Saturday, November 29, 2008

I think Jonah might have a better idea (and certainly a better sense of humor)

Bolder Beats Bigger
The costs of Washington’s bailout fiesta are now so huge, you can see them from space.

Indeed, one of the most astounding aspects of the gelling Obama administration is how completely it’s relying on the same old people Obama once said he was going to ignore in his pursuit of cosmic “change.”

As a conservative, I’m grateful that Obama isn’t picking the sorts of people I feared he would. Some of us half expected Che Guevara T-shirts to be the unofficial dress code of the Obama Cabinet. Yet, so far, with all of the Wall Street cronies, Clinton retreads, and Bush holdovers, it appears Obama’s far more of an agent of the status quo than an agent of change. That’s a relief compared with how bad it might have been, but it’s also a shame considering what could be.
Read the whole thing....

No it's not... read it!

It’s Not the Cold War by Mark Steyn:
"So Bush is history, and we have a new president who promises to heal the planet, and yet the jihadists don’t seem to have got the Obama message that there are no enemies, just friends we haven’t yet held talks without preconditions with. This isn’t about repudiating the Bush years, or withdrawing from Iraq, or even liquidating Israel. It’s bigger than that. And if you don’t have a strategy for beating back the ideology, you’ll lose.

Whoops, my apologies. I mean “suspected ideology.”"

And you expected something else?

ISLAMIC WEBSITES REJOICE OVER MUMBAI ATTACKS

Belmont Club takes a slightly different approach:
"One of the biggest obstacles to dealing with this mutating beast is the Western intelligensia’s perverse inclination to assign altruistic or holy motives to what are purely criminal or political aims. This is not to deny the genuinely spiritual aspirations of Muslims because that is a universal human trait. But there is a need to distinguish between man’s search for the numinous, which is part of our common heritage, and confidence tricks of caravan raiders who dress up their predatory activities with the color of religion. The age of the sound-bite has shown itself as bandwidth limited as the age of illiteracy. Today it is often enough to describe oneself as holy, a prophet or a messiah to blind the world to the true character of banditry."

Althouse

His last words before being cut off were 'Lo tov'... which means 'not good' in Hebrew.
Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg -- along with his wife Rivka -- died in the terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

AND: "The miracle of this life continues to unfold for me on a daily basis," wrote Alan Scherr, who "devoted his life to meditation and the search for peaceful balance." He took his 13-year-old daughter Naomi with him to India, on a spiritual quest. The 2 of them died in the terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

Surely this will be Wal-Mart's fault...

Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death
"Some shoppers who had seen the stampede said they were shocked. One of them, Kimberly Cribbs of Queens, said the crowd had acted like “savages.” Shoppers behaved badly even as the store was being cleared, she recalled.

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ ” Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.”"
This is the article on page 16 of today's Times. The front page has genius Stephanie Rosenbloom telling us:
In a sign of consumer desperation amid a bleak economy, the annual rite of retailing known as Black Friday turned chaotic and even deadly, as predawn shoppers scrambled for holiday bargains.
Once again, we will most likely find a way to make sure that the uncivilized wretches who killed this poor man are never brought to justice; and that a maximum payout from a corporate scapegoat keeps the legal profession busy. If times were good, do you think this would not have happened?

Friday, November 28, 2008

Belmont Club...

It’s on TV!:
"Wouldn’t you know? The attack on Mumbai is already being spun as a retribution for Hindu oppression and a stinging rebuttal to the “so-called” War on Terror, a phrase implying the bankruptcy of even the thought of resistance. And notice the not-so subtle connection of events in Mubai to the Jew. The message is clear. Get rid of the Jew, return Kashmir. Stop struggling. And the pain will stop."

Gee, what a shame...

Instapundit
SOMETHING ELSE TO BE THANKFUL FOR: Rosie O’Donnell TV show flops. How bad? This bad: “If the TV variety format weren’t already dead, the ghastly ego trip of NBC’s Thanksgiving-eve turkey Rosie Live would surely have killed it.”

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

We are probably not alone...

Key Molecule for Life Found in Habitable Region of the Galaxy

A sugar molecule linked to the origin of life was discovered in a potentially habitable region of our galaxy.

The molecule, called glycolaldehyde, was spotted in a large star-forming area of space around 26,000 light-years from Earth in the less-chaotic outer regions of the Milky Way. This suggests the sugar could be common across the universe, which is good news for extraterrestrial-life seekers.

Amazing, isn't it?

Barcepundit:
YOU were right, Glenn; as soon as Obama got elected, the media would change its tune on Iraq. Lo and behold: for CNN, it's not a war anymore, it's a humaniarian mission!

Heh...

Obama’s Responsibility to His Shareholders:
"Financial reports suggest the Obamas have a net worth in excess of $7M. That’s a lot more than most of us have so I think Barack Obama should give up his salary as President and recognize his responsibility to us, his citizen shareholders.

After all, times are tough and it’s for the good of the country."

Not without merit...

Unhand that economy, villein!
"I've been thinking about this for awhile. How much of this current crisis is just a manifestation of the American--indeed human--will? We're always talking about politicians deluding us and Wall-Street manipulating us, and predatory lenders conning us, into doing things that aren't in our own interest. But maybe we don't want what's in our interest. Maybe we like our gas-guzzling, credit-card charging, second house buying when you can't afford it, commercial culture."

One man's freedom fighter....

Bali Bomber Ringtones Hot in Indonesia
A defiant deathbed song written and recorded by Imam Samudra shortly before his execution has been released on the internet and is now being downloaded as a mobile phone ringtone by hardliners and ordinary people alike in Indonesia.

Read this, and then worry...

Secret Geek A-Team Hacks Back, Defends Worldwide Web:
"'Oh shit,' he mumbled. 'I just broke the Internet.'"

OK by me...

For Biden, No Portfolio but the Role of a Counselor:
"So far, Mr. Biden has not been given a defined portfolio, the way Al Gore was given the environment and technology in 1992. And Mr. Obama’s aides say they do not expect Mr. Biden to assume the kind of muscular role that Vice President Dick Cheney has played over the last eight years, although he is expected to put out a number of fires"

Can you imagine the pain?

Mothers Cut Personal Shopping to Buy Children’s Gifts
Come Christmas, McKenna Hunt, a gregarious little girl from Safety Harbor, Fla., will receive the play kitchen and the Elmo doll she wants. But her mother, Kristen Hunt, will go without the designer jeans she covets this season.

Leave it to the Times for this hard-hitting piece of economic downturn journalism.
Ann Althouse brings another comment to the table on the same article.....

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

As always, Michael Yon is worth reading...

Down with Barriers, Up with Iraq:
"The words from General Petraeus about Southwest Baghdad will always stick with me: “It will be the canary in the mineshaft; if they can pull it off, this will be doable...”

The General was right…and the canary to sing for another day."

Watch the video and think about Joe McCarthy...

Andrew Breitbart Challenges Radical Gays to Protest a Mosque
Andrew Breitbart hit back at Hollywood tonight for blacklisting the Proposition 8 supporters.

Breitbart joined Laura Ingraham on The O'Reilly Factor tonight and challenged the gay activists to go protest at the local mosques for gay marriage


Link: Andrew Breitbart on Prop 8 Blacklist

Where's the Congressional hearing?

Instapundit
"Charlie Rangel — setting an example for us all!"

Monday, November 24, 2008

What threat?

Holy Land Foundation defendants guilty on all counts
"A jury on Monday determined that the Holy Land Foundation and five men who worked with the Muslim charity were guilty of three dozen counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas."

Actually, they did a GOOD job...

Media Mission Accomplished!:
"There's been a lot of talk about how the mainstream media failed the country during this last election cycle, and that because of that failure their days are numbered.

I have to disagree. I think the media performed flawlessly during the two year election cycle. They managed the story, shielded their candidate, attacked the opposition, sat on damaging stories, and in short did everything a good state run media should do during an election cycle.

In fact, the only sign of their incompetence was that McCain kept the race much closer than he should have, but that failure might be more due to the education system failing to properly propagandize the young voters, although they'll probably blame home-schoolers for that.

But all in all, the media performed admirably. Just watch this video and you'll instantly see how effectively the media communicated the Obama message."

Bill Ayers is probably celebrating...

Convicted of 9 murders, sentenced to 5 life terms, Red Army Faction leader Christian Klar must be set free after only 26 years.

And then read Dershowitz's "Why Terrorism Works" to understand just what is going on here...

She could use a stimulus package...

Woman May Lose Home Over Decade-Old Blowjob

Cool....

Holy Web!: Earth from 31 million miles away

Via Instapundit...

SO, WHO ARE THE RUBES THIS TIME? Glenn Greenwald has a clue. “So many progressives were misled about what Obama is and what he believes. But it wasn’t Obama who misled them. It was their own desires, their eagerness to see what they wanted to see rather than what reality offered.” Well, the master bullshitter always lets the rubes hear what they want to hear. And knows that there will be some rubes who will make excuses, even after the truth is revealed.

From the WSJ:

Eric Holder (Barack Obama's choice for Attorney General), on the question of whether unlawful combatants captured in the war on terror are entitled to prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Convention. From an interview on CNN, January 2002:

One of the things we clearly want to do with these prisoners is to have an ability to interrogate them and find out what their future plans might be, where other cells are located; under the Geneva Convention that you are really limited in the amount of information that you can elicit from people.

It seems to me that given the way in which they have conducted themselves, however, that they are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. They are not prisoners of war. If, for instance, Mohamed Atta had survived the attack on the World Trade Center, would we now be calling him a prisoner of war? I think not. Should Zacarias Moussaoui be called a prisoner of war? Again, I think not.

Someone I can get behind.... finally.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Capital Gains...

Robert Rubin, We Hardly Knew You
Your Sunday required reading comes from Eric Dash and Julie Creswell, who do a fine job of reporting on the demise of Citigroup in their New York Times article, "Citigroup Pays for a Rush to Risk." I was expecting the stories of greed, stupidity, and lax internal oversight. What I was not expecting was the way the article portrays Robert Rubin in a much less favorable light than he has been accustomed to from an adoring press corps.

Damn rich people... only worried about themselves

Via Instapundit:
THE OBAMAS walk away from public schools. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, it’s wonderful that the Obamas had such a broad range of public and private school choices available to them. What’s puzzling is that the president-elect opposes programs that would bring that same easy choice of schools within reach of families who lack his personal wealth.”

Quote of the Day:

The New Deal Didn’t Always Work, Either:
"In short, expansionary monetary policy and wartime orders from Europe, not the well-known policies of the New Deal, did the most to make the American economy climb out of the Depression. Our current downturn will end as well someday, and, as in the ’30s, the recovery will probably come for reasons that have little to do with most policy initiatives."

Typical of idiot NY Times columnists...

Bad manners

So how full of shit were these people?

Victor Davis Hanson
"So a mere two weeks after victory, 'hope and change' and 'a break from the past' reified into parceling out posts to dozens of Clintonite retreads, plenty of the old requisite Ivy-League law degrees, ample influence from establishment ex-lobbyists, de rigueur Sidwell Friends for the kids, and apparent sudden existential angst and uncertainty over FISA, getting out pronto from Iraq, closing down the Constitution-shredding Gitmo, and overturning the McCarthyite Patriot Act—and all to acclaim and relief from aristocratic Beltway pundits of both parties? So that was all the election was about? Just new faces on the same old, same old? And relief that Treasury, the National Security Advisorship, and Defense will be in the hands of well-known centrists? And at least on national and homeland security it is perhaps not the shadow of Bill Clinton, but of George W. Bush, that now begins to loom large?"