Saturday, January 26, 2008

From Instapundit....

EGYPT BEGINS CLOSING GAZA BORDER, FUELING TENSIONS: It's part of their genocidal plan to conquer the Gaza Strip and . . . oh, wait, that's only when the Israelis do it.

Maybe they're onto something....

When Did the French Become Better Adherents To Limited Government Than the GOP?
Today’s Financial Times reports that French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration plans to freeze public spending for five years “to eliminate its deficit and reduce spending as a share of national output.” While Congress figures out the fastest way possible to deficit spend $150 billion on a stimulus package that history suggests will do nothing, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon told FT a global downturn would only “reinforce the goverment’s determination to move swiftly and far with structural reforms.”

Don't campaign in Iowa....

Startup Says It Can Make Ethanol for $1 a Gallon, and Without Corn

Uh, Oh.....

Show And Tell For Rich Universities:
"Now that the Senate finance committee has requested - the New York Times said 'demanded' - that the nation's wealthiest colleges and universities supply detailed information about their endowments and financial practices, it seems clear that college cost is emerging as a long-running, popular and bipartisan issue. The request/demand came in a stern but polite letter from committee chairman Max Baucus and ranking Republican Chuck Grassley. It asked 136 colleges and universities to supply answers in 30 days to a long laundry list of questions about tuition rises, spending and the handling of endowments."
The net result of this "inquiry" will be that a group of folks who have no idea how to manage a large amount of "other peoples money" will probably excoriate another group that really does.....

Are food stamps a good idea?

Megan McArdle doesn't think so:
"But to the extent that you think we have an obligation to help the poor with their problems, and that those problems can be fixed by giving them money to buy things, then we should give them money to buy things. Attaching strings to the money both blunts the fiscal stimulus, and degrades the dignity of adult citizens who are presumptively capable of deciding whether they would like to spend their money on a bag of apples or a pair of shoes."
But the "progressive" nanny-staters are nipping at her heals. Krugman, Yglesias, and a host of Congressmen want food stamps as a big part of our stimulus package. Personally, I don't pretend to understand their reasoning; but if Krugman is for it, generally I'm not.....

Deep Throat was right.....

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

On Katrina related lawsuits....

Lawyers -- The Second-Oldest Profession Strikes Again
...the attorney’s name is Daniel Becnel, Jr. I’m just glad that my name isn’t Daniel Becnel, Sr. It seems that of the 489,000 claims that have been filed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he is responsible for 60,000 of them! Asked about measuring Katrina’s devastation in terms of dollars and cents, Mr. Becnel replied, “There’s no way on earth you can figure it out. The trauma these people have undergone is unlike anything that has occurred in the history of our country.”

Even allowing for a certain amount of legalistic hyperbole, that is one of the stupidest things I’ve heard in quite a while. I suppose in the heat of the moment, and perhaps distracted by the amount of loot he’s likely to see when those 60,000 cases are settled, he must have forgotten the Civil War, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11, just to mention a few of the more notable traumas that spring to mind.

Of the 489,000 claims, 247 are for at least a billion dollars. But that’s nothing. One of them is for $3,014,170,389,176,410. Having been to New Orleans on a couple of occasions, I can only assume that the actual value of the dwelling was $410, and that the remaining $3,014,170,389,176,000 is just for the heck of it.

Speaking of John Edwards, I bet when he saw those kinds of numbers being bandied about, he regretted wasting his time running for president.

Read it all...

Newspeak becomes official....

Mark Steyn on England & Islam:
Government Renames Islamic Terrorism As ‘Anti-Islamic Activity’ To Woo Muslims.

"Well, yes, one sort of sees what she means. Killing thousands of people in Manhattan skyscrapers in the name of Islam does, among a certain narrow-minded type of person, give Islam a bad name, and thus could be said to be “anti-Islamic” — in the same way that the Luftwaffe raining down death and destruction on Londoners during the Blitz was an “anti-German activity.” But I don’t recall even Neville Chamberlain explaining, as if to a five-year-old, that there is nothing German about the wish to terrorize and invade, and that this is entirely at odds with the core German values of sitting around eating huge sausages in beer gardens while wearing lederhosen."

Arun Gandhi Quits Peace Institute in Flap Over Blog Posting - washingtonpost.com

Arun Gandhi Quits Peace Institute in Flap Over Blog Posting
The grandson of Indian spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi resigned yesterday as president of the board of a conflict resolution institute after writing an online essay on a Washington Post blog calling Jews and Israel "the biggest players" in a global culture of violence.

In his resignation letter to the board of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, founder Arun Gandhi wrote that his Jan. 7 essay "was couched in language that was hurtful and contrary to the principles of nonviolence. My intention was to generate a healthy discussion on the proliferation of violence. Clearly I did not achieve my goal. Instead, unintentionally, my words have resulted in pain, anger, confusion and embarrassment."

Apparently, many on the left feel that Mr. Ghandi has been wronged by the Jewish machine. Michael Leeden doesn't think so.

I hope that most of you left-leaning Democrats, especially you pseudo-liberal Jewish guilt-ridden Democrats, remember that it will be the Left who will abandon Israel first, and then stand idly by as the Jews are pushed into the sea so as not disturb the road to Universal Health Care...

The road to happiness..

Sorry, but marriage and sex DON'T go together
Now that she's be "outed", I wonder how long her husband is going to stick around
"Carrie Jones hasn't had sex with her husband Hal, a City banker, for the past four years. Nor does she want to. Sex is something she can no longer summon the effort to endure - with the man she married, at least.

She admits she stays in her sexless relationship for the sake of her children, aged nine and 11, and will remain celibate until the day they are grown up and she feels able to leave. At which point, she confesses, she will probably abandon her husband and begin a sexual odyssey to find the satisfaction that eludes her."

Friday, January 25, 2008

Do they think we're stupid? Yup.....


Pajamas Media: Hamas Propaganda from Time Magazine?

A bit under a third of Gaza’s electricity is supplied by a power station inside of Gaza; a tiny bit is supplied by Egypt, and the rest is supplied by Israel. It was the power station inside of Gaza that was shut down, and not shut down by Israel, but by Hamas, in order to lend credibility to its effort to generate international pressure against Israel’s blockade of the Strip. For the media, it staged candle-lit scenes and trumpeted the fiction that Israel had plunged Gaza into darkness.

The terrorists of Hamas may be brutal, but they understand how to wage war in the media far better than the Israelis do. They knew the fact that Israel had never cut the electricity to Gaza or even reduced it was entirely beside the point, and would probably not be investigated by reporters–and they understand that images of people sitting in darkness with their faces illuminated by candlelight are visually compelling and can more to convince the world of Palestinian victimization than a hundred press releases could ever accomplish.

WaPo finally gets it right....

Breach in Gaza
In fact, as Mr. Mubarak well knows, no one is starving in Gaza -- though food, fuel and cigarettes are much cheaper across the border. Israel closed its border with the territory and disrupted power supplies over the weekend in response to a massive escalation of Palestinian rocket launches from Gaza at nearby Israeli towns -- between Tuesday and Saturday last week, some 225 rockets were aimed at the town of Sderot, where more than 20,000 Israelis have been relentlessly terrorized. Hamas took advantage of the blockade first by arranging for sympathetic Arab media to document the "humanitarian crisis," then by daring Egypt to use force against Palestinian civilians portrayed as Israel's victims. Its ultimate goal, stated publicly yesterday by Damascus-based leader Khaled Meshal, is to force Egypt to permanently reopen the border in cooperation with Hamas; that would greatly diminish Israel's ability to respond to rocket attacks with economic sanctions, and it would undermine the rival Palestinian leadership of Mahmoud Abbas.

Read it all...and then see if you agree with Little Green Footballs:
This is the same newspaper, remember, that has published numerous op-eds by Hamas shills, representatives, and even deported terrorist leaders. I suppose it would be asking too much to expect the Washington Post to shoulder a little of the blame for legitimizing this band of murderous thugs.

Wow...if it's true....

Birth control pill lowers ovarian cancer risk:
"Birth control pills can protect women against ovarian cancer for 30 years or longer after they stop taking them and have so far prevented 100,000 ovarian cancer deaths worldwide, British researchers said on Thursday.

The longer women stay on the pill, the lower their risk of developing the disease, which is more common after age 50, the researchers wrote in the journal Lancet. For example, women who take the pill for 15 years cut their risk in half, they said."

And the Pinto was safer than the Corvair....

Vista More Secure Than XP and Open Source
We owned a 1961 Corvair (remember, this was well before anyone knew who Ralph Nader was). When it finally would reach 40 mph, it used to shake quite a bit, and it felt more like it was doing 60....Nowadays, with my Vista powered laptop from Dell, it's not hard to notice that everything moves significantly slower than it used to.
Ass backwards? You bet.....Hard to imagine that we gave Bill Gates all that cash for all this junk.

The leader rises, but the country falls

The Belmont Club says North Korea is on the verge of collapse...
Janes reports that North Korea is in a bad way -- in a really bad way -- bad even by its own abysmal standards. "Kim Jong-Il's regime could collapse within six months, bringing chaos to North Korea, observers and intelligence sources in Asia have told Jane's. ...

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Why not?....

Megan McArdle - Why not food stamps?
An interesting discussion, again very much influenced by the Comments section. Read it!!!!

We have nothing to fear but........

Holland: Likely to Be the Next Target of Islamist Rage:
"PJM Groningen: Fear is in the air in Holland. The Dutch brace for massive rioting when a far-right member of parliament airs the film that he warns will include the Koran being “desecrated.” Michael van der Galiën reports on the latest chapter of the conflict between freedom of speech and keeping the peace in Western Europe."
Have a nice read...

Well Deserved

Leetch’s No. 2 to Assume a Lofty Perch at the Garden:
"Leetch, 39, vividly recalled his debut. He had arrived from the Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, knowing no one on the team. Before he took the ice, the Garden crowd was chanting, “U.S.A., U.S.A.” and right after the opening face-off, his teammate Chris Nilan got into a fight with a St. Louis player."

I just finished watching the ceremony at home (my son took the tickets for the evening). Better and shorter than the one for Messier, and a bit too staged - there is a lack of spontaneity in these buildings nowadays; but nobody deserved this more. Only the second player ever to receive the Calder, Norris and Con Smythe trophies during his career (Bobby Orr); and, for me, the only other guy would could wear Brad Park's #2 on his back.

An unbelievable career marred only by the way he was traded from the team in 2004, and a captaincy that he never handled very well after Messier's departure in 1997. Maybe the greatest American born player ever; and maybe more than any other Ranger - the team never recovered from his loss.

Private email?

The Belmont Club discusses secure networking & terrorism:
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson "told a conference at the World Economic Forum that the company is looking at monitoring peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, one of the largest drivers of online traffic but also a common way to illegally exchange copyright files" just a few days after Direction of National Intelligence Mike McConnell suggested the US government needed unfettered access to information flowing over the Internet to protect national security. A coincidence?
A worthwhile read if you have the time....

It's a diversity thing...

Recruiting With Real Estate:
"The property records show that the foundation spent $4.2 million two weeks ago to buy an 80 percent interest in the turreted apartment. The foundation had $155 million in assets at the end of 2006 and it is dedicated to supporting N.Y.U.’s law school, including the hiring and retention of faculty members.

Ms. Sharkey and her partner, Ina Bort, who practices commercial and maternity law in New York, bought the remaining 20 percent interest in the apartment for $1.05 million, but the foundation provided them with a mortgage to cover $650,000 of their share of the purchase price for up to 30 years (unless Ms. Sharkey leaves the university before then).

John Beckman, an N.Y.U. spokesman, said that the university and its law school provide housing for a “very large percentage” of faculty members, but he could not recall the purchase of such an expensive apartment for other faculty members."

Mel Brooks would do this well...

Weasel Zippers's feel good story of the day:

A WOULD-be suicide bomber fell down a flight of stairs and blew himself up as he headed out for an attack in Afghanistan, police say.

It was the second such incident in two days, with another man killing himself and three others on Tuesday when his bomb-filled waistcoat exploded as he was putting it on in the southern town of Lashkar Gah.

The would-be attacker tripped as he was leaving a building apparently to target an opening ceremony for a mosque that was expected to be attended by Afghan and international military officials, said Sakhi Mir.

"Coming down the stairs, he fell down and exploded. Two civilian women and a man were wounded,'' Mir said.

The progressive slippery slope...

Matthew Yglesias agrees with Matt Weiner's suggestion regarding wealthy citizen using their fortunes for political purposes:
"One possible answer is that we should prevent such extreme concentrations of wealth. John Rawls thought extreme concentrations of wealth were bad precisely because that much money led to disproportionate political power (and meant that people without the money were shut out of political power in important ways)."
You can find this interesting or terrifying (you assume correctly that I am the latter); and then you can wonder why it has only come up as a response to Sheldon Adelson possibly dedicating some $250 (pinky to the corner of your mouth now) million for the 2008 political campaign.
I don't Matt needs any further explanation of what exactly Liberal Fascism is...

It would serve him right

The erstwhile Presidential candidate, Dennis Kucinich, may be held accountable for wasting all that time and money:

How to win friends....

Islamic Cleric to Iowa Legislature: Give Us 'Victory Over Those Who Disbelieve':
"Time and again, Islamic clerics who are asked to deliver convocations and opening prayers for US political gatherings boldly proclaim the superiority of Islam over the assembled infidels. The latest example took place in the Iowa state legislature recently, when Imam Muhammad Khan of the Islamic Center of Des Moines called for “victory over those who disbelieve."

Nixon?

Police nab two in Romney headquarters break-in
"Two Cambridge men are in custody this morning after breaking into GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Boston campaign headquarters overnight, according to the Suffolk District Attorney’s office."

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Don't take the kids' favorite toy away....

Jonah Goldberg tries to recover from The Daily Show:
...George Carlin, who explained on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher that “when fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jackboots. It will be Nike sneakers and smiley shirts. Smiley-smiley.”

I’m persuaded that Carlin was right — to the extent that fascism of any kind will come to America, it will do so in the guise of something “progressive.” Indeed, American progressives, particularly before Hitler arrived on the scene in the 1930s, were openly sympathetic to Italian fascism. This isn’t to say they copied it (or the fascism of Soviet Russia), as many claim. But rather that the ideas that gave birth to and fueled American progressivism — philosophical pragmatism, Bismarckian “top-down socialism,” Marxism, eugenics and more — share common intellectual sources and impulses with those that gave us both socialism and fascism.
I've heard Jonah interviewed a few times now; and I read a lot of the criticism. And I don't feel badly that he has sat in front of some very hostile audiences because we all know that it only helps fuel the sales figures of the book. But I think even he is missing a point here:

Anyone who considers themselves even a moderate liberal gets no greater pleasure in the world than calling anyone more than a silly millimeter right of them a "Nazi" or a "fascist". It is, perhaps, the single most important slur in their vocabulary (other than, maybe George Bush); and poor Jonah, in trying to put a factual historical perspective on the phrase, is trying to take their toy away. Plain and simple.
The ever infantile Mr. Carlin being a perfect example; or, if you like, check out the "Comments" sections of Matt Yglesias blog or for Jonah's book on Amazon. Much of what you will read is simply the adolescent rage of those who will not condone the turning of their own insult on them. It's tough teaching history to a kindergarten class....

At least someone has something smart to add....

The Belmont Club: Death and taxes

Framing the debate as an issue of how much power government should have over the economy automatically transforms business issues into political ones. At every stage business must consider the redistributive effects of its efforts, its effect on the environment. In other words, managing a business and earning a livelihood become as much a political endeavor as an economic one.

The electorate will decide which approach they prefer: more government or less government, though its unclear whether, in the blizzard of talking points that now blankets the airwaves, the choice will be framed in clear and definite terms. More likely the choice will be embedded in the sloganeering, in the fine print of the political process. But it's an issue important to separate out and consider on its own. Otherwise some people may find that Change is what is left after taxes. And Hope is what you rely on to get to the next payday.

Maybe you can't "just fix it" ?

Professor Bainbridge
Perhaps the markets took a listen to this sort of nonsense and concluded that the incompetents who run the US these days are likely to do things that make the situation even worse? As the Economist recently observed, “Politicians want to give the economy a boost. They’re likely to make a hash of it.”

Even liberal economist Paul Krugman knows that government’s likely to mess up stimulus packages or did back in 2000

Thanks for at least admitting it...

Megan McArdle weighs in on the Dems fiscal policies:
"I don't want to hear any more about how the Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility; none of them are planning to close the current deficit, much less deal with the now-seriously-it-really-is-looming entitlement problem. Their tax code changes will claw back only a small fraction of the revenue lost in the Bush tax cut. If you are surprised, it is probably because the Democrats and the Republicans have a different definition of the tax cuts going 'mostly to the rich'. If you mean, 'which individuals got the biggest benefit from the tax cuts?', rich people did, because they pay the most taxes; that is the definition Democrats use. But if you mean 'which class of people got most of the money?', then the answer is 'the middle class'. There just aren't that many rich people; it costs a lot more to hand out a modest amount of cash to 200 million than to hand out a lot of cash to 500,000. So when Democrats repeal only the tax cuts on the top one or two brackets, this may be symbolically rewarding, but it will not actually generate that much revenue for the treasury.

Democrats are, of course, planning to spend every bit of the money from their tax increases on new spending, plus it looks like some more. You may now return to forgetting that you ever thought you cared about the budget deficit.

Will Sean Penn and Joe Kennedy move south?

Rise of Chávez Sends Venezuelans to Florida:
“I had a business in Venezuela, I had shops in Caracas, everything was working perfectly,” Mr. Dunaevschi, 39, said. “I left everything.” He added, “I began here from zero.”

The Dunaevschis are part of a wave of Venezuelans, mostly from the middle and upper classes, who have fled to the United States as Mr. Chávez has tightened his grip on the country’s political institutions, imposing his socialist vision and threatening to assert greater state control over many parts of the economy.
So maybe he's not the greatest guy on the face of the planet?

Do they really believe what they say?

The Times Editorial Observer weighs in on the cloning issue:
"It always bears repeating that humans are only as rich as the diversity that surrounds them, whether we mean cultural or economic diversity. The same is true of genetic diversity, which is an essential bulwark against disease. These days there is less and less genetic diversity in the animals found on farms, and farmers themselves become less and less diverse because fewer and fewer of them actually own the animals they raise. They become contract laborers instead.

It is possible to preserve plant and crop diversity in seed banks. But there are no animal banks. Breeds of animals that are not raised die away, and the invaluable genetic archive they represent vanishes. This may look like a simple test of economic efficiency. It is really a colossal waste, of genes and of truly lovely, productive animals that are the result of years of human attention and effort. From one perspective, a cloned animal looks like a miracle of science. But from another, it looks like what it is: a dead end."
This is a very good argument regarding a subject that needs a lot more discussion. Now let's turn our attention to the homo sapien part of the same discussion and see how these same folks feel about the same type of manipulation of the human population, and the diversity of the human gene pool through cloning, in vitro, sperm banks, and all the other human reproductive freedoms we supposedly are in favor of......Don't you think we deserve the same consideration?

Sounds and looks like an old sci-fi flick..

Engineered Mosquitoes Could Wipe Out Dengue Fever
Scientists at a British biotech company said they have evidence that their genetically modified mosquitoes, which are programmed for sudden, early death, can control the spread of dengue fever.
But as with genetically modified crop companies like Monsanto, Oxitec could face a backlash from a wary public. Greenpeace, among others, oppose genetic engineering of organisms that could be released into the wild.
And, maybe, us.......

Think she has a beef?

Atlas Shrugs ,as usual, isn't very happy:

As tens of thousand of Gazan Arabs (affectionately and mendaciously referred to as "Palestinians" by the mainstream media) enter Egypt by the breached border, big media has once again blamed the Jews for its "blockade".

Bad anti Jew reporting from Associated (with the terrorists) Press (hat tip eretz);

The border breach was a dramatic protest against the closure of the impoverished Palestinian territory imposed last week by Israel.

But in a Times Online exclusive Israel (surprisingly) is not blamed. Blame is put squarely on the shoulders of the Islamic thugs who blew up the wall.

BTW, where is all the "outrage" from the "international community" over this wall? Bloody hypocrites.

What a shocker!

Budget Deficit Predicted to Expand Amid Stimulus, Spending Plans

Don't forget to remind your dealer....

$200-a-Gram Tax on Cocaine:

Among the hundreds of proposals contained in Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s second executive budget, which he unveiled on Tuesday in Albany, is a provision that would impose a $3.50-a-gram tax on marijuana and a $200-a-gram tax on other illegal drugs, like cocaine.

We took a look at the fine print to better understand the details of this legislative proposal — which, incidentally, is very similar to a proposal that Mayor Edward I. Koch put forward in 1988. (That proposal, to tax illegal drugs in New York City, also at a rate of $200 a gram, did not come to fruition.)

The new Spitzer proposal would require “tax stamps” on “all marihuana and controlled substances acquired or possessed by a dealer in this state,” defined as any person who makes, buys, owns, distributes or transports drugs into or within the state. (And yes, the state government spells marijuana with an H, not a J — a quirk that The Times explained last year.)

Worry, worry, worry.....

Megan McArdle:Should vegetarians wear leather?
Reminds me of the level 7 vegan from the Simpsons, vegans who don't eat anything that casts a shadow.

Who's the real swine?

UK Government Agency Condemns 'Three Little Pigs':
"A story based on the Three Little Pigs has been turned down from a government agency’s annual awards because the subject matter could offend Muslims."

Duh.....

Wired News - AP News:
"BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- The world's rush to embrace biofuels is causing a spike in the price of corn and other crops and could worsen water shortages and force poor communities off their land, a U.N. official said Wednesday."

The business model sure to fail...

Movie Industry Admits It Overstated Piracy on Campus
The math was wrong by a factor of three; the new estimate is down to 15 percent of the industry’s losses. The A.P. deemed that a “mistake” in its headline, while bloggers joyously chose words like “bogus,” “botched,” “grossly inflated” and “lying” in theirs.

The M.P.A.A. said the original figure, from a 2005 study, was wrong because of “human error,” without elaborating. In a statement obtained by Inside Higher Education, the association said it was taking the error “very seriously” and vowing to investigate how it happened. But the association stuck to its offensive against college students...

Again, how much do they hate their customers? Hate them back!!! Don't buy any of their crap!

Dave & Emily are getting married!

Well, Babs and I are going to be in-laws, and we couldn't be happier. It's really special when you see your kids happy; and these two belong together. Their journey is just beginning.

Please feel free to log on to their wedding website, and sign-in to the guestbook. I'm sure they'd love to hear from you.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Confusing, and VERY scary....

The Belmont Club - By the shadow of our hand:
The Guardian describes an extraordinary manifesto authored 'by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists ... following discussions with active commanders and policymakers, many of whom are unable or unwilling to publicly air their views. It has been presented to the Pentagon in Washington and to Nato's secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, over the past 10 days. The proposals are likely to be discussed at a Nato summit in Bucharest in April.' The gist of the proposal is that the West should stand ready to conduct a pre-emptive nuclear strike against 'key threats' like 'political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism' and 'international terrorism, organised crime' which are on the brink of acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
What will likely happen is that the West will be left waiting for the descent of the first nuclear blow in order to generate the political capital to strike back, and then in the only way they can -- with atomic fires -- in place of the men who could not be mustered to defend it under the galling fire of their critics. Having refused to fight limited wars to preserve the peace, the West may now be left with threatening global catastrophe to preserve itself. The price of appeasement has always been high. It's always possible to kick a live grenade down the road as you walk down it. Some may see that as an advantage, but it isn't really.
Read it all...and wonder.

Can't say she's wrong....

Michelle Malkin » Thousands march on Washington…MSM yawns
If they were illegal alien activists, they’d get front-page coverage, multimedia packages, and prime time on TV airwaves.

If they were anti-war activists, they’d get front-page coverage, multimedia packages, and prime time on TV airwaves.

They are pro-life activists who marched today to mark the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

You’ll be lucky to see photos like the one above buried somewhere in the back of your newspaper.
She's right, and that is the problem. The outright dishonesty of most news outlets in their editorial policies and their reporting will be their undoing.......

Update 1/23.....went through hundreds of RSS feeds today and not a single mention of this from ANY major news outlet. I am not surprised - it's not news if they don't want it to be.....

They need an HR manager....

The Belmont Club

Academics at West Point have analyzed captured documents which provide an in-depth glimpse into the origins and personnel management of 'foreign fighters' bound for Iraq.

The records are "one of the deepest reservoirs of information we've ever obtained of the network going into Iraq," according to a U.S. official closely familiar with intelligence on the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. ... Al-Qaeda has a track record of good documentation, he said, adding that "Osama bin Laden was a businessman before he was a terrorist."

Among the more interesting findings are that ninety percent of all suicide bombers were 'foreign fighters'. The great majority had entered Iraq via Syria, "a greater proportion than previously believed", altering their point of entry as Anbar became more difficult to cross. The captured records also went a long way toward de-mythologizing the Jihadi phenomenon. One analyst said, "I think we made a mistake in assuming that al-Qaeda, because it's a terrorist organization, doesn't need to organize itself the way other large organizations do. They have a human resources problem; they have to manage people." Many of those human resource management tools would be familiar to anyone. Al-Qaeda had employment contracts, it provided 3 weeks of vacation each year and additional pay for married members.

Blame the Media? OK......and a few others

Media Blinders Impede a Colorblind Society:
It’s not that our nation’s press wants to divide America, mind you — they just can’t help it because they hold certain monolithic views.

To understand this, it is necessary to understand the premises behind left vs. right-wing thinking involving confidence in humanity’s ability to solve social ills. The Right tends to believe the world is imperfect and mankind cannot make it perfect. The Left, on the other hand, tends to believe that the world can be perfected and human beings possess almost unlimited potential to make it so.

But there is a flip side to the Left’s rosy view of mankind. Because they believe that man can solve all problems, they also believe that man causes all problems. Thus, whenever anything goes wrong, a hunt to identify who is to blame immediately ensues.

Maybe he's onto something here...

I'm for this...

Top 10 Reasons to Believe Logic Over Religion:
"Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for turning my tap water into alcohol and a never ending food basket, but I’m tired of all these people whining and telling me how to live my life. You do your thing, I do my thing, we’re all happy, but after reading that someone is paying Facebook to post a religious article titled “6 Reasons You Have To Believe In God”, I figured I’d grab my own cross and at least have fun while getting ready to be crucified for having an opinion.

The argument that because complex life exists, it must have been “created” is ridiculous, and it’s time someone said it. Yay, we have lots of chromosomes, we can see in color and keep erections for 4+ hours (commercials say see a doctor, I’d rather see a sorority house), but explaining away the unexplainable with magical explanations is as real as the emails I get from the prime minister of Nigeria who wants to send me $4 million dollars via a cashiers check."
Read it all...

Great story - Don't miss it....

WIRED tells us How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry
A fabulous story to read...

It will take time, but.....

THE NEW REPUBLIC:
Over at Salon, Joseph Romm argues that affordable plug-in hybrid cars are only a few years away—even if we don't see a breakthrough in battery technology. That's a bold prediction, but it'd be a huge deal if it panned out. Right now, in terms of weaning the United States off oil—two-thirds of which goes toward transportation—plug-in hybrids are far more promising than liquefied coal (suicidal), corn ethanol (still too destructive), cellulosic ethanol (too far off), or hydrogen fuel-cell cars (maybe unrealistic).
Funny what can happen without the government forcing things down everyone's throat.

Can't buy me love....

Matthew Yglesias is very worried that the Republicans are going to get, what he considers to be, too big an infusion of cash for the 2008 elections:
You've probably heard about the Democrats' fundraising edge thus far in terms of congressional campaign committee fundraising. Well, Brad Plumer notes that that edge will be blown way out of the water if Sheldon Adelson's "Freedom's Watch" outfit really spends $250 million on the 2008 elections.
Read the posts, and then read the comments (if you really want to get scared about what some on the left think should be done to stop it). Yes, this is quite whacky; but nobody on the Democratic side felt that way as long as they had the upper hand with Soros' money greasing the wheels.

I can predict now (better than my sports predictions, I promise) that if the Dems lose this election, which right now they feel is their Constitutional right to win, there will be more whining, foot stomping and threatening to "hold my breath till I turn blue" adolescent behavior than you have ever seen in the history of this or any other nation. Quite frankly, I'd kinda get a kick out of watching Bill Maher do it live......

Once again, they are not responsible.....

Israellycool catches the Australian Broadcasting Corporation promoting a blatant—and completely untrue—libel against Israel:
A study has found there’s been a surge in the use of illicit drugs by Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.

According to Palestinian drug workers a major reason for the increase is that Israeli authorities are turning a blind eye to the trafficking of drugs to Palestinians.

They claim it’s part of an effort to destroy the fabric of Palestinian life, a claim Israeli authorities strongly deny.

Read the whole post. Not only have the drugs been around for quite some time, but introducing the notion that the Israelis are responsible because they don't stop it, is just another excuse in the Palestinian (and European) arsenal of "We're so pathetic that it can't be our fault". Sound familiar?

I want one.....

Polymer Vision Readies Rollable E-Book, Cell Phone

Polymer Vision plans to launch Readius, an e-reader with a flexible screen weighing little more than a cell phone, in the middle of this year, it said Tuesday.

The long-awaited gadget will be a boon to those who now get their daily news fix by scanning the headlines on an e-reader -- but who miss the way they could roll up their old newspaper and tuck it in a pocket when they had finished reading.

The key feature of the Readius is its flexible screen, 5 inches across the diagonal, with a resolution of 320 by 240 pixels (QVGA) in 16 shades of gray.

Real diversity at Columbia.....

Mystery in Brooklyn: Bomb factory at Columbia University professor’s home

Police stumbled upon a bomb-making factory Sunday in the home of a Columbia professor who specializes in the spread of infectious disease - and are investigating whether he and his roommate have terror ties.

Cops evacuated the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood around the Remsen St. home of Michael Clatts, a medical anthropologist, after finding seven pipe bombs fitted with fuses in his flat, police sources said.

Let's give these folks a whole country....

Nasrallah Brags Like A Serial Killer
“Oh Zionists your army is lying to you ... your army has left the body parts of your soldiers in our villages and fields,” the black-turbaned leader said in a live speech transmitted to the crowd on a huge screen.
“Our mujahideen used to fight these Zionists, killing them and collecting their body parts. I am not talking about regular body parts. I tell the Israelis, we have the heads of your soldiers, we have hands, we have legs.”
And let's send them money, and let's be nice to Iran for financing them, and let's blame the Israelis for not being civil with them, and let's make sure we don't hold them accountable....

Edwards will certainly have plenty of work after her loses....

Who’s to blame for the sub-prime problem, and the downturn in the real estate market?
"A wave of lawsuits is beginning to wash over the troubled mortgage market and the rest of the financial world. Homeowners are suing mortgage lenders. Mortgage lenders are suing Wall Street banks. Wall Street banks are suing loan specialists. And investors are suing everyone."
"Marty Ummel feels she paid too much for her house. So do millions of other people who bought at the peak of the housing boom. What makes Ms. Ummel different is that she is suing her agent, saying it was all his fault."
Well, I guess we won't have to worry about the attorney employment market, will we? The blame game is a nasty business - but a business nonetheless...

Grope-free buses for women?

Reuters:
"Mexico City has started a women-only bus service to protect female passengers from groping and verbal abuse common on the city's packed public transportation system."
Perhaps out friend Bob Herbert would like to head down there and give them a piece of his mind......

Monday, January 21, 2008

Not a bad thought..

Gay Patriot - Richard Wright, Great American Writer:
"We will truly have learned from Dr. King’s positive vision if we come to see Richard Wright as a great American writer and place his works where they belong, alongside Cather, Hawthorne, Melville, Steinbeck, other great American writers."

The next time you fill up at CITGO.....

or watch a Sean Penn film, or a Danny Glover movie....
Remember this:
Judge Monica Fernandez, a Venezuelan human rights advocate, was shot on January 4 in what police ruled a botched car robbery. The night before the attack, she was branded an enemy of the state, a coup-plotter, and a fascist on a state television show which condemns those who dare to oppose the government’s actions. Coincidence? Thor Halvorssen doesn’t think so.

And this:
The Forward reports on anti-Jewish harassment by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, a quarter of whose Jewish population has fled the country since his election. 'Target the Jews' has got to be a whole chapter in the 'Dictatorship for Dummies' handbook.

Rangers can't get out of their own way....

As a 40+ year Ranger season ticket holder, I guess that I should be used to this by now, but it's hard to watch as your favorite team (to which you have devoted literally hundreds of thousands of dollars to support, and watch every game without fail - sometimes twice) tanks its way through the mid-season.
The All-Star break cannot come too soon for this team. They need a rest from themselves; and most of the players need to think very hard about how expendable they are.
Prucha, Hossa, Malik, and more - gone.......The trading deadline awaits.

Don't forget - there is no threat...

It’s sort of “Dear Abby” (“Dear Abbas?”) for deranged murderers and decapitators, as militant Muslims all over the world seek answers from al-Qaida.

CAIRO, Egypt - Sympathizers submitted hundreds of questions to al-Qaida deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri’s “on-line interview” before a recent deadline. Among them: Why hasn’t al-Qaida attacked the U.S. again, why isn’t it attacking the Israelis and when will it be more active in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria?

So far, there have been no answers.

Little Green Footballs

Not that much of a secret....

Covert satellite for Israel launched by Indian rocket:
"An Israeli spy satellite designed to scout enemy military activity in the face of darkness and poor weather was successfully launched aboard an Indian rocket Monday during a mission shrouded in a veil of secrecy."

But surely Spain is safe....

Samizdata:
"I just do not understand it. When Spain capitulated to attacks from Islamic fascists and elected a socialist government who promptly pulled its troops out of coalition operations... a policy we have been told by many that the USA and UK should follow in order to stop provoking the Islamists... that should have been the end of Spain's non-Basque terrorist problems... After all, we are often assured by writers in both the mainstream media and paleo-conservative/paleo-libertarian circles that this is what governments in the West must do if we are ever to sooth Islamic sensibilities: we leave them alone and they will leave us alone, right?

Yet strangely, far from redirecting their efforts and assets to ply their 'trade' against the more active members of the coalition, Islamic militants continue to get arrested in ever so repentant Spain.

Gosh, one might almost think that leaving them alone is not enough! Surely some misunderstanding?

Required reading from Alan Dershowitz...

The end of old media?

Perhaps one has to do with the other

Criticism not permitted....

They're bracing for mass seething and violence in The Netherlands as a film produced by Geert Wilders is set to debut this week.
Naturally for the Islamic fanatics, even the idea of a film casting them in a negative light has them freaking out.
JammieWearingFool

Remember him...?

"Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a 1968 appearance at Harvard: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism.”
Extreme Mortman

Footloose: The Next Generation!

Ed Driscoll.com

Happily, I blew this prediction....

So I was wrong about the Giants. I got half the predictions right, and they will be meeting the Patriots in Super Bowl 42 (I hate the damn Roman numerals) two very long weeks from yesterday.
Great game!!!! And you had to feel for the poor kicker until he finally got the job done in OT. It ought to be a doozie in Arizona, though - indoors, real turf, no wind or cold to get in the way. Predictions to follow...

Finally getting his due.....

Today's New York Times tells Michael Yon's story in an unexpectedly favorable light.
Hopefully, this is just the beginning of him getting credit for his war coverage; but it will be very interesting to see how the anti-war crowd reacts to all this attention for him over the next few days. If you haven't read his work, you are missing something.

Update from Litte Green Footballs:

I had to laugh at this one, though:

Like most bloggers, Mr. Yon has an agenda...

Look who’s talking.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Obama and Israel - time to ask?

The Belmont Club:
The American Thinker makes a long, comprehensive and direct attack on Barack Obama. No punches pulled. Every aspect of his foreign policy scathingly deconstructed. The first two paragraphs set the tone -- and it's all downhill from there."
Ed Lasky's article is long, provocative and interesting:
One seemingly consistent theme running throughout Barack Obama's career is his comfort with aligning himself with people who are anti-Israel advocates. This ease around Israel animus has taken various forms. As Obama has continued his political ascent, he has moved up the prestige scale in terms of his associates. Early on in his career he chose a church headed by a former Black Muslim who is a harsh anti-Israel advocate and who may be seen as tinged with anti-Semitism. This church is a member of a denomination whose governing body has taken a series of anti-Israel actions.
Read it all, including Wretchard's critique and the other links. It is hard not to wonder......

Into the mainstream, and probably onto Amazon...

'Sensual Intelligence' Gives New SaSi Sex Toy an Erotic Edge

British company Je Joue launched a new product, the SaSi, at the Adult Entertainment Expo last week in Las Vegas. If the original Je Joue oral-sex simulator is like a 60-GB iPod with multiple playlists you design yourself, the SaSi is like an iPod Nano with an automated Most Popular playlist.
Brave new world, isn't it?

Sunday Prediction...

Rooting for the Giants, but it will be Packers - Pats in Super bowl 42 (42? Oh my God, I've seen them ALL!)

We'll talk about the results later....

Just the facts, Mam.....

After Linking New Strain of Staph to Gay Men, University Scrambles to Clarify
I think we were looking at this from a scientific point of view and not projecting any political impact,” he said. “We were focusing on the data. You want to make sure it’s as right as possible and written up in a form that reviewers would understand what you’re trying to say, and do it in a clear manner so it’s not subject to misinterpretation. Which is what happened later, it appears.
So, do you publish your research, or worry that you're going to be accused of a hate crime? And, please, whatever you do, don't make any mention of the fact that there might be any risk in certain types of behavior - so I can sue you later for not telling me. Whether we like it or not, there are consequences for our behavior. It is our refusal to accept that fact that has us so confused.

Weekend sweep on Notre Dame...

The No. 1-ranked University of Michigan hockey team completed a weekend sweep of No. 8 Notre Dame by a 5-1 count at The Palace of Auburn Hills. The victory extends U-M's winning streak to nine games and gives the Wolverines their best-ever record through 24 games (22-2-0). Billy Sauer (Walworth, N.Y.) stopped 32 shots for the victory, while five forwards tallied a goal apiece. Kevin Porter (Northville, Mich.) earned his third game-winning goal of the season with a tally late in the first period.

Farewell, Emily Hartley....

Suzanne Pleshette dies at 70
Suzanne Pleshette, the dark-haired, smoky-voiced actress who played Bob Newhart's confident and sexy wife, Emily Hartley, for six years on the popular 1970s sitcom 'The Bob Newhart Show,' has died.

Hell hath no fury....

Women turn on ‘traitor’ Oprah Winfrey for backing Barack Obama
Winfrey’s website, Oprah.com, has been flooded with a barrage of abuse since the queen of daytime chat shows joined Obama on a tour of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina in mid-December