Saturday, March 15, 2008

Nothing escapes the blogosphere...

Jeremiah Wright, April 2007: Barack Says He Might Have to Distance Himself From Me

From an April 2007 New York Times article:

“If Barack gets past the primary, he might have to publicly distance himself from me,” Mr. Wright said with a shrug. “I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen.”

Somehow that quote seems relevant today, with the news that Barack Obama has distanced himself from Jeremiah Wright.

Mark Steyn

Obama's pastor disaster
"'God Bless America

Land that I love.'

Take it away, Michelle."

Everyone is entitled to an anti-American screed....

'Please Let an Old Black Man Have His Anger in the Privacy of His Church':
"As the news of Barack Obama’s pastor and his racist, America-hating comments slowly spreads (despite media’s best effort to ignore it), you just knew the Kos Kidz would be spinning like Iranian centrifuges, didn’t you?"

Why indeed...

"Why Aren't The Vietnamese More Grateful To Tom Hayden?"

Friday, March 14, 2008

And she's black...

One of Obama's Real Problems: Jeremiah Wright
Why can't Obama really distance himself from Wright and TUCC? It'd be like cutting off his arm.
No one - unless they are a brain-dead moron - would sit five minutes under Wright’s racist and anti-American rantings without walking out. Barak has sat there for twenty years. That’s...complicity.

There may be more.


OBAMA RESPONDS ON THE JEREMIAH WRIGHT SCANDAL, and Tom Maguire has it unpacked. "Whoa. It is hardly as if this is the church Obama's parents selected and he inherited. He sought out Wright, was moved by Wright, and is now pretending he had no idea Wright said these things."


enormous iNCoNgrUiTieS : "The only problem I have with prostitution is that it could lead to dancing."

If this doesn't anger you....

Obama and the Minister:
"In a sermon delivered at Howard University, Barack Obama's longtime minister, friend and adviser blamed America for starting the AIDS virus, training professional killers, importing drugs and creating a racist society that would never elect a black candidate president.

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor of Mr. Obama's Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, gave the sermon at the school's Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel in Washington on Jan. 15, 2006. 'We've got more black men in prison than there are in college,' he began. 'Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body.'
Read the whole Op-Ed. Anyone considering voting for Obama should be asking some serious questions - especially if they are Jewish!

Saddam's Ties to Global Terrorism

The most important findings of the new Pentagon report on Iraq’s prewar sponsorship of jihadism have gone unnoticed by the MSM, says PJM's Michael Weiss.

Once again, reporters from the NYT published information about the report without reading it thoroughly; and while there may not have been a direct al Qaeda link to Sadaam, he most certainly had his fingers in a great many terrorist doings across the Middle East before he was toppled.

Read the whole post, and realize that there are reporters out there doing their homework - they just don't work for the major outlets.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Hopefully, it will be bloody...

MSM Suddenly Notice Obama's Pastor's Hate Speech:
"Well, they couldn’t ignore him forever, could they?

The man Barack Obama calls his spiritual adviser, who is credited for giving him the title of his book, The Audacity of Hope, and who married Obama and his wife and baptized their two daughters, is an America-hating racist who uses exactly the same type of hate speech as disgraced professor Ward Churchill:"

Oops....! Watch and get very scared...

God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11:
"Sen. Barack Obama's pastor says blacks should not sing 'God Bless America' but 'God damn America.'
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for the last 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's south side, has a long history of what even Obama's campaign aides concede is 'inflammatory rhetoric,' including the assertion that the United States brought on the 9/11 attacks with its own 'terrorism.'"

Stating the obvious?

Two Americas
One is fighting a global war; one has better things to do:
"Al-Qaeda and other militant Islamist groups live in a shadow world where they plot to kill you and me. If we expect our intelligence professionals to prevent them from succeeding, we must give them the tools required to get the job done."

They're just "activists"....

Severed fingers of 5 hostages delivered to U.S. officials in Iraq
"BAGHDAD _U.S. authorities in Baghdad have received five severed fingers belonging to four Americans and an Austrian who were taken hostage more than a year ago in Iraq , U.S. officials said Wednesday."

Don't be fooled by the fools....

Make No Mistake: They Really Don't 'Support the Troops'

And they really do despise their own country.

At the Berkeley Daily Planet: Commentary: Why I Don’t Support the Troops.

Wretchard rarely misses the mark....

Weapons turned inward:
"And although neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton have sent anyone actual severed fingers yet, both have amply shown their astonished supporters that they are willing to ignite race war, tear the Party apart or engage in political cannibalism to serve their own individual ambitions. What's really awesome about Hillary and Barack is not their resumes but the lengths to which they are willing to go."

Just the beginning....

Muslims want unis to fit prayer time
International Muslim students, predominantly from Saudi Arabia, have asked universities in Melbourne to change class times so they can attend congregational prayers. They also want a female-only area for Muslim students to eat and relax.

Instapundit...

COMPARING Eliot Spitzer, Mike Nifong, and Ronnie Earle. One thing they have in common: Media support for their misdeeds.

Easy to answer...

Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna has a post regarding a counter-protest by Gathering of Eagles, an “organization that has dedicated itself to guarding America’s war memorials against desecration by anti-war activists and countering the smears against our military by traitors on the Left.”

At the Gathering of Eagles site I found this post, entitled Pittsburgh: Antiwar Leftists Plan to Confine Recruiters in a “Movable Cage”. A Leftist Pittsburgh-area group, which I won’t link, to stated that it plans for a protest at local military recruiting station on March 19, 2008:

If the station remains open, we intend to evict it and everything inside of it, occupy the location, and transform it into something useful for the community. We’ll also be bringing a movable cage in which to confine military recruiters until they no longer pose a danger to our friends and neighbors.

These people intend to place our military personnel in a “moveable cage”. Our military personnel are not in a position to respond to this illegal, degrading and abusive treatment with gunfire. This is occurring here and now in the United States. It is 1968 again in the minds of the Left and our military personnel are being treated like dirt by the Left due to an unpopular war.

Here is my suggestion. It is the practice of leftist community activists to loudly and stridently demand yes or no answer to simple questions from the victims of their protests, and to shout down any answer but a yes or no. This method is effective.

The American public needs to know.

Senator Clinton? Senator Obama? Do you condemn this protest in Pittsburgh? Do you condemn all protests which attack and degrade and insult our military personnel who are recruiting for our all-volunteer armed forces? Yes or No?

No speeches. No flatulence. No blather. You want to be Commander in Chief.

Yes or No.

Tell us.

A personal hero of mine....

Joseph Weizenbaum, Famed Programmer, Is Dead at 85
Joseph Weizenbaum, whose famed conversational computer program, Eliza, foreshadowed the potential of artificial intelligence, but who grew skeptical about the potential for technology to improve the human condition, died on March 5 in Gröben, Germany. He was 85.

In 1976, he sketched out a humanist critique of computer technology in his book “Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation.” The book did not argue against the possibility of artificial intelligence but rather was a passionate criticism of systems that substituted automated decision-making for the human mind. In the book, he argued that computing served as a conservative force in society by propping up bureaucracies as well as by redefining the world in a reductionist sense, by restricting the potential of human relationships.

His book is one everyone who has ever used a computer should read. I first found it as a recommendation from the old Byte Magazine in the late 70's when I first starting fooling around with my original Apple II; and it remains in my all-time top 10 reading list along with Catch-22, Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintainance, The Book (Alan Watts), etc. While a bit long-winded, Weizenbaum's thesis was how very easy it is to "let the machines do the work" while we turn into idiots (seems he wasn't too far off the mark); and it always motivated me to understand what computers were all about and how they do what they do - it's why almost everyone I know calls me when they have a computer problem.

Whatever we have gained from all this technology (and you can make a great argument that it has really been very little), we stand to lose just as much by surrendering a great deal of our humanity in the process. Pay attention......

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Bass - Ackwards?

Islamophobia Causes Terrorism:
"The virulently antisemitic, terror-enabling Organization of the Islamic Conference issued a “report” today that says if the West continues to exercise free speech, many more Muslims will become violent terrorists. If we keep criticizing them, they’ll kill us, and it will be our own fault."

Glenn does have a way with words...

THE OBAMA-CLINTON-MCCAIN PARADOXES

In short, the Clintons have been completely Clintonized, and when they turn to the media for their accustomed help, as in the past against the Right Wing Attack Machine — they learn it has become a Left-Wing Attack machine and directed at them!

McCain may become a proper antidote for all this. Unlike the verbose Michelle Obama, he really has suffered in his life; unlike Barack Obama he really has reached across the aisle and paid a price for it; and unlike Obama's promises of transparency, he really does talk in specifics and bluntly rather than in mellifluous platitudes. And as for an against-the-odds candicacy, in postmodern America a 71-year-old survivor of communist torture and malignant melonoma seems to match the narrative of a young Ivy-League graduate of mixed ancestry.

It's been fun to watch so far, anyway.

No shit....

Harvard economists’ study: Media’s anti-war rhetoric emboldens Iraqi insurgents

If anyone tries to deny this, or, even worse, skewers this professor - have them shot.

MICHAEL YON evaluates American TV coverage of Iraq.

Sophisticated group.....

Thai Muslims Call for Murder of Cartoonist:
"Members of the Religion of Peace™ are raging and screaming in Thailand, calling for the murder of the Danish cartoonists.

And in another bizarre, out-of-sync-with-reality photo caption, the Associated Press says the protesters are “chanting slogans next to a photo of a Danish cartoonist.”

Correction: a photo of a Danish cartoonist’s decapitated head, with a dog peeing on it.
Thai-Muslim protesters chant slogans next to a photo of a Danish cartoonist during a protest outside the Danish embassy in Bangkok, Thailand Wednesday, March 12, 2008. Some 800 Thai Muslims took part in the protest against the reprinting of a cartoon in Danish newspapers perceived as insulting to Islam. (AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)"

Of course, this is true...

Instapundit:
ANDREW STUTTAFORD on legalizing prostitution. I agree. That doesn't get Spitzer off the hook, though, as one of the best ways to ensure that bad laws are changed is to enforce them vigorously against the powerful.

Worth reading

Michelle Malkin on Left vs. Military Recruiters

and an update from Little Green Footballs on fools in Pittsburgh

How do you define "Irony"?

Foes of Sex Trade Are Stung by the Fall of an Ally

“It leaves those of us who worked with his office absolutely feeling betrayed,” said Dorchen Leidholdt, director of Sanctuary for Families Legal Services, one of the leaders of the coalition that drafted the legislation.

The law, which went into effect Nov. 1, mainly deals with redefining and prosecuting forms of human trafficking, which Governor Spitzer called “modern-day slavery.” It offers help to the women who are victims of the practice, rather than treating them as participants in crime.

Another reason not to watch....

Does Not Compute

As expected, CNN has called Mississippi for Barack Obama. Awkward tidbit from the exit polling, as reported by MSNBC:

72 percent of whites voted for Clinton

90 percent of blacks voted for Obama

But just one-third of Mississippians said race was a factor in their decisions."

It would be nice if he was right....

Hamas' Neverland in Gaza:
"Palestinians in Gaza are living in a dream world, says Youssef Ibrahim, and many of their Arab brothers have no time for their dead-end death cult."

A letter to read....

Atlas Shrugs: Only in Israel:
"We are all affected by what goes on in Israel . Whether you know someone who was killed or know someone who knows someone or even if you don't know anyone at all, you are affected. The 8 boys who were killed will continue to impact us all individually and as a nation. Each one of us has the ability to make a profound impact on our world. This coming wednesday morning, I will be at Ben Gurion airport at 7 am with Nefesh B'Nefesh welcoming 40 new olim to Israel . We will not deter. We can not give up. We will continue to live our lives and hope and work for change, understanding and peace.

Sharon Millendorf

Student and Young Professionals Program Coordinator"
PROMISING CIVIL RIGHTS LEGISLATION in Arizona.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Little Green Footballs:

State Department Asks: Should the US 'Engage' the Suicide-Bombing, Genocidal Hamas Terrorist Gang?

At their “blog,” the United States State Department is seriously asking the question: Should the U.S. engage Hamas as part of its efforts to bring about peace between the Israelis and Palestinians?

Yes, that’s our State Department. The same State Department that lists Hamas as a terrorist organization, and penalizes US companies for dealing with them, is proposing that the government ‘engage’ Hamas.

Did I already say “Aaarrrrggghhh” once today?

Sample comments from Foggy Bottom readers:

Hey, why bother with the time-wasting ‘engagement’ strategery? Why not just issue a public formal surrender now, to al Qaeda and Hamas and Hezbollah and the Iranians and the Saudi Sunni mob?

...

Sure, right after you’ve given Osama Bin Laden a tour of the Oval Office.

Are you kidding?

...

It’s absolute insanity to even consider such a proposal.

...

Would meeting and speaking to the rapist of your daughter help you, your daughter or the rapist?

And my favorite:

U.S. Congressman Mark Kirk in Washington, DC writes:

Worrying that you guys are asking questions like this using funds approved by the appropriations committee that I am a member of.

Quote of the day

"In lead stories Monday night about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer being linked to a prostitution ring, neither ABC's World News nor the NBC Nightly News verbally identified Spitzer's political party. Must mean he's a liberal Democrat -- and he is. CBS anchor Katie Couric, however, managed to squeeze in a mention of his party. On ABC, the only hints as to Spitzer's party were a few seconds of video of Spitzer beside Hillary Clinton as they walked down some steps and a (D) on screen by Spitzer's name over part of one soundbite. NBC didn't even do that. While ABC and NBC failed to cite Spitzer's political affiliation in the four minutes or so each network dedicated to the revelations, both managed to find time to applaud his reputation and effectiveness as the Empire State's Attorney General before becoming Governor"

Maybe abstinence training ain't such a bad idea...

Quarter of teen girls have sex-related disease
"More than one in four U.S. teen girls is infected with at least one sexually transmitted disease, and the rate is highest among blacks, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.

An estimated 3.2 million U.S. girls ages 14 and 19 -- about 26 percent of that age group -- have a sexually transmitted infection such as the human papillomavirus or HPV, chlamydia, genital herpes or trichomoniasis, the CDC said.

Forty-eight percent of black teen-age girls were infected, compared to 20 percent of whites and 20 percent of Mexican American girls. The report did not give data on the broader U.S. Hispanic"

Nope....

Would Geraldine be where she is if she were a man?

Call NOW - Oh, they're too busy.....

Man shoots sister then congratulated by family
A 19-year-old woman from the Israeli-Arab town of Naura in northern Israel was hospitalized in critical condition at the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa Tuesday after being shot twice in the head by her own brother. The suspect shot his sister in order to preserve the "family’s honor," and was warmly congratulated by his family for his actions, according to Afula police investigators.

Yes, I am a FIrefly fan.....

Oldest Profession [John Derbyshire]

Prostitution, like drug trafficking, is one of those zones where libertarianism bumps up against the realities of human nature.

To a lover of liberty, it's hard to see why a woman shouldn't sell her favors if she wants to. Trouble is, weak or dimwitted women end up in near-slavery to unscrupulous men, and I think there's a legitimate public interest in not letting that happen.

The best private sector solution would be a guild system, like the geishas had in old Japan. There'd be entry standards for the guild. Women would have to pass exams, and have some entertainment skills other than the obvious ones. The guild would police itself, expelling miscreants. Freelancing outside the guild could be under strong social disapproval, even made illegal.

Firefly fans will get my drift.

Not a wise move....

NY Republicans threaten to impeach Spitzer

Revenge may be sweet; but the Republicans in this state never won any awards for excessive intelligence. If they want Spitzer pay the price, they should just keep their mouths shut and let the Justice Department do its job. Why spill all that blood in a public lashing that could backfire, when the Governor has already admitted to one of the stupidest political blunders of all time?

"Dollars to donuts" there is more to this than we have already heard; and none of it is going be good.

Can't you just feel his glee?

Bob Herbert , the NY Times version of Chicken little, rocks us yet again today with the sorry state of America. It's a wonder he can get out of bed in the morning, seeing as how this is basically a rewrite of the same column for the last 8 years. But now that the downturn has come he can bask in his glory....
Of course, people need jobs, but does Mr. Herbert offer even one of us a paycheck for a hard days work for him? Nope! He just says that people need jobs - Thanks Bob for the insight.

Matthew Yglesias on health care...

The Need for Accountability
"The other is that you can hybridize single-payer and market elements. Make preventive medicine free. Make it less than free -- have nurse practitioners kicking down doors and immunizing children. But for other things, you can implement cost-sharing that's scaled to the recipient's income. You guarantee that lack of funds never forces anyone to go without care, but you also ensure that everyone has an incentive to at least think a little about whether or not he really needs treatment."
Yes, it's OK to "kick down doors" to immunize citizens according to the progressive genius, it's just not OK to do that to find a terrorist....Once again, the liberal fascists give themselves away.

It's gotta be someone's fault!

The End of the Earth - Sun

Al Gore and Laurie David must have an answer to this problem....

Do you really trust this woman?

Michelle Obama: Men are Selfish and a Mess

Jim Geraghty at National Review points out an article at The New Republic on Michelle Obama that indicates how she feels about men--they're selfish and a mess:
"What I notice about men, all men, is that their order is me, my family, God is in there somewhere, but me is first. ... And, for women, me is fourth, and that's not healthy." This is not a radical observation: Get a half-dozen gals together with a few bottles of Beaujolais, and a similar theme will eventually emerge. (Trust me on this.) Looked at one way, Michelle was issuing a pointed call for female selfempowerment; but, looked at another, she was offering a poignant commentary on how things have long run chez Obama.
Blah, blah, blah....this is what Michelle Cottle considers "Smart, competitive, organized, and ambitious...". It is considered stylish these days for women to spend all their free time bad-mouthing men because, of course, it is the fault of men that women carry children and have monthly periods. This is where all of the culture of victimhood comes from - sort of like blaming the sun for being hot. There are few things more annoying than this type of selfish (exactly of what she accuses of half the world's population), adolescent whining.

Monday, March 10, 2008

The one the Obamas live in and the one for the rest of us

Two Americas:
"Kelly pointed out that in 2005, Mrs. O’s salary was $316,962 at the University of Chicago Hospital. She’s a lawyer, not a doctor.

Hubby’s pay as a U.S. senator topped $160 K that year.

If you are struggling to make ends meet on a half-million a year — a 1040 that puts you in the top 2% of Americans — then the problem is you, not the country.

Still this woman, who was never proud of America when her husband was elected to the state legislature or even the United States Senate, whines and whines and whines.

America is, she said, “just downright mean.”

Someone play “God Bless the USA” for her. She just doesn’t get it."

Ripple, Ripple...

The ring:
"Still, Hot Air says Hillary Clinton has been scrubbing her website of references to a man 'who pledged to bring ethics reform and end the often seamy ways of Albany'."

These folks need to get laid...

Seven More Sins, Thanks to Vatican
1. “Bioethical” violations such as birth control

2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research

3. Drug abuse

4. Polluting the environment

5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor

6. Excessive wealth

7. Creating poverty

Schmuck...

Questions re: Spitzer

1. How many people get caught in a vice sting on their 1st offense?
2. Who covers his tab at $5,500 per session?
3. How many prostitution rings are not connected to organized crime?
4. How long has he been a user?
5. How many O.C. figures do not know who Spitzer is?

It's not about sex, it's about the a.g./governor of NY being compromised...
how many of his selected prosecutions have been dictated by his own agenda, or by others? What would getting advance word of his targets be worth, or for that matter did he take direction under duress?

Hard to say she's wrong...

Michelle Cottle:
"Smart people on drugs = societal good. Athletic people on drugs = societal ill.

Just so we're all clear what we're arguing here."

A healthy dose of reality from Michael Yon

Guitar Heros

Read the whole (long) thing. War sucks, but it's better to be winning....After all, that is the point.

Doublethink has really taken over...

Reuters: Suicide Bombers = Activists
So, according to the AP’s guidelines, it would fall under the heading of fair use when I point out the following Reuters photograph, and mention that it’s yet another example of the mainstream wire services’ utter corruption and moral blindness, labeling Hamas terrorists in suicide bomber outfits as “activists.”

They’ve slowly debased the language to the point where this kind of sick, evil description is routine business as usual.

Palestinian Hamas activists take part in an anti-Israel rally organized by the Hamas movement in Gaza March 7, 2008. (Reuters)

They really do hate our boy



Glad he's on our team; but he certainly has the whole league in an uproar.

Back to the 60's!!

"A vast array of pharmaceuticals (AP) -- including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe."

But bad enough to bail?

Iraq benchmarks: false precision?

Who indeed....

Who Will Stand Against Terrorism?

Eight young men, unarmed and in the relative security of their Jerusalem yeshiva, are gunned down in cold blood. In Gaza, thousands take to the streets to celebrate. Their government encourages them to do so.

How toxic is a society when the governing party suggests celebrating a massacre of teenaged boys?

The brutality of Thursday's massacre at the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva exposes some ugly truths about the blood lust that has been fostered by leaders in Palestinian society and the unwillingness of most American Muslim political organizations and the mainstream media to confront it.

Do you outsource military contracts?

In Tanker Bid, It Was Boeing vs. Bold Ideas

In this case it would seem that Boeing didn't deserve this contract - assuming that the facts in the article are correct. Tough questions, though, without easy answers on issues that may be more security oriented than this one.

None of these should be watched....

Humiliation to the Point of Suicide:
"In November 2006, a camera crew from “Dateline NBC” and a police SWAT team descended on the Texas home of Louis William Conradt Jr., a 56-year-old assistant district attorney. The series’ “To Catch a Predator” team had allegedly caught Mr. Conradt making online advances to a decoy who pretended to be a 13-year-old boy. When the police and TV crew stormed Mr. Conradt’s home, he took out a handgun and shot himself to death."

True anonimity

Alice, I got a BIG MOUTH!!

Economists. Stay Out of Politics!
While Barack Obama promised Ohioans he would change NAFTA as president, his main economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, met with Canadian diplomats about the free-trade treaty. What happened in that Chicago consulate is not clear, but the Canadians decided Obama’s anti-NAFTA stand was insincere political posturing. Now Goolsbee is finding himself at the center of a political firestorm. Did he deceive the Canadians? Did Obama lie to Ohio? Only electing Obama will show whether Canadians or Ohioans have been deceived. Meanwhile, Goolsbee is learning an important fact of public policy life. All economists considering involvement in public policy should remember one guideline: just don’t.

Don't worry, there is STILL no threat....

Granular Warfare:
Why send an army to conquer Israel when you just put out a hit on their government officials' heads? In the Teheran a price was put on the heads of the top ranking Israeli security officials as revenge for the assassination of Imad Muginyeh at a formal ceremony.

...Targets are now selected with unprecedented precision. Thus the Home Office can screen out Feiglin, who committed the inexcusable slander of saying 'Muhammad is strong, cruel and deceitful' and yet admit Ibrahim Mousawi, of Hizbullah's Al-Manar television station who only claimed that 4,000 Jewish employees skipped work at the World Trade Center the day it was attacked.

Very good to read...

5 Conservative Women Bloggers Talk About Gender Issues And The Blogosphere

Sunday, March 9, 2008

It's offical now....

Destroy the Paleo Propaganda Machine:
"The official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida prominently placed a picture of the point-blank child killer on the front page, with the caption, 'The Shahid Alaa Abu Dheim.' In a page one article on the massacre at the Mercaz HaRav Kook yeshiva, his crime was again defined as an act of martyrdom (shahada)."

Bingo! It's no different today...

CORRUPTION AND REFORM: An interview with Larry Lessig. Quoth Lessig: "In fact, one of the reasons why the Framers were small-government people was not a deep belief in libertarianism but a recognition that the more money flows through Washington, the more risk of corruption."

Certainly, we need more of this....

Condell: Appeasing Islam

Do ya' think?

Is Iran's nuclear program still active?

For the first time, a senior British diplomat cast doubt on the US National Intelligence Estimate published last November which reported "with high confidence" that Tehran's nuclear weapons programme had been halted in autumn 2003. The NIE also judged "with moderate confidence" that the programme had not been restarted.

The intelligence report blocked momentum towards US military action and delayed the passing of a third sanctions resolution against Tehran - a mild version of which was approved this week in an effort to persuade Iran to suspend enrichment of uranium. But the senior British diplomat claimed there was no serious evidence that Iran's efforts to build a nuclear weapon had halted.

Beyond absurd - but very real

Britain Bans Likud Member, Allows Hizballah:
"A letter sent to Feiglin from the office of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, and published in this week’s Jewish Chronicle, says the minister has excluded him from the country, even though he had no plans to visit."
But.....

Earlier this month, British authorities granted permission to Ibrahim Mousawi, chief foreign new editor for Hizbullah’s Al-Manar television station in Lebanon, to enter the UK to participate in a number of political events.

Accused of anti-Semitism and incitement, and recently banned from entering Ireland, his television station aired a 29-part “documentary” in 2004 in which it depicted stereotypical Jews hatching a plot for Jewish world control and domination.

Following the 9/11 attacks, Al-Manar alleged that 4,000 Jewish employees did not turn up to work at the World Trade Center that day and that the attack was masterminded by Israel.

Beyond absurd - but very real

Britain Bans Likud Member, Allows Hizballah:
"A letter sent to Feiglin from the office of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, and published in this week’s Jewish Chronicle, says the minister has excluded him from the country, even though he had no plans to visit."
But.....

Earlier this month, British authorities granted permission to Ibrahim Mousawi, chief foreign new editor for Hizbullah’s Al-Manar television station in Lebanon, to enter the UK to participate in a number of political events.

Accused of anti-Semitism and incitement, and recently banned from entering Ireland, his television station aired a 29-part “documentary” in 2004 in which it depicted stereotypical Jews hatching a plot for Jewish world control and domination.

Following the 9/11 attacks, Al-Manar alleged that 4,000 Jewish employees did not turn up to work at the World Trade Center that day and that the attack was masterminded by Israel.

Dig deep and this is what you find...

The Belmont Club on the Dems Political terrorism:
"This situation has come about because the Democratic party is no longer about principle but personality. Because 21st century liberalism is bereft of real ideas it has become vulnerable to the cult of personality. Ideology has now been demoted to rhetoric or talking points. Who really believes that either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton are determined to preserve the national security of the United States? But anyone can readily see they are devoted to preserving the interests of themselves. That's what counts. And as Morris and Chait will now see, it's all that counts. 'How could she?' Chait wonders. The Clintons always could. It's just that he was the last to know."

Maybe the glass is headed for the full side?

The State of Iraq: An Update
"IRAQ’S security turnaround has continued through the winter. The question for 2008 is whether Iraqi security forces can preserve and build on this improvement as they increasingly bear more of the responsibility as the number of American troops declines (and as refugees and internally displaced Iraqis try to return to their homes)."
Certainly it's bad news for Obama.....

Heh....

They Criticized Vista. And They Should Know
"ONE year after the birth of Windows Vista, why do so many Windows XP users still decline to “upgrade”?"
Turns out, even some of the highest level execs at Microsoft hate their own product. It's well worth the hate, trust me; and I am committed to going all Mac within the next year. Microsoft has become the 800 pound gorilla, with products to match....

Only the Jews are the cause of their own problems....

Amnesty International on Gaza: Are They Joking?:
"In fact the only hint that there might be something substantive behind Israel’s actions (besides being plain mean-spirited) was the vague admission that “Israel has the right and obligation to protect its citizens” - without any direct mention of what Israel might need to protect her citizens from!

But the BBC is nothing if not even-handed. To counterbalance each stanza of the NGO report’s quoted accusations, the author offered the weak refrain “Israel says the measures are designed to stamp out frequent rocket fire by Palestinian militants”, as if the thousands of rockets that have been fired from Gaza were some sort of unconfirmed rumor."

Read the whole post to understand the kind of doublethink that Israel is facing.

How sensitive they are....

Instapundit:

"When you have a university whose first response to unwanted speech is to try to ban it and punish students who take part, it's a bigger problem."
But it's OK to publish national secrets......