Thursday, July 31, 2008

"Huff Po Hackery"

Anyone who hasn't a clue as to what hackery really looks like, we have a prime example:
"McCain Planned To Attack Obama If He Visited Troops Abroad"-Huff Po


NRO's Media Blog, calls it HuffPo Hackery of the Day. The Huff Po blather is based on David Kiley's statement:
What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was...wait for it...using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch. I guess that’s political hardball. But another word for it is the one word that most politicians are loathe to use about their opponents—a lie.


Only Kiley has had to retreat from his statement, because he had no corroboration. A spokesman for the McCain campaign gave three reasons why Kiley was not credible:

One, the McCain camp did not know Obama's schedule in advance- How could they have scripted a visit they knew nothing about?

Two, McCain has praised Obama for visiting the wounded at Walter Reed - Why would this visit be different?

and three, McCain himself has visited wounded soldiers -Why would he criticize Obama for doing what he himself does?

It's every bit as bogus as Obama's repeatedly playing the race card, casting himself as a victim before imaginary Republican criticism. Make up false charges about your opponent and argue against the straw man of your own imagination!

Cross Posted at Say Anything

The Audacity of Drawing a Breath

Something Obama apparently opposed in the Illinois Senate!

A couple things worth noting. The bill sought to give protection to infants who, for whatever reason, survived an abortion. Infants who met every definition of a person under the law: viable, and breathing outside the womb. Obama, showing true leadership, voted "present" the first time the bill came up for a vote. (Profiles in Courage, anyone?). The second time he voted "No". Which puts him farther to the Left than Teddy Kennedy, who voted for the same Federal bill. Another thing worthy of note, is the lying scumbag James Carville. Note what he says about the bill's star witness:
..."the priest at the hospital saying this woman was not credible"
Rewind to 1:50 into the video. Here's what the hospital spokesman really said:
"She does not represent (their) hospital in a credible way."
See the difference? Not representing the hospital credibly is not the same as not being credible. Ol' Serpenthead didn't seem to catch the difference! (Or care whether his lies destroyed this woman's credibility) But then, as Bill Clinton's attack dog on Paula Jones, it didn't bother him to help destroy her credibility either! If Obama cannot support the audacity of an infant to draw his or her first breath and still be protected as a human being, what does he stand for? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Cross posted at Say Anything

This Last Week’s Poll

This Last Week’s Poll was:
Is it appropriate for an American Presidential candidate to campaign outside the US?


"No. Grandstanding at its finest" beat the "Yes" votes eight to one.

There were no undecideds.

Not a scientific poll. Respondents are self selecting. Questions are drawn from fortune cookies, hieroglyphics and tomorrow’s New York Times.

Please make your opinion known in this week's poll. You can vote more than one category.

Democrats Don't Care If Gas Hits $10 a Gallon!

Because, after all, the taxpayers are filling their tanks for them!



And, gosh darn it! We wouldn't want the Republicans to be able to take any credit for it!

Hat tip Hot Air
Cross Posted at Say Anything

"Get This Man a TelePrompter"®

...is the title of a John Hinderaker post over at Power Line:



John runs the number on Obambi's statement, and figures that it would only take "11,308 years of proper tire inflation to equal 'all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling.' "

Wow! 11,308 years! That would run well into the second term of Obambi's 57 state Presidency! Heh.

Cross Posted at Say Anything

Quote du jour

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

-Groucho Marx


Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The Moonbat Legacy CO2 Extravaganza!

Bush Derangement Syndrome is well documented, but there's one group of Moonbats that takes that dementia to an all time high!

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The "Bush Legacy Tour" has a bus (don't ask me what kind of MPG it gets!) driving all around the country telling people how bad Bush is/was. You've got to be kidding me! Haven't these guys heard of Al Gore's Internet? Letters to the Editor? Conversations at the water cooler and over the back fence?

These folks could have rented billboards with the same message and their carbon footprint would have extended to the trucks and crews installing them and not much further. These jokers are bragging about how many miles they're putting on this bus and begging for contributions so they can drive it more!

It just proves that their irrational hatred for Bush far exceeds any love they have for the environment, or any desire they have to be consistent with any other principles they may hold dear.

And as for the "Endless Iraq war", every day of good news that passes, pushes these loons further into the dustbin of history!

Cross posted at Say Anything

The Dark Knight

First, I read the whole "W" is Batman thing and, yes, I could see a little bit of it in one or two places, but the idea that George W. Bush would put on a cape and bitchslap Nancy Pelosi...well...there's always the sequel! There's a lot to see in the film, a lot going on with a number of subplots weaving their way through the movie. The special effects are awesome. A lot of movies have you looking behind the curtain, looks for the wires and the glass paintings, but this one looked seamless! Heath Ledger's Joker was a refreshing, if frightening change from Nicholson's over the top ham & cheese performance of the past. Ledger portrayed the psychotic killer as...a psychotic killer. The humor was there, but very dark. Spoiler alert: If you haven't seen the movie, stop reading here. There won't be a problem in maintaining continuity for Bruce Wayne's love interest Rachel (portrayed here by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Katie Holmes in Batman Begins). I'm thinking a small piece of granite could fill in for her in the sequel! An exciting thrill ride, punctuated by a few too many talking head moments. Worth the price of admission, but anyone who paid $150 to sit in a sold out theater to watch this one may be asking himself:
Why so serious?
I'd give it four out of five stars.

On a Personal Note

Small milestone today: I've just finished my 500th post for Proof Positive. Mind you, they haven't all been published yet!
Some of the regular features like Quote du jour, Saturday Night Music and some other features I like to get queued up for when times are slow...like yesterday, when I was in a day long meeting followed by frenzied activity, followed by taking in a rare weekday movie with some of the guys from work (more on that soon!), or when I see something that's just so good, I think to myself "I've got to post that! ".

Again, my goal is to have something new here on a daily basis for your entertainment, edification and enjoyment. "Thought provoking" would be nice as well, but Rome wasn't built by a union. (I have no idea what that means,other than I went to bed at midnight and I've been up since 4:30!)

More meetings today, but before I rejoin the rat race, I'll try to put together a few coherent thoughts on The Dark Knight.

The Medal of Honor

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Last week, I posted on the support of Medal of Honor recipient Major Leo Thorsness for Senator John McCain. As I was reading the citation, it struck me how extraordinarily brave this man was in risking his own life to secure the safety of others.

I learned that there are over a hundred living MoH recipients today. Their names and their stories should not be forgotten. My humble mission, for the next two to three years, will be to honor one of those heroes here once a week, and salute them for their courage and sacrifice.

There are no surviving MoH recipients from WWI, so beginning with WWII, for your consideration:

First Lieutenant Vernon J. Baker


Citation:
For extraordinary heroism in action on 5 and 6 April 1945, near Viareggio, Italy. Then Second Lieutenant Baker demonstrated outstanding courage and leadership in destroying enemy installations, personnel and equipment during his company's attack against a strongly entrenched enemy in mountainous terrain. When his company was stopped by the concentration of fire from several machine gun emplacements, he crawled to one position and destroyed it, killing three Germans. Continuing forward, he attacked and enemy observation post and killed two occupants. With the aid of one of his men, Lieutenant Baker attacked two more machine gun nests, killing or wounding the four enemy soldiers occupying these positions. He then covered the evacuation of the wounded personnel of his company by occupying an exposed position and drawing the enemy's fire. On the following night Lieutenant Baker voluntarily led a battalion advance through enemy mine fields and heavy fire toward the division objective. Second Lieutenant Baker's fighting spirit and daring leadership were an inspiration to his men and exemplify the highest traditions of the Armed Forces.


First Lieutenant Baker: We humbly salute you and thank you for your service.

Update: First Lt. Vernon J. Baker, 90, an Army infantryman who, more than 50 years after the end of World War II, became the only surviving African American to receive the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions during the war, died July 13 (2010) at his home near St. Maries, Idaho. He had brain cancer.

R.I.P.

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Hat tip Home of Heroes

Quote du jour

"The West's victory in the Cold War, he (Obama) said, proved that "there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one."

This will come as a surprise to anyone who lived through the Cold War or has even read about it. The thing about wars, even cold ones, is that the world doesn't stand as one; that's why there's a war."
-Andrew Ferguson

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Quote du jour

The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are some think with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.

-Mark Twain

Monday, July 28, 2008

Why Do Democrats Running For President Always Run From Their Academic Records?

First, it was Hillary, she and Bill Conspired to keep her senior thesis under wraps for at least eight years, as noted in this post from March 2007: “Pick the Target, Freeze it, Personalize it and Polarize it.”

Just as conservative authors have speculated, it was the Clintons who asked Wellesley in 1993 to hide Hillary Rodham’s senior thesis from the first generation of Clinton biographers, according to her thesis adviser and friend, professor Alan H. Schechter, who describes taking the call from the White House. [See sidebar: A stupid political decision ]

Wellesley’s president, Nannerl Overholser Keohane, approved a broad rule with a specific application: The senior thesis of every Wellesley alumna is available in the college archives for anyone to read—except for those written by either a “president or first lady of the United States.” So far, that action has sealed precisely one document: Hillary Rodham’s senior honors thesis in political science, entitled “ ‘There Is Only the Fight...’: An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.”


Now we learn that Obama's senior year thesis from Columbia University is "missing". (Did they try looking in the Rose Law Firm records?) The Weekly Standard puts it thusly:

The Obama campaign, proving every bit as secretive as the Office of the Vice President, has been less than forthcoming with details. "Spokesman Ben LaBolt wouldn’t even say whether Sen. Obama threw out his copy or lost it." At an earlier date, an aide actually told the New Republic the junior senator couldn't recall what he had written about, but as that editor notes, "who doesn't remember their senior thesis?" To get the inside scoop, MSNBC contacted the former professor who taught Obama's senior seminar and who recalls the content of the paper better than Obama himself.


“We do not have a copy of the course paper you requested and neither does Columbia University,” Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt told NBC News.


First rule of Democratic candidacy: Leave no fingerprints! (The Bill C. corollary is leave no stains on blue dresses!)

Hat tip Stop the ACLU
Cross Posted at Say Anything

Quote du jour

“If we had done what Sen. Obama asked us to do for the last couple of years, today Iran and Al Qaeda would be in control of Iraq. It would be a terrible defeat for us and our allies in the Middle East and throughout the world.”

Senator Joe Lieberman

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Handgun Bans Going Down in Wilmette and Morton Grove IL

Finally! The Supreme Court's ruling on the Second Amendment is starting to bear fruit! Wilmette repealed its handgun ban last Thursday, while Morton Grove, which enacted the nation's first handgun ban back in 1981, is scheduled to repeal its ban next week!

According to the Chicago Tribune:
The National Rifle Association filed lawsuits against Morton Grove, Evanston, Oak Park and Chicago immediately after the high court's ruling, seeking repeal of the decades-old gun-ban ordinances.

...Wilmette, which adopted its handgun ban in 1989, had not enforced the ordinance since 2004, when the Illinois General Assembly adopted legislation to bar the village from applying it against residents using handguns to protect their property


One small step for a man, one giant leap for the rights of citizens!

Hat tip John Lott
Cross Posted at Say Anything

Obama Prays To Be "Instrument of God's Will"

There's one for the Separation of Church and Staties among us! Several days ago, we noted Barack Obama's visit to the Western Wall, where traditionally, small prayer notes are left.

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His prayer, written on a piece of hotel notepaper, was published by an Israeli newspaper, which was criticised for making it public.

"Lord – Protect my family and me," read the note published in the Maariv daily. "Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will."


Cribbing from Francis of Assisi? St. Francis prayed: Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace. An instrument of God's Will sounds a bit more...presumptuous, shall we say? Any qualms from the Atheist Wing of the Democratic Party? Separation of Church and Statists? Any Democrats at all?? (Crickets chirp.)

Caroline Glick,deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post and the senior fellow for Middle East Affairs at the Center for Security Policy, on the prayer:
This was supposed to be a private benediction, and it was extraordinarily improper for someone to take this prayer and sell it to the media. On the other hand, in the world of paparazzi, the exposure of the prayer was predictable, and Obama apparently constructed the prayer for public consumption. Like everything else about his visit, this was a carefully crafted statement, designed not to ruffle very many feathers. And like this prayer, there was nothing extraordinary about Obama’s visit. As you would expect from a politician, he tried to be all things to all people.


At least he cribbed from St. Francis of Assisi and not St. Jeremiah of Chicago. Or maybe, he just didn't know whether to spell "God Damn Amerika" with one or three "K"s?

Hat tip atlas shrugs
Cross Posted at Say Anything

Guess Who Protected Barack in Afghanistan?

That would be Blackwater. Blackwater??? Those despicable mercernaries??? Last October:

Democrats have been unable to force President Bush to change course in Iraq -- sometimes it's enough to make you want to scream.
And that's exactly what at least one little audience member did Wednesday, as Barack Obama announced a plan to reign in rogue contractors in the wake of the scandal surrounding Blackwater USA.
"The contractors would also have to follow rules of engagement," Obama was saying, as an infant's wail rose from the crowd.
"I know -- he's outraged too about Blackwater," Obama said as the child cried out again. "I know -- it's terrible."


"Terrible!" Unless your own personal butt is at risk! Then, you want to hire the professionals!

Washington Whispers...
...confirms that Blackwater did handle the Democratic presidential candidate's security in Afghanistan and helped out in Iraq


Anyone care to break out the other "H" word for Obama here?

Hat tip Katherine Jean Lopez
Cross Posted at Say Anything

Sic Transit Gloria Britannia

So passes the glory that was Britain! The cultural slide continues apace across the pond, where "Asian" refugees are eroding the traditional British Rule of Law:

ALMOST a third of British Muslim students believe killing in the name of Islam can be justified, according to a poll.

The study also found that two in five Muslims at university support the incorporation of Islamic sharia codes into British law.


What if an American evangelical leader advocated a similar position: "Killing in the name of Christ can be justified". How large would the outcry be here, not only among the liberals and the press, but among the majority of evangelical Christians, who would denounce such theology as deeply flawed and false.

...The report was criticised (sic) by the country’s largest Muslim student body, Fosis, but Anthony Glees, professor of security and intelligence studies at Buckingham University, said: “The finding that a large number of students think it is okay to kill in the name of religion is alarming. “There is a wide cultural divide between Muslim and nonMuslim students. The solution is to stop talking about celebrating diversity and focus on integration and assimilation.”


Note the report was criticized, not the students in favor of killing for their religion! Assimilation, not diversity. Maybe it starts with the idea that not all cultures are equally valid or desirable?

...In addition to its poll of 1,400 Muslim and nonMuslim students, the centre visited more than 20 universities to interview students and listen to guest speakers. It found that extremist preachers regularly gave speeches that were inflammatory, homophobic or bordering on antisemitic.


Certainly not the liberal values that our country holds dear!

...The research found that a third of Muslim students supported the creation of a world-wide caliphate or Islamic state.

A number of terrorists have been radicalised at British universities. Kafeel Ahmed, who drove a flaming jeep into a building at Glasgow airport last year and died of his burns, is believed to have been radicalised while studying at Anglia Ruskin university, Cambridge.


If you ask me, Mark Steyn should be made required reading at British schools. The earlier the better. The sooner the better.

Hat tip LGF
Cross Posted at Say Anything

Country First

McCain starts to raise the bar on Obama.


Hat tip Right Wing Sparkle
Cross posted at Say Anything

Quote du jour

Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing Mankind.

Harvard Biologist George Wald... in 1970

Hat tip to Scott Stantis "Prickly City"

Saturday, July 26, 2008

The Audacity of Those Who Promise False Hope

The London Standard has the story of a small African village visited by none other than Barack Obama in 2006.

At that historic homecoming in August 2006 Obama was greeted as a hero with thousands lining the dirt streets of Kogelo. He visited the Senator Obama Kogelo Secondary School built on land donated by his paternal grandfather. After addressing the pupils, a third of whom are orphans, and dancing with them as they sang songs in his honour, he was shown a school with four dilapidated classrooms that lacked even basic resources such as water, sanitation and electricity. He told the assembled press, local politicians (who included current Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga), and students: "Hopefully I can provide some assistance in the future to this school and all that it can be." He then turned to the school's principal, Yuanita Obiero, and assured her and her teachers: "I know you are working very hard and struggling to bring up this school, but I have said I will assist the school and I will do so."

Obiero says that although Obama did not explicitly use the word "financial" to qualify the nature of the assistance he was offering, "there was no doubt among us [teachers] that is what he meant. We interpreted his words as meaning he would help fund the school, either personally or by raising sponsors or both, in order to give our school desperately-needed modern facilities and a facelift". She added that 10 of the school's 144 pupils are Obama's relatives. Obiero was not the only one to think that the US Senator from Illinois, who had recently acquired a $1.65 million house in Chicago, would cough up.


So, let me see he raises their hopes with promises of assistance, goes home to his $1.65 million house and leaves them with no electricity, no running water. but a handful of empty promises and some autographed pictures! Wow! That is audacity! There is apparently no promise made to the poor, to wounded soldiers, or even relatives that O'blurry cannot retreat from, go back on or ignore. Class act!

Hat tip Gateway Pundit
Cross Posted at Say Anything

Democrat Uses Reform Group to Launder Strip Club Money

According to the NYT: Al Gore Supporter and lawyer, Louis Posner, who
"... fervently contested the result of the 2000 presidential election and started an organization advocating voter reform used it to hide profits from another venture, the police say: a strip club that offered more than dancing."


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I can't believe it! Not only that a Democrat was involved in something this shady, but that the New York Times was able to find it, but I haven't heard a peep about it!

The lawyer, Louis Posner, ran the Hot Lap Dance Club out of a fifth-floor loft in Hell’s Kitchen, where the police said the wealthy clientele paid as much as $5,000 for sex with dancers in private rooms.


...According to the police, Mr. Posner, a 52-year-old tax lawyer, funneled the club’s money to an account for Voter March, the grass-roots demonstration organization he started shortly after the 2000 election that has been largely inactive since 2004. He deposited money into several other accounts, the police said, adding that the amounts were low enough to avoid raising a red flag at the Internal Revenue Service.

Investigators seized $570,000 from 13 bank accounts and two safety deposit boxes held by the Posners, all of which could be traced back to the dance club, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said.


Do hot lap dances cause global warming?

According to the police, in addition to sponsoring events with Vincent Bugliosi about Bush stealing the 2000 election, Posner ran a prostitution ring out of his club, the Hot Lap Dance Club, where employees say they were required to have sex with Posner in order to work there. No wonder Posner was so testy about the 2000 election -- he wanted to preserve the glory of the Clinton years. -Ann Coulter


Hat tip Ann Coulter
Cross Posted at Say Anything

A Little Saturday Night Music

Lea Salonga with George and Ira Gershwin's "Someone to Watch Over Me":

Obama's Road to Hell Paving Materials

“It was scheduled. We intended to go”




Obama apparently wants credit for his good intentions!
His military advisor that he wanted to take with him (to keep him from saying stupid things) was considered “political” and Obama didn’t want the trip to visit the wounded to be considered “political”!
There’s chutzpah for you! The whole damn European trip was political. Why should one tiny segment be any different?

Obama's Excellent Adventure Continues

...with a press conference at 10 Downing Street, the home of the British Prime Minister. Not with the Prime Minister, mind you, just in front of his home!

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Who does this guy think he's fooling? He wants to look like a statesman, so he stands in front of 10 Downing Street? I think the Waffle House would be a more appropriate venue!

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On further consideration, just like he wanted to be associated with Ronald Reagan and JFK in Berlin, maybe Obama just wants the public to associate him with Churchill?

Unfortunately, his politics are more those of Ward Churchill!

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One of faux Indian Ward Churchill's claims to fame, you'll recall, was writing that people working in the World Trade Center were "little Eichmanns" who brought the disaster on themselves.

Hat tip Gateway Pundit
Cross Posted at Say Anything

John Bolton on Obamarama

Former UN ambassador, John Bolton with some choice remarks on Obama's Excellent Adventure in the LA Times: One world? Obama's on a different planet

SEN. BARACK OBAMA said in an interview the day after his Berlin speech that it "allowed me to send a message to the American people that the judgments I have made and the judgments I will make are ones that are going to result in them being safer."

If that is what the senator thought he was doing, he still has a lot to learn about both foreign policy and the views of the American people. Although well received in the Tiergarten, the Obama speech actually reveals an even more naive view of the world than we had previously been treated to in the United States. In addition, although most of the speech was substantively as content-free as his other campaign pronouncements, when substance did slip in, it was truly radical, from an American perspective.


"Content free". "Radical". "...still has a lot to learn about both foreign policy and the views of the American people"*. I'd say Bolton has his number!

...Obama used the Berlin Wall metaphor to describe his foreign policy priorities as president: "The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down."

This is a confused, nearly incoherent compilation, to say the least, amalgamating tensions in the Atlantic Alliance with ancient historical conflicts. One hopes even Obama, inexperienced as he is, doesn't see all these "walls" as essentially the same in size and scope. But beyond the incoherence, there is a deeper problem, namely that "walls" exist not simply because of a lack of understanding about who is on the other side but because there are true differences in values and interests that lead to human conflict. The Berlin Wall itself was not built because of a failure of communication but because of the implacable hostility of communism toward freedom. The wall was a reflection of that reality...


"Confused". "Nearly incoherent". Gosh! I wonder if Bolton is angling for reappointment under an Obama administration? Nah! Didn't think so!

The best we can hope for is that Obama's rhetoric was simply that, pandering to the audience before him, as politicians so often do.


Ouch.


*I left out "More Naive".

Cross Posted at Say Anything

Obama and Your Second Amendment Rights

The Republican National Committee has a fairly effective ad out on Obama and the Second Amendment:



Hat tip Transsylvania Phoenix
Cross Posted at Say Anything

Quote du jour

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

-Thomas Jefferson

Friday, July 25, 2008

“An Empty Shell Mouthing Mere Platitudes”

Victor Davis Hanson has a very pithy look at Obama and the remarks he made recently on foreign soil:

What disturbed me about Barack Obama's Berlin speech were some reoccurring utopian assumptions about cause and effect — namely, that bad things happen almost as if by accident, and are to be addressed by faceless, universal forces of good will.

Unlike Obama, I would not speak to anyone as “a fellow citizen of the world,” but only as an ordinary American who wishes to do his best for the world, but with a much-appreciated American identity, and rather less with a commonality indistinguishable from those poor souls trapped in the Sudan, North Korea, Cuba, or Iran. Take away all particular national identity and we are empty shells mouthing mere platitudes, who believe in little and commit to even less

…With all due respect, I also don't believe the world did anything to save Berlin, just as it did nothing to save the Rwandans or the Iraqis under Saddam — or will do anything for those of Darfur; it was only the U.S. Air Force that risked war to feed the helpless of Berlin as it saved the Muslims of the Balkans. And I don't think we have much to do in America with creating a world in which “famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands.” Bad, often evil, autocratic governments abroad cause hunger, often despite rich natural landscapes; and nature, in tragic fashion, not “the carbon we send into atmosphere,” causes “terrible storms,” just as it has and will for millennia.


Did you get that? "I...don't believe the world did anything to save Berlin". The "world" is not some amorphous, conglomeration of well being that intercedes on behalf of "goodness". Governments intervene. Men intervene. Men with principle.
Not touchy feely, "Can't we all just get along" spineless politicians who will tell you whatever their pollster told them you wanted to hear.

Read the entire piece. Victor Davis Hanson is a national treasure.

Cross Posted at Say Anything

Obama Plane and Simple

I had seen others allude to this story before, but until I saw the pictures, I wasn't aware of just how big a deal it was. Here's Obama's campaign plane before he redecorated it:
Flag tail


Notice the huge American flag on the tail? Not good enough for "Citizen of the World" Obama! Here's the "new and improved" plane:

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World of difference!

Hat tip Patterico's Pontifications
Cross posted at Say Anything

Pinups For Vets- An Update

Here's the latest from Gina Elise from Pinups for Vets:

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During the month of June, Gina was able to visit a VA in New York and distribute donated calendars to the wounded vets. She was able to host a dinner for a number of wounded vets in San Diego, AND she was able to present a check for $15,000 to the San Diego Naval Medical Center for rehabilitation efforts for our wounded warriors. Way to go, Gina!

Visit her site and make a contribution if you are so inclined!

Cross posted at Say Anything

Friday Night Babe

From Charlie's Angels in the '70s to Las Vegas up until this last Spring, Cheryl Ladd has caught the eye and captured the fancy of many a red-blooded American male!

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In my opinion, she looks better now than in her Charlie's Angels days.

Cross posted at Say Anything

Senator O’blurry Goes On Tour (A poem)

Senator O’blurry goes on tour, he

Intended to visit the troops.

There’s no photo op,

so O’blurry calls Stop!

Without “Beg your pardon” or “Oops!’


Senator O’blurry Goes On Tour, he

Shoots hoops with the REMFs.

He isn’t bilingual

The whole German thing’ll

Make him seem very

JFK-esque! (John F. Kerry)


Cross Posted at Say Anything

Quote du jour

Whatever the merits of the whole Edwards love child story, are we really supposed to believe that one of America's most famous trial lawyers wouldn't sue a publication that printed defamatory and slanderous lies about him?

Also, it's worth pointing out that while the Enquirer may or may not be scrupulous in its choice of stories — that's in the eye of the beholder — it is pretty scrupulous about its facts. They win lawsuits. They've broken a host of stories the MSM guys couldn't.

-Jonah Goldberg

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Obama Snubbed Soldiers Because There Was No Photo Op for Him

Rob Port at Say Anything posted earlier on Obama skipping out on visiting the troops: Obama Skips Visiting US Troops In Germany To Make Time For More Campaigning In Front Of Germans.
Patterico's Pontifications points to what could be the real reason!

One military official who was working on the Obama visit said because political candidates are prohibited from using military installations as campaign backdrops, Obama's representatives were told, "he could only bring two or three of his Senate staff member, no campaign officials or workers." In addition,
"Obama could not bring any media. Only military photographers would be permitted to record Obama's visit."
NBC's Jim Miklaszewski

What a class act! He could visit wounded soldiers, but no one would see him do it! In Barack's world, What's the percentage in that?

Cross Posted at Say Anything

This Last Week’s Poll

This Last Week’s Poll was pretty much split down the middle between those who were affected a little to a lot by the high cost of gas, and those who weren't affected at all and the sardonically lifestyle-impaired!

BTW, the answer to "What's a lifestyle"? It's that thing that Robin Leach found among the Rich and Famous.

Not a scientific poll. Respondents are self selecting. Questions are drawn from fortune cookies, hieroglyphics and tomorrow’s New York Times.

Please make your opinion known in this week's poll.

Videos of MoH Recipient Leo Thorsness





Hat tip Hot Air
Cross Posted at Say Anything

Obama Visits Wailing Wall

JERUSALEM - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama paid a predawn visit to the holiest place in Judaism on Thursday, bowing his head in prayer at the Western Wall.

Obama placed a small note inside a crevice in the ancient wall, a custom observed by many.


We can neither confirm or deny whether or not the note asked God to "Damn America".

Photos at eleven.

Cross posted at Say Anything

You Know a Man By the Company He Keeps

No, this is not about Jeremiah "God damn America" Wright, William "I wish I'd set a few more bombs" Ayers, or Tony "Show me the money " Rezko. This is about the number of Medal of Honor recipients who are backing John McCain.
We all know about Col. "Bud" Day, POW cellmate of McCain's and the most decorated American serviceman since McArthur. Did you know, that out of the 103* living MoH recipients, there's at least one more supporting McCain?

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Meet Major Leo Thorsness, U. S. Air Force. The citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. As pilot of an F- 105 aircraft, Lt. Col. Thorsness was on a surface-to-air missile suppression mission over North Vietnam. Lt. Col. Thorsness and his wingman attacked and silenced a surface-to-air missile site with air-to-ground missiles, and then destroyed a second surface-to-air missile site with bombs. In tile attack on the second missile site, Lt. Col. Thorsness' wingman was shot down by intensive antiaircraft fire, and the 2 crewmembers abandoned their aircraft. Lt. Col. Thorsness circled the descending parachutes to keep the crewmembers in sight and relay their position to the Search and Rescue Center. During this maneuver, a MIG-17 was sighted in the area. Lt. Col. Thorsness immediately initiated an attack and destroyed the MIG. Because his aircraft was low on fuel, he was forced to depart the area in search of a tanker. Upon being advised that 2 helicopters were orbiting over the downed crew's position and that there were hostile MlGs in the area posing a serious threat to the helicopters, Lt. Col. Thorsness, despite his low fuel condition, decided to return alone through a hostile environment of surface-to-air missile and antiaircraft defenses to the downed crew's position. As he approached the area, he spotted 4 MIG-17 aircraft and immediately initiated an attack on the MlGs, damaging 1 and driving the others away from the rescue scene. When it became apparent that an aircraft in the area was critically low on fuel and the crew would have to abandon the aircraft unless they could reach a tanker, Lt. Col. Thorsness, although critically short on fuel himself, helped to avert further possible loss of life and a friendly aircraft by recovering at a forward operating base, thus allowing the aircraft in emergency fuel condition to refuel safely. Lt. Col. Thorsness' extraordinary heroism, self-sacrifice, and personal bravery involving conspicuous risk of life were in the highest traditions of the military service, and have reflected great credit upon himself and the U.S. Air Force.


Like McCain, Major Thorsness was shot down over Viet Nam. Powerline adds this to the story:

Colonel Thorsness didn't find out about his receipt of the Medal of Honor, however, until 1973. He was shot down by an air to air missile in late April 1967. He ejected from from his exploding fighter doing nearly 700 miles per hour and injured both his knees. He was captured and held as a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hilton. Like John McCain, he was "tied up" for the next six years. His Medal of Honor was kept a secret so that the North Vietnamese would not use the citation against him and aggravate the conditions of his captivity. As it was, he was tortured unmercifully for the first three years.


Ed Morrisey has an account of Major Thorsness' endorsement here. They say you can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps. Amen to that!

Update: From the Air Force account cited by Powerline, the translation of "recovering at a forward operating base":
But Thorsness' day wasn't over yet. Again low on fuel, he headed for a tanker just as one of the strike force pilots, almost out of fuel himself, radioed him for help. Thorsness knew he couldn't make Takhli without refueling, but he quickly determined he could make it to Udorn, 200 miles closer, so he directed the tanker toward the strike fighter. Once across the Mekong Delta, he throttled back to idle and "glided" toward Udorn, touching down as his tanks went dry.


*Corrected according to Congressional Medal of Honor Society as of June 10, 2008

Hat tip Jay Norlinger's Impromptus
Cross posted at Say Anything

Congress Monkeys Around With Meaningless Legislation

...in other words...business as usual! If you ever had any doubts that the politicians you sent to Washington are not the best that money can buy, read this:
With an ongoing war in Iraq, $4 a gallon gasoline, Midwest floods, a credit crunch and creeping inflation, rest assured, our congressmen have their eyes on the ball. By a vote of 302-96 last week, the House of Representatives passed the Captive Primate Safety Act, a bold step on the road to outlawing pet monkeys. The House bill boasts 26 co-sponsors, including three from Illinois, Republican Mark Kirk and Democrats Jan Schakowsky and Luis Gutierrez. The Senate is expected to take up the companion bill in the next few weeks.
Could I get a show of hands? All those who own or are planning to own a pet monkey please raise your hand! Okay...1...2...3. What's that? Okay! I'll put you down as a "maybe". Now, everyone affected by the price of gasoline, please raise your hand! Wow! A LOT more of you! (Who woulda thunk it?) Apparently, not Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid, who are driving this darling of PETA and the Humane Society, balls to the walls, while less important issues, like how the price of gasoline is harming the national and personal economies linger!
In lieu of addressing more pressing issues, Congress has once again decided to meddle in an arcane aspect of Americans' lives. The proposed legislation would amend the Lacey Act, which states that it's "unlawful for any person to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire or purchase in interstate or foreign commerce any live animal of any prohibited wildlife species." Monkeys are soon to be among the prohibited. Exotic pets usually are covered under common law using a standard of strict liability—e.g., if you own a tarantula and it bites someone, you're liable. So why the change now? Animal rights aside, one thing is clear: This is not the business of the federal government. In criminalizing pet ownership, the nanny state is going too far, and few can argue against the idea that making monkey trafficking a federal crime borders on the absurd.
That's right! Not a state crime (Whatever happened to the Tenth Amendment?), a Federal crime. One where they send Federal law enforcement officers after you. Not because you're a terrorist sneaking across our border, not because you're a kidnapper who's crossed state lines, you're a freaking monkey owner! (Think Ross Geller in the early episodes of "Friends"!)
"Mr. Geller! Put your hands up and step away from the monkey!"
Harry Reid, the dimbulb from Searchlight and Botox Nancy Pelosi should both be ashamed of themselves for neglecting their duty to this nation and monkeying around with laws that affect so few, are virtually meaningless and are in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution they supposedly swore to uphold. Nice to see they've got their priorities straight! Cross Posted at Say Anything

Quote du jour

You know what's "funny" about John Edwards getting busted (pretty damn convincingly) by the National Enquirer while meeting his mistress and love child in a Los Angeles hotel? Edwards' cover story was that he was in LA to meet with the city's mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa — and Villaraigosa, like John Edwards, cheated on his wife right after a primary election! And also, wouldn't you know it, Villaraigosa's wife Corina was battling thyroid cancer at the time, sort of like how Elizabeth Edwards is now battling breast cancer.

-Ryan Tate

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Gaffe Machine- The Video



Hat tip Cassy Fiano
Cross posted at Say Anything

One Man Gaffe Machine Imitates Energizer Bunny

Barack Obama is at it again! Holy Cow! Does this guy ever stop? Recently in Israel, Obama made a pledge:

"In terms of knowing my commitments, you don't have to just look at my words. You can look at my deeds. Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don't obtain a nuclear weapon.”


Sounds lovely! Sort of brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it? Until you realize that Barack Obama is NOT a member of the US Senate Banking Committee! In other words, he's saying, you don't have to rely just on my phony rhetoric, you can rely on my taking claim for other people's work as well!

Powerline calls it: The Fine Line between lying and pandering. I call it, the "Can’t Walk a Straight Line Between the Truth and Whatever the Audience Needs to hear"!

If committed by a Republican, this would be a gaffe of historic proportions. Even a Senator as inattentive to his duties as Obama certainly knows what committees he serves on. For him to fabricate the claim, out of whole cloth, that the Senate Banking Committee is "[his] committee," strikes me as another sign of Obama's megalomania. That, plus more evidence that he is totally at sea without a teleprompter.


Obama tells you that his word is as good as his bond (Yeah. Right!) But, beyond that, you can rely on his non-existent actions to back up his word! Well! I certainly am a lot more comforted now that he really means what he says! / sarcasm

Again, I would make the plea: Is there somewhere we could we institute a National Clearing House to keep track of all the Obama gaffes? I’m still thinking we could get by with a facility half the size of the Library of Congress (maybe!), and maybe a minimum of six full and part-time staff to provide the 24/7 coverage needed.

Hat tip Powerline
Cross posted at Say Anything

More Thanks From the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders Than From The Senator Who Wants to be President

The Dissident Frogman points to a BLACKFIVE account of Barack Obama's visit to Afghanistan from a G.I. there:

As the Soldiers where lined up to shake his hand, he blew them off and didn't say a word as he went into the conference room to meet the General. As he finished, the vehicles took him to the ClamShell (pretty much a big top tent that military personnel can play basketball or work out in with weights) so he could take his publicity pictures playing basketball. He again shunned the opportunity to talk to Soldiers to thank them for their service.

So really he was just here to make a showing for the Americans back home that he is their candidate for President. I think that if you are going to make an effort to come all the way over here you would thank those that are providing the freedom that they are providing for you.

I swear we got more thanks from the NBA Basketball Players or the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders than from one of the Senators, who wants to be the President of the United States


Sounds like a big, carefully orchestrated photo op, rather than a "fact finding" tour! Maybe Barack can add zero time talking to the troops on the ground to the zero number of meetings his Senate subcommittee has held on Afghanistan!

Cross posted at Say Anything

"Feel Good Story of the Day"

That's what Weasel Zippers calls this story:

New York Times Second Quarter profit drops 82%

Heh.

Cross Posted at Say Anything

Does Botox Cause Brain Damage?

Case in point: Nancy Pelosi.

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Nancy and her band of Merry Pranksters took control of the House of Representatives two years ago, with the promise of lowering the outrageously priced $2.30/gal gasoline!

July 17 interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: So let me get -- will you allow this issue, offshore oil drilling, to come up for a vote on the floor of the House?
PELOSI: We're going to exhaust our other remedies in terms of increasing supply in America by...
BLITZER: So the answer is no?
PELOSI: I have no plans to do so.


What exactly does “exhaust other remedies in terms of increasing supply in America” mean? How does one increase the supply without drilling for more? Conservation does not increase the supply, it merely marginally increases the time it takes to consume the supply one already has. One makes the “supply” larger, Nancy, is procuring more of it!

Botox Nancy has suggested tapping into our strategic oil reserves to lower the price of gasoline. What part of “strategic” don’t you understand, Ms. Pelosi? The strategic petroleum reserves are there in case there is an interruption in the flow of oil to this country, say because of a war! There is currently no interruption of oil to this country, just the danged high price (exacerbated by high state and Federal states, which you do have some say over, Nancy!). So, if we tap the reserves and then there is an interruption, what’s "Plan B", Ms. Pelosi?

Again, drawing from the strategic reserve doesn’t increase the supply, it diverts part of the supply from our country’s “insurance policy” to the domestic market.

If Nancy wasn’t a zillionaire, can you imagine the conversations around the dinner table?

“Kids. Your father and I have decided that we can eat steak instead of pork and beans if we simply cancel our health insurance. Please don’t get sick until we tell you it’s okay. Love Mom!”


The way to increase supply is to increase domestic oil production. Not lease land to the oil companies where they can explore and not produce, not refuse to lease more land if the current leases will not profitably produce oil, drill where the oil is plentiful! Drill here. Drill now.

Oh, and possibly consider removing all economic illiterates from the House and Senate.

Cross posted at Say Anything

Murtha Meets His Match?

One can certainly hope! Michelle Malkin tells of William Russell, that's former Army Lt. Col. William Russell, and his neophyte efforts against eighteen term Porkmeister Jack Murtha.

A jaw-dropping political miracle may be on the horizon. No, I'm not talking about the second coming of the Obamessiah. I'm talking about the long-deserved comeuppance of troop-smearing, pork-feasting, scandal-tainted Democratic Rep. Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania.

The 18-term congressman's challenger, staunch conservative Republican newcomer William Russell, raised nearly $670,000 in the second fundraising quarter. Earmark king Murtha scraped together a measly $119,000. Russell's underdog campaign bested Murtha without the perks of incumbency, national name recognition, big PAC donations or mainstream media support.

Even more amazing: The 45-year-old Russell, a Desert Storm veteran, former Army lieutenant colonel and Army reservist who survived the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon, was not even publicly campaigning during the quarter. He is on active duty with the Army until after Aug. 1 and is barred from actively campaigning until then.


Desert Storm vet versus bloated ABSCAM has-been. Hmm! Tough choice for all the bitter, clinging voters in Pennsylvania! Looks promising. Removing every supporter of sniveling Harry "We've lost the war" "We can't drill for oil" Reid, the Slipup from Searchlight has got to be a good thing for our nation and its security.

Cross posted at Say Anything

Quote du jour

Jay Nordlinger:
“Is the Democratic party essentially socialist?”

Phil Graham:
"Yes, if by ‘socialist’ you mean the redistribution of wealth, more decisions made by the central government — no question about it. My grandmother thought of the Democrats as the party of the people. What they are is the party of government.”

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

"Set Weapons to Stun!"

Not particle beam weapons, like Star Trek, but projectile weapons!

A gun that fires variable speed bullets and which can be set to kill, wound or just inflict a bruise is being built by a US toy manufacturer. The weapon is based on technology used to propel toy rockets.
Lund and Company Invention, a toy design studio based near Chicago, makes toy rockets that are powered by burning hydrogen obtained by electrolysing water. Now the company is being funded by the US army to adapt the technology to fire bullets instead.


The new weapon, called the Variable Velocity Weapon System or VWS, lets the soldier to use the same rifle for crowd control and combat, by altering the muzzle velocity. It could be loaded with "rubber bullets" designed only to deliver blunt impacts on a person, full-speed lethal rounds or projectiles somewhere between the two.


Ain't science wonderful? I shudder to think, though, of the first lawsuit after someone inadvertently fires at the wrong setting or a weapon malfunctions!

Hat tip John Lott

Cross Posted at Say Anything

Right to Privacy vs. Right to Life

In Randolph VT, there’s a story from that News Service That No One Quotes Anymore, about a confrontation in a public library last June 26th.

Brooke Bennett, age twelve had gone missing the day before and it was feared that she had been kidnapped. There was a possibility that she had used a public computer in the town’s library to arrange a rendezvous with someone she had met online.

A newly passed law requiring libraries to demand court orders in such cases was set to be enacted on July 1st, but was not yet in effect. The library’s policy was to require one.

So on that June day, in the first critical 24 hours after Brooke went missing, police had to wait eight hours to obtain a search warrant, because Judith Flint, a bureaucratic librarian chose to enforce library policy over the life and well being of a twelve year old girl.

Brooke’s dead body was found July 2nd.

It’s hard to say whether or not that eight hours would have made the difference between life and death. I would argue that the expectation of privacy is lessened on a public computer, particularly if criminal activities were involved. The genuine need for haste to save the life of a child should have superseded any expectation of privacy the patrons of that library should have held.

Other librarians applauded Flint for standing up to the cops. Your estimation may vary.

James Taranto called his story: Judith Flint: Heroine or Jerk?

He concludes:
Here is a case in which police searching for a missing girl were forced to waste precious time because a bureaucrat, acting on her own authority, said "Show me the paper" instead of "How can I help?" Judith Flint is no heroine.


I agree.

Hat tip Best of the Web Today
Cross posted at Say Anything

The Column the New York Times Didn't Want You to See!

Thanks to the New York Post, we now have John McCain's opinion column of Iraq! See for yourselves what has the NYT quaking in its collective (and collectivist) boots!

AS he took command in Iraq in January 2007, Gen. David Petraeus called the situation "hard" but not "hopeless." Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80 percent to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation is full of hope - but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains. Progress has been due mainly to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy.
I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Sen. Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent."I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there," he said on Jan. 10, 2007. "In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

Now Sen. Obama has been forced to acknowledge that "our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence." But he still denies that any political progress has resulted. Perhaps he's unaware that the US embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, "Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress."


Read the whole thing.

Hat tip Hot Air
Cross posted at Say Anything

Quote du jour

Pursuing your dream of prospering will benefit everyone . . . When I graduated from Yale University, we had a serious commencement speaker not like the one you are stuck with today. The commencement speaker was President John F. Kennedy. And the point I'm making today is the same point he made all those years ago. He said, "No American is ever made better off by pulling a fellow American down, and all of us are made better off whenever any one of us is made better off." He concluded by using the analogy that "a rising tide raises all boats."

Never forget or be ashamed of the fact that pursuing your own self interest furthers everyone's interest. Without you, the poor would be poorer.

-Arthur Laffer to May graduates of Mercer University
Hat tip WSJ

Monday, July 21, 2008

Don't Hope For It, Vote For It

Although it points to Obama, who represents the party, if you take it to mean the party he does and will continue to represent, the ad is spot on!



Hat tip Hot Air

Cross Posted at Say Anything

Quote du jour

No generalization is worth a damn, including this one!

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Obama: President Next Eight to Ten Years?

Not to be piling on the Human Gaffe Machine, but here's Obama talking about dealing with world leaders for "eight to ten years":

Link: sevenload.com



Uh, Senator O'blurry: Presidents serve two four year terms.
(2x4=8)

Cross Posted at Say Anything

Real Men Vote for McCain

Lou Aquilar at NRO with an almost tongue-in-cheek top ten list of why real men vote for McCain over Obama. A representative few:

2. Obama wants to cut and run from Iraq regardless of conditions on the ground or future consequences. McCain took on the president and secretary of defense in demanding more troops for Iraq, a policy that is inarguably winning the war. He also has two sons who fought in Iraq.


4. Obama wants restrictive gun control because only economically depressed middle-Americans “cling to God and guns.” McCain unwaveringly supports the Second Amendment.


10. McCain is endorsed by Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Obama gets support from Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, and every weenie in Hollywood. Plus, Susan Sarandon has vowed to leave the country if McCain gets elected. Case closed.


Heh.

Cross Posted at Say Anything

POS Olbermann Calls MoH Recipient a "Clown"

That's right! A third rate cable TV host with delusions of adequacy named Congressional Medal of Honor recipient "Bud" Day his "Worst Person in the World" and called him a "clown".

Some people might honor Col. Day for his service or his heroism in preserving the liberty of this country. Others might be tempted to cut the guy some slack: At 83 years of age, he probably did not express himself as succinctly as he could have. But, for the smarmy POS Olbermann to call him a racist and a clown is a new low even for this snotty, arrogant dweeb! Words fail me to express the contempt I hold for little Keith Olbermann. BTW, I don’t normally advocate such things, but here is an email address if you’d like to share your opinion of Keith with MSNBC: letters@msnbc.com Hat tip Gateway Pundit Cross Posted at Say Anything

"Ich bin ein Beginner"

The incomparable Michael Ramirez:

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Heh.

Quote du jour

May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend.

-William Butler Yeats, from A Prayer for my Daughter

Saturday, July 19, 2008

A Little Saturday Night Music

"More than Words" by guitar prodigy Sungja Jung

"Great Global Warming Swindle" Back in the News

Back in March of last year, over in the Say Anything Reader Blogs, an up and coming new blogger wrote on the British documentary "The Great Global Warming Swindle". Rob graciously linked to the video here.

Well, it's back in the news again, after fifteen months, because of a complaint filed with "the UK's media regulator", which sounds a bit Orwellian, but it seems that British Channel 4 is to be censured for the way it represented some of the scientists in the documentary. The Guardian has the details:

Watchdog finds documentary was unfair to scientists but did not mislead viewers


...it is understood that Channel 4 will still claim victory because the ultimate verdict on a separate complaint about accuracy, which contained 131 specific points and ran to 270 pages, will find that it did not breach the regulator's broadcasting code and did not materially mislead viewers.


...The Ofcom ruling is expected to find that Wunsch was misled about the tone and content of the programme, but that his views were accurately represented within it. Durkin, who had previously made other controversial documentaries, including Against Nature and the Rise and Fall of GM, vigorously defended the broadcast.

"The death of this theory will be painful and ugly. But it will die. Because it is wrong, wrong, wrong," he wrote.

Channel 4 justified the broadcast by saying it was a useful contribution to a timely debate, arguing that it had a tradition for iconoclastic programming and had also aired programmes supporting the case for man-made climate change.


I wonder how Michael Moore would stand up if he were to be reviewed by a media regulator on the content of his docuimaginaries?

Cross Posted at Say Anything

Country First

After giving fourteen and a half minutes of video from Senator O'blurry, I thought 30 seconds of a McCain spot might be fair and balanced!



Hat tip Hot Air

Cross Posted at Say Anything

Riverboat Falls Prey to Petty Politics

Democrat James Oberstar refuses to grant an exemption to the historic Delta Queen riverboat. Unlike two years ago when he did, back when the crew was unionized.



It's a shame that petty politics threaten to ground this particular piece of history, denying folks a little taste of what their forefathers knew!

Hat tip John Lott
Cross posted at Say Anything

Quote du jour

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been!"

-John Greenleaf Whittier

Friday, July 18, 2008

Friday Night Babe

Tonight’s Friday Night Babe is making a big splash on the silver screen today as well!

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Maggie Gyllenhaal replaces Tom Cruise’s wife what’s-her-name in the Batman blockbuster Dark Knight which opened one minute after midnight.
Last year, Maggie took over for Kate Moss as top model for Agent Provocateur lingerie.

Cross posted at Say Anything

Speaking of "Misspoking": Dan Rather on Jesse Jackson and bin Laden



Does the word "doddering" come to mind?

Hat tip Suitably Flip
Cross Posted at Say Anything

The Bomb That Fell on Pearl Harbor



From his own lips and You Tube site!

The money quote is in the first twenty seconds or so. I posted this video in response to a comment on Rob Port's post:

Barack Obama Apparently Thinks There Was Only One Bomb Dropped On Pearl Harbor


that questioned the veracity of the transcript that Rob was quoting from. The Human Gaffe Machine that is Barack Obama
Cross Posted at Say Anything

By the way: His sign says “Judgment to lead”. The old alchemists sought to “change” lead to gold. Apparently, it works the other way with Obama!

New Features

A couple of new features for Proof Positive:
1) A custom search engine to search the site for good stuff (or stuff to use against me!)
2) A Dictionary.com search, in case I become too lapidary or eristic! Heh.

"The Audacity of Vanity"

That's what Charles Krauthammer describes in a blistering column on Senator O'burry.

Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. He figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast — a cheering audience and a few fainting frauleins — would be a picturesque way to bolster his foreign policy credentials.

What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn. President Ronald Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees and he was demanding its final “tear down this wall” liquidation. When President John F. Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.


Something you earn. Dropping scandal bombs on your primary and opposition opponents to get elected apparently doesn't give O'blurry any Machiavellian street cred with Krauthammer! What is Mr. Krauthammer's estimation of young Obama?

Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.


Ouch!

Obama may think he's King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty.


Double ouch!

The only part of Mr. Krauthammer's piece that is troubling is that A) It's all true. And B) This turkey has a shot at becoming our next President!

Hat tip Sister Toldjah
Cross Posted at Say Anything

Obama Flip Flops on Vouchers

"Obama flip flops on vouchers". Okay! I'll admit...I'm quite frankly having a problem keeping up with them all! Is this one of the Officially Documented Flipping and Flopping of Candidate O'blurry, or is this a new, previously undiscovered flip flop to add to the list? It's hard to keep track, but here goes:

According to Michael Reagan in his piece The Real Party of Special Interests, (and the New York Sun)
In February 2008, Obama spoke to reporters from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel saying, "Let's see if this [school voucher] experiment works, and then if it does, whatever my preconception, you do what's best for kids."


He danced a different waltz on Saturday, July 12, when he told the American Federation of Teachers (which, with the National Education Association, owns the Democratic Party) that like them he was opposed to vouchers, and when his campaign was asked about his newest stand on the issue, it released a statement saying, "Senator Obama has always been a critic of vouchers."


Let's do what's best for the kids...unless it conflicts with the interest of the teachers unions that I'm beholden to, because I know which side my bread is buttered on! "Senator Obama has always been a critic of vouchers...except for when he wasn't!"
Again, to recap: Since we're all having such a hard time keeping up with ALL the flip flops, could we institute a National Clearing House to keep track of them all? I'm thinking we could get by with a facility half the size of the Library of Congress, and maybe a minimum of six full and part-time staff to provide the 24/7 coverage needed.
What do you think?

Cross posted at Say Anything

(Commenter Bruce over at Say Anything calls it:
"Change you can set your watch to." ) Heh.

Quote du jour

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read!

-Groucho Marx

Thursday, July 17, 2008

This Last Week’s Poll

This Last Week’s Poll:
Last week, Obama promised, as president he would “set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year.”Is this:

"A Good Idea"
"A Bad Idea"
"Indentured Servitude"
No Opinion


"Good Idea" tied with No Opinion for zero votes.
"Bad Idea" and "Indentured Servitude" tied 50-50

Not a scientific poll. Respondents are self selecting. Questions are drawn from fortune cookies, hieroglyphics and tomorrow’s New York Times.

Please make your opinion known in this week's poll.

Obama: Nothing But Change!

The myriad mercurial musings of Barak Obama on what he would do in Iraq, should America be foolish enough to put this man in charge of our armed forces!



Note around 6:30, Barack's pledge to leave a "counterterrorism force to strike Al-Qaeda. Followed immediately by his denial that he ever said such a thing!

Can this country gamble on the fact that one of those positions is the one he'd actually carry out and that there's no way of knowing which one until after he's elected?

Hat tip The Corner
Cross posted at Say Anything

High Taxes Drive Prius Plant From SF Bay Area

California faces a $15 billion budget deficit and Democrats who rule the state Legislature have proposed closing the gap with a $9.7 billion tax hike on business and "the rich." -WSJ


According to the journal, the high cost of doing business in California is driving AAA call centers, along with 900 employees out of the state. But, in the ever so environmentally sensitive SF Bay Area of California, a plan to actually employ Californians to build the hybrid cars they love has hit a speed bump!

Speculation that Toyota Motor Corp. might build Prius hybrids in the Bay Area appeared to unravel Thursday when the company announced plans to start Prius production at a Toyota plant already under construction in Mississippi. -SF Gate


Or, as the Journal puts it:
Then last week Toyota announced it is canceling plans to build its new Prius hybrid at its plant in the San Francisco Bay area because of the high tax and regulatory costs. Adding to the humiliation is that Toyota will now take this investment and about 1,000 jobs to a more progressive and pro-business state: Mississippi.


The SF Gate article points out that more than 26% of hybrid cars are registered in California. The Fremont plant would be a perfect fit, except for those pesky high taxes and the obscenely high cost of burdensome regulations!

To the geniuses in Sacramento: Chasing every employer and everyone with a large income out of the state is not a good business model! Democrats say we can't "drill our way" to oil independency. In Sacramento, their idea of filling the barrel is to open the petcock at the bottom of the barrel and see how much their policies suck!

Cross Posted at Say Anything

Check Out "Day by Day" Today!

The Etch a Sketch™ is priceless!

Quote du jour

The right to be heard does not include the right to be taken seriously.

Hubert H. Humphrey

Hat tip LGF

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Obama Joke Contest at NRO's Corner

John Derbyshire is hosting.
zum Beispiel:

How many members of the Obama household does it take to screw in a light bulb?


— What light bulbs? The house is illumined by the light of his countenance.


Cross Posted at Say Anything

Wind Power: What's T. Boone's Stake?

I heard a commercial on the radio a couple days ago. Oilman T. Boone Pickens has a Trillion dollar proposal to build wind farms. That’s trillion with a “T”

Building wind facilities in the corridor that stretches from the Texas panhandle to North Dakota could produce 20% of the electricity for the United States at a cost of $1 trillion. It would take another $200 billion to build the capacity to transmit that energy to cities and towns. -pickens plan


What does T. Boone get out of this? And how much of his own money is he willing to put where is mouth is? Interestingly enough, 2 - 10 Billion dollars.

T. Boone Pickens made his fortune in oil. But now the Dallas oilman and famed former corporate raider is betting $2 billion that he can have the same success with a new source of energy - wind. Pickens’ Mesa Power LLP …(May 15th, 2008)… unveiled the first phase of an eventual $10 billion alternative energy project that has the potential to become the world’s largest wind farm.
…Ultimately, Mesa Power plans to have enough turbines to produce 4,000 megawatts of energy, the overall project is expected to cost $10 billion and be completed in 2014.


4,000,000,000 watts of energy at a cost of $10,000,000,000 figures out to $2.50/Watt* of energy.

I don’t know about you, but currently, I buy my electric power at closer to $0.13/ kilo watt hour. Or $.00013/watt. So, at a little over nineteen thousand times the cost (and I don’t believe that figure includes the cost of transmission infrastructure to deliver the power where it is needed) how cost effective could it be?

So, it's expensive, but will it work? E.ON Netz GmbH, the largest grid operator in Germany, reports in its Wind Report 2005, that:

"Wind energy cannot replace conventional power stations to any significant extent...The more wind power capacity [on] the grid, the lower the percentage of traditional generation it can replace."


Say what?? Factor in that the wind doesn’t blow 24/7, you don’t have batteries powerful enough to store that much power for when the wind goes off line, you need to have conventional power generation to pick up the slack. How much? Again, according to E.ON Netz’s 2005 Report:

In 2004, Germany was once again the global world leader in the production of wind power. At the end of 2004, wind energy plants with an installed capacity of 16,400MW supplied the German electricity grids. The greatest proportion of this capacity, 7,050MW, was connected in the E.ON control area. E.ON Netz, the transmission system operator of the E.ON Group, consequently makes a key contribution towards the technically and commercial optimum integration of wind power into the electricity supply systems.

Wind energy is only able to replace traditional power stations to a limited extent. Their dependence on the prevailing wind conditions means that wind power has a limited
load factor even when technically available. It is not possible to guarantee its use for the continual cover of electricity consumption. Consequently, traditional power stations with capacities equal to 90% of the installed wind power capacity must be permanently online in order to guarantee power supply at all times.
(Pdf available for download)

So, one of the global leaders in wind power says you have to keep” traditional power stations with capacities equal to 90% of the installed wind power capacity must be permanently online in order to "guarantee power supply at all times".
At what cost??? And how much pollution does this really remove, if you have to keep 90% of your convention capacity online to guarantee power at all times?

At $2.50 a watt, I suspect massive government subsidies either directly or through tax breaks to make this turkey fly. The fact that T. Boone Pickens is willing to venture 2-10 Billion dollars, makes me wonder just what kind of tax breaks and subsidies sit behind the curtain of Oilman T. Boone Pickens’ windy plan?

Correction: What I should have said was $2.50 to deliver the first watt of electricity. After that, what the true cost over the lifetime will be, will be largely dictated by how much the wind blows, how hard the wind blows, how much down time for weather and maintenance and maintenance costs.

Cross Posted at Say Anything