and liberate the creative genius of American society.

We see this constantly. Here we are with an overwhelming Republican majority in Congress, a formidable state of affairs that our right-thinking politicians should be using to advance the Republican cause and back the President when he nominates strong Republicans to such positions as judges in the higher courts and to ambassadorship in the U.N., et al. They should be supporting the administration on Iraq and the rest of the Global War On Terror.

Instead, these spineless, self-serving career senators and representatives Frenchly allow themselves to be browbeaten and bullied into submission by the liberal-led Democrat minority, as often as not leaving the President and his advisors hanging out in the breeze, lone-wolfing the defense of their policies and nominees on their lonesome, weathering blistering, patently false or twisted rhetoric from the left, while not even a cricket chirps from the right side of the aisle.

That's because it's more important to these Republicans to remain popular, looking to be reelected rather than to risk losing an election by doing what we elected and reelected them to do, what we pay them to do.

Do we really need to reelect these people? In my opinion, it's about time for a good house cleaning at the polls, transfusing Congress with fresh blood to replace the complacent, fat assed, pusilanimous tax dollar parasites with newbies who stand for more than just being reelected.

Ann Coulter gives some succinct examples of Republican politicians' arse creeping in their response to John Murtha's cowardly cut and run redeployment proposal. It's enough to turn your stomach.

The old Reagan quote about politics being the world's second oldest profession yet having a lot in common with the first really rings true here.

Posted by Seth at 06:16 AM | Comments (2) |

Now THIS Is A Good Idea!

The Miami Police Department has created a program that should keep citizens aware of the possibility of terrorist acts being perpetrated in their city, inspire vigilance and make things just a little bit hotter for any terrorists planning any operations there.

MIAMI - City police will attempt to thwart terrorists by staging random, "in-your-face" security operations at so-called "soft" targets ranging from city buses to sports arenas, officials announced Monday.

The idea behind the "Miami Shield" program is to make such targets less attractive to terrorists and improve vigilance among Miami residents. Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said al-Qaida and other terror groups carefully plot their attacks based in part on surveillance that identifies flaws and patterns in security.

Random, high-profile security operations will keep terrorists guessing about where police might be next, he said. For example, a group of officers might surround a downtown bank building, checking the identification of each person going in and out and handing out leaflets about terror threats.

"This is an in-your-face type of strategy. It's letting the terrorists know we are out there," Fernandez said.

What amazes yours truly is that the ACLU actually says they find no grounds for mounting one of their usual pit-bull legal attacks on the program. Hmmm...

Some police counterterrorism actions around the country have sparked debate about their constitutionality. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed one lawsuit in New York to challenge random searches of the bags of subway riders; a federal appeals court has halted pat-down searches at the stadium in Tampa where the NFL's Buccaneers play after another ACLU lawsuit.

Howard Simon, executive director of ACLU of Florida, said the Miami initiative as announced appears aimed at ensuring people's rights are not violated.

"What we're dealing with is officers on street patrol, which is more effective and more consistent with the Constitution," Simon said. "We'll have to see how it is implemented."

Give 'em time, they'll find something, especially if the program seems to be enjoying any kind of success over the long haul, since what's good for America is not good for the ACLU, and vice versa.

Fernandez said Miami officials want people to take notice of the beefed-up security so they are reminded that the threat from al-Qaida and its sympathizers has not disappeared.

"People are definitely going to notice it," he said. "We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears."

At Monday's Heat game against the New York Knicks, season ticket holder Tony Gonzalez, 34, said he wasn't worried about any potential violation of civil liberties.

"When you enter an arena or stadium at full capacity you just don't know who is going through the turnstiles," said Gonzalez, an attorney. "Everything that helps our security, I'm for it."

Posted by Seth at 02:14 AM |