Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

Prophets for profits.
Paradise in a can.

Kerry's Word's From a More Credible Mouth

John Kerry knows that nobody takes him very seriously, so he has to beg borrow and steal notable quotes from others, or at least pretend to.

Most recently, John Kerry pontificated that "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism," And then he attributed the quote to Thomas Jefferson, giving the sentence more credibility than anything original that bubbled out of Kerry's mouth.

Problem is, Jefferson never said it.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

Yes, I am feeling exceptionally cranky this morning. The dog crapped on the floor and I spilled my coffee.
Who wouldn't?

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

Because, this is war, and we will win.

Looking Under the Bed For Bucks

I think that Washington Governor Christine Gregoire may want to ask for a recount. In fact, she might want to ask for a lot of them. Because somehow, in just 25 days, she seems to have come up about $1.6 billion short in her checking account. That’s the difference between the state of Washington’s April Fools Day cash balance and today’s.
On March 31st, her office boasted that, not only had she met all the state’s existing obligations, while putting money safely aside for a rainy day, but that she had enough left over for a host of new “investments.” Democrats have taken to calling new spending “investments” since the dawn of the Clinton era.
“We must make targeted investments that make a real difference for Washington families and set aside some new revenue to address critical needs next year in health care and education. I believe we can do both,” she proudly proclaimed in a news release posted on her website.
Or not.
On April 25th, the state’s budget office found that, in fact, Washington was $718 million in the hole. Oops! The pen may be mightier than the sword, but it exercises its greatest authority when it makes entries in a ledger book.
So, what should we do now? Don’t bother going to the governor’s website for an answer. No news releases have been posted since the bounced check warnings were issued. In fact, her office hasn’t even bothered to take down the March 31st press release announcing the state’s new money fountain. The governor seems to prefer living in last month’s fantasy world. And who can blame her? Those castles in the air have all the money she could ever want.
One thing that won’t be happening is the discovery of missing money lying about. Somehow I doubt that Washington’s west side Democrats will be quite as adept at finding closets full of dollars to refill the state coffers as they were at finding votes for Gregoire after the last election. Sadly, it appears that Washington’s Democrats are no better at counting dollars than they are at counting votes.
So the money for all those targeted investments will have to come from someplace. Can you say, “higher taxes?” Candidate Gregoire promised not to raise taxes during the campaign. That promise did not survive the opening days of the last legislative session, as gas tax increases were just about the first order of business. For all the complaining about supposed price gouging at the pump, it’s worth noting that the state of Washington collects three times as much in taxes on each gallon of gasoline as the evil oil companies make in profits. And now that the no new taxes promise was broken so casually, the next tax increase will come all that much more easily.
When Governor Gregoire raises taxes to balance her budget next year, Washington voters will not even have the consolation of buyer’s regret, as it’s unlikely that a majority ever actually voted for her in the first place.
On a side note, I have concluded that, after this last week, Jeffersonian representative democracy is dead. This country is no longer governed by the will of the majority. Instead she has degenerated into a tyranny of a very small, very volatile and very stupid minority who nevertheless represent enough votes to swing elections.
How else to explain the astonishingly idiotic proposal floated by Congressional Republicans on Thursday? The Republicans decided that they had to outdemagogue the Democrats on the gasoline price issue and offered a plan to give every taxpayer a $100 rebate to help with gas prices. They propose to pay this by raising taxes on “Big Oil.” Of course, taxes on Big Oil will simply find their way into the price at the pump and everyone but the stupid minority knows that.
Let’s simplify it for the stupid. They’re going to put $100 in your hand and you’re supposed to be grateful enough to reelect them, after which time they’ll probably take much more than $100 out of your wallet. Go back and read George Orwell’s 1984. There was something very similar in that book regarding chocolate rationing.
I don’t think Republicans are dumb enough to really believe that this will work. They’re just cynical enough to take advantage of that small group of very stupid voters.

Dripping Hypocrisy

The Washington Post makes light of the disparity between the Democrats's words and the Democrats' actions.

"Since George Bush and Dick Cheney took over as president and vice president, gas prices have doubled!" charged Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., standing at a Capitol Hill Exxon station where regular unleaded hit $3.10. "They are too cozy with the oil industry."

She then hopped in a waiting Chrysler LHS (18 mpg), even though her Senate office was one block away.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., also drove the one block to and from the gas-station news conference, albeit in a relatively efficient Hyundai Elantra. He posed in front of the fuel prices and gave them a thumbs-down. "Get tough on big oil!" he demanded of the Bush administration.

The money quote of the day came from Democrats Mark Dayton, who can speak freely because he is retiring, noted the disconnect between rhetoric and action. "People say, understandably, 'Solve our energy problems right now, but don't make us do anything differently,' " he said on the Senate floor.


If the politics of gasoline favor Democrats at the moment, the insincerity is universal. A surreptitious look at cars in the senators-only spots inside and outside the Senate office buildings found an Escort and a Sentra (super-rich Wisconsin Democrat Herb Kohl's spot had a Chevy Lumina), but far more Jaguars, Cadillacs and Lexuses and a fleet of SUVs made by Ford, Honda, BMW and Lexus.

Envirofascists Oppose Clean, Renewable Energy Generation

It might clutter their views, or lower their property values.

Opponents seeking to block the $900 million project include Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, whose family's Hyannisport compound is in sight of it. Kennedy's brother, former president John F. Kennedy, created the Cape Cod National Seashore in 1961.

After several years of intense lobbying on both sides, many Cape Cod residents are deeply divided as Congress approaches a vote as early as next week that could effectively block the what would be the first U.S. offshore wind farm.

We'll soon know just how serious Democrats are about reducing our dependency on foreign oil. This wind farm will generate enough electricity to serve 650,000 homes. That's a lot of $75/barrel crude.

Reality Bites, Especially if You're a Liberal

Conspiracy theories about among the moonbat left regarding the "timing" of the release of United 93 this weekend.

Flight 93 hero Todd Beamer's father does not agree.

There are those who question the timing of this project and the painful memories it evokes. Clearly, the film portrays the reality of the attack on our homeland and its terrible consequences. Often we attend movies to escape reality and fantasize a bit. In this case and at this time, it is appropriate to get a dose of reality about this war and the real enemy we face. It is not too soon for this story to be told, seen and heard. But it is too soon for us to become complacent. It is too soon for us to think of this war in only national terms. We need to be mindful that this enemy, who made those holes in our landscape and caused the deaths of some 3,000 of our fellow free people, has a vision to personally kill or convert each and every one of us. This film reminds us that this war is personal. This enemy is on a fanatical mission to take away our lives and liberty--the liberty that has been secured for us by those whose names are on those walls in Battery Park and so many other walls and stones throughout this nation. This enemy seeks to take away the free will that our Creator has endowed in us. Patrick Henry got it right some 231 years ago. Living without liberty is not living at all.
The passengers and crew of United 93 had the blessed opportunity to understand the nature of the attack and to launch a counterattack against the enemy. This was our first successful counterattack in our homeland in this new global war--World War III.

This film further reminds us of the nature of the enemy we face. An enemy who will stop at nothing to achieve world domination and force a life devoid of freedom upon all. Their methods are inhumane and their targets are the innocent and unsuspecting. We call this conflict the "War on Terror." This film is a wake-up call. And although we abhor terrorism as a tactic, we are at war with a real enemy and it is personal.

There are those who would hope to escape the pain of war. Can't we just live and let live and pretend every thing is OK? Let's discuss, negotiate, reason together. The film accurately shows an enemy who will stop at nothing in a quest for control. This enemy does not seek our resources, our land or our materials, but rather to alter our very way of life.

I encourage my fellow Americans and free people everywhere to see "United 93."

Be reminded of our very real enemy. Be inspired by a true story of heroic actions taken by ordinary people with victorious consequences. Be thankful for each precious day of life with a loved one and make the most of it. Resolve to take the right action in the situations of life, whatever they may be. Resolve to give thanks and support to those men, women, leaders and commanders who to this day (1,687 days since Sept. 11, 2001) continue the counterattacks on our enemy and in so doing keep us safe and our freedoms intact.

Bad New for the MSM

Karl Rove is not a target of Patrick Fitzgerald's leak investigation.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

Will you settle for worn-out old hags?

The Inconvenience of a Roaring Economy

Poor Hillary. Deep in her heart, she's an unrepentant Marxist. She wants people to be miserable so she can promise to save them. She wants people to be jealous, so she can punish those whom the jealous resent.

Life is the pits, when you're Hillary Clinton.

Find Somewhere Else to Deal Your Drugs

The Bush Administration only plans to allow the "best" tennets to move back into federal housing projects destoryed by Hurricane Katrina.

"Some of the people shouldn't return," Jackson said. "The (public housing) developments were gang-ridden by some of the most notorious gangs in this country. People hid and took care of those persons because they took care of them. Only the best residents should return. Those who paid rent on time, those who held a job and those who worked."

The blunt-spoken Jackson, who is black, acknowledged his comments might be seen as racially offensive because virtually all of the former St. Thomas residents were African-American. He told a white reporter, "If you said this, they would say you were racist."

Leaks is Leaks

Except when they're not. You'd have to be brain dead or a Democrat (oops, I've repeated myself) not to notice the very different reaction to who does the leaking and who the leaking serves.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

It's Wednesday, I'm already worn out this week. Screw you Mohammed!

Those Darned Jewish Suicide Bombers

They're at it again. We're awfully lucky to have such sharpies as this guy to let us in on the Mossad's nefarious plots.

Anyone Recognize this Dissident?

China is well known for executing dissidents and harvesting their organs. I can't help wondering if this face once belonged to a Falun Gong member.

Dan Rather Lectures the Perky Katy Couric

The disgraced former CBS Evening News anchor give Katy Couric advice.

I don't have much hope that Katy Couric. I expect CBS's to plumb new lows in quality and ratings. But, not even Katy Couric should have to endure lectures from Dan Rather.

The Deluded World of Saddam Hussein

Many of Saddam's dream-inspired ideas were ludicrous, but none of his lackeys had the guts to say so. They all remembered what happened in 1982, when Saddam asked his aides for candid advice about his war with Iran, which wasn't going well. Riyadh Ibrahim, the minister of health, suggested that Saddam temporarily step down and resume his presidency when the war ended. The next day, pieces of Ibrahim's chopped-up body were delivered to his wife.

Clearly, when you surround yourself with lackeys who know if they step out of line they'll be served up as a bowl of chili, you're not going to get the advice you need.

And, there's more: "This powerfully concentrated the attention of the other ministers," recalled a former Saddam aide, showing an impressive flair for understatement.

One way Saddam stayed in power was by filling his government with people who were too inept to overthrow him. A captured general summed up the qualifications of the head of the Special Republican Guard in a sentence that Heller could have written: "First, he was not intelligent enough to represent a threat to the regime, and second, he was not brave enough to participate in anybody else's plots."

As I read through this article, I came to realize that Saddam was just as stupid and deluded as many supposed smart people in this country. Way back before the 1991 Gulf War, when Democrats and the media were all convinced that the United States was headed toward a humiliating defeat at the hands of the "battle hardened Iraqi army." Iraq's army had been toughened and tested in a long war against Iran and our pudgy little boys had only played soldier in training. Our equipment was designed for use in Europe and would break down in the Iraqi dessert. Remember that crap?

Well read this: Shortly before the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, Saddam was "very confident" that the Americans would never dare attack Iraq, and if they did, that they would be defeated by his "superior" forces.

Needless to say, his generals were afraid to tell him otherwise. They did raise their concerns with the minister of defense, but he ignored them, hoping to "keep Saddam's favor."

Of course, Saddam was wrong: The United States did invade and easily defeated the pathetic Iraqi army. But Saddam didn't let such unpleasant facts alter his worldview. On March 30, a week before the Americans took Baghdad, Saddam instructed his underlings to tell the French and Russian governments to stop trying to broker a cease-fire because "Iraq is now winning."

I'm just guessing, but I can't help but think that Saddam was getting his intelligence from the New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and Ted Kennedy.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

Or, if you prefer, happiness is a warm bomb.

BTW, I haven't posted or a few days because I was out of town getting my butt smoked at a bike race.

More Charges Against Ward Churchill

Considering that every part of this man's life is founded on fraud, we shouldn't be at all surprised that we find more worms under every rock that's turned.
And somebody has turned over another rock.

Committee chairman Joseph Rosse outlined the two new allegations against Churchill in a letter. One involves the "alleged misrepresentation of genocide in El Salvador" in Churchill's 1997 book, "A Little Matter of Genocide." The second allegation relates to alleged inaccuracies in Churchill's 1988 book, "Agents of Repression."

Churchill may end up as the unwitting (how else could he do it?) agent of a necessary change. The tenure system does need review and revision. It shouldn't be this hard to get rid of somebody this bad. And it shouldn't be so easy for somebody this bad to get tenure this easily.

Quick, Give Them Money, or They'll Start Misbehaving

ABC is worried that, if the West doesn't start giving money to Hamas, they'll resort to violence.

"[T]he larger fear is that Hamas will be pushed back to what it's known for and does best — suicide bombings."

My question is, how will we know that they've changed?

Churchill to Get His Pink Slip in May

Good grief! What is there to examine? The case is obvious. It's taken forever to get to the point where a verdict on Ward Churchill's plagiarism, academic fraud and resume fraud. Now we're told that sometime next month, the ruling will be issue.

Bad News For Al Gore's New Movie

Global warming is unlikely to be such a big deal after all.

Using temperature readings from the past 100 years, 1,000 computer simulations and the evidence left in ancient tree rings, Duke University scientists announced yesterday that "the magnitude of future global warming will likely fall well short of current highest predictions."
Supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, the Duke researchers noted that some observational studies predicted that the Earth's temperature could rise as much as 16 degrees in this century because of an increase in carbon dioxide or other so-called greenhouse gases.
The Duke estimates show the chances that the planet's temperature will rise even by 11 degrees is only 5 percent, which falls in line with previous, less-alarming predictions that meteorologists made almost three decades ago.

And just as Al Gore's new Scary Movie 9 comes out. Here too.

Global warming doesn't even make this list of earth catastrophes.

So Tell 'em They Have to Hold It Until They Get Out

You are not going to believe this one. British jails are being constructed so that Muslim prisoners do not have to pee in the direction of Mecca.

Jail toilets face away from Mecca

Facilities in a prison are being built so Muslim inmates do not have to face Mecca while sitting on the toilet.

The Home Office said two new toilet blocks are being installed as part of a refurbishment at Brixton jail in south London.

Faith leaders had told prison bosses it was unacceptable for Muslim inmates to face Mecca while using the toilet.

"The refurbishment has been carried out with due consideration for all faiths", a Home Office spokeswoman said.

"Following consultation with faith leaders within the prison, various small adjustments were made to ensure the faith issues of all prisoners are taken into account."

She added: "The money spent did not affect the overall cost of the refurbishment programme."

France in Full Surrender Mode

Now the French can't even stand up to the French.

In the nearly two weeks since French officials backed down from a controversial youth labor law under pressure from millions of protesters in the streets nationwide, the government has started retreating from laws -- large and small -- on subjects that include smoking, pollution and flea markets.

"The government leaders are so frightened they cannot move," said Claude Evin, a former French health minister who has spent years advocating smoking bans and other health-related initiatives. "They are startled by their own shadow. France is facing a terrible situation with such leaders."

No kidding.

The Perils of Disinhibition

Now blogs do not just threaten the MSM - all of society is doomed too.

I don't think the blogosphere is breeding cannibals. But it looks to me as if the world of blogs may be filling up with people who for the previous 200 millennia of human existence kept their weird thoughts more or less to themselves. Now, they don't have to. They've got the Web. Now they can share.

Well, I'm pleased that Daniel Henninger does not hold me responsible for somebody else's cannibalism.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

Aren't you glad that you have George Bush and the United States Armed Forces defending your freedom, and not Comedy Central?

Only We May be Intimidating, Hostile or Offensive

I fear that someday soon a law of physics will be violated, creating a singularity that will swallow the earth and eventually the entire universe. And this singularity will be formed, not in a super conducting super collider as some fear, but in a university administrator’s office. Because only in such an alternate universe could the proper conditions exist that would yield the irresistible force that goes nowhere.
In 1949, George Orwell imagined a world where a governing elite would endeavor to control the thoughts of their inferiors. The results were the timeless classic, “1984” and “newspeak.” Newspeak was a synthetic language that made it impossible for its users to put subversive thoughts into words that could be shared with others. The goal of the Orwellian all-powerful state was perfect uniformity and conformity of thought. Who would have imagined that Orwell would have become a model for regimenting the minds of Washington State University students?
Sadly, WSU is considering a speech code, meant to create a supposedly non-threatening environment. That the university would attempt this again, so soon after getting its fingers burned in its attempt to use “dispositions theory” to cleanse its education college of students who did not adhere to the orthodoxy of the far left, exposes both the tenacity and short memory of these people.
Just last year, the WSU College of Education tried to run undergraduate Ed Swan off campus for his conservative political and religious beliefs. For example, Ed Swan opposes racial preferences. According to dispositions theory, those who oppose granting preferential treatment to favored ethnicities are unfit to teach. If you can recite the leftwing orthodoxy catechism, you’ll get 100% on your dispositions exam.
WSU’s thought police had to back down from that one, as they did when they tried to censor a play written by student Chris Lee. The WSU Office of Campus Involvement purchased tickets for 40 students who shouted the play down.
Undaunted or unteachable, WSU is now considering a new student conduct code that includes speech restrictions. After grudgingly admitting that students “have the right to freedom of speech,” WSU inserts a big but and states that students may not engage in free speech that interferes with others’ rights. If one takes the time to read the tedious document, one learns that one right that supercedes freedom of speech is the right to be “free of an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment.”
Now anyone who has spent time at a university knows that an “intimidating, hostile or offensive environment” is just about anything that a complainant wants it to be. Ed Swan intimidated one of his teachers by wearing a camouflage hat to class. WSU has whole courses of study intended to teach its students how to be more easily offended.
In reality, if WSU wishes to clear its campus of intimidating, hostile or offensive environments, it should start by policing its own faculty.
A couple of years a go, I ridiculed a new Washington state law that banned the word, “oriental” from official state documents. As words go, oriental is not especially useful and is etymologically obsolete, but it is not a slur. But, compassion fascists seeking to create a sense of victimization among Asians have invented an historical fantasy regarding the word’s origins and meaning. One author of these myths is currently, if tenuously, a faculty member at WSU. He took great umbrage at my column and sent me a long dreary e-mail filled with the historical fallacies that he claimed to teach in his class. He also said that he expected his students to sign a contract obligating them to march in ideological lockstep with him. He invited me to sign his stupid contract.
If he accurately described the conditions of his own classroom, I would have to say that he had created an intimidating, hostile and offensive environment. Perhaps that explains those dreadful student evaluations he received that now make his continued employment uncertain.
I did accept one of this professor’s challenges though. I asked a few graduate students from Taiwan, Japan and Korea if they found the word oriental offensive. The question was met with wide-eyed, jaw-dropping amazement. Of course they did not find it offensive. What could possibly be offensive about that?
I guess no one ever taught them how to bully others by pretending offense.

Nancy Pelosi - Cowboy!

The House Minority Leader is engaging in a bit of beligerant, go-it-alone, huffing and puffing, cowboy diplomacy in today's LA Times.

TODAY, PRESIDENT Bush will roll out the red carpet for Chinese President Hu Jintao, a leader whose government brutally crushes freedom, democracy and the religious expression of the Chinese and Tibetan people. Hu will receive the best welcome U.S. taxpayer money can buy, including full military honors and a 21-gun salute.

This is the same regime that provides military technologies to countries that threaten international security, including Iran and North Korea. The same regime that threatens Taiwan with a military attack, detains and tortures Chinese people for expressing their political and religious beliefs and arrests Tibetans for carrying a picture of the Dalai Lama.


No doubt the Hollywood crowd will sigh adoringly over that Dalai Lama comment.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

How do you know it's not the same Mohammed? People change.

Make His Words Stick

After first accusing Republicans of race-baiting for wanting to secure the borders, Howard Dean now says that securing the borders is the nation's number one priority and Democrats are better able to accomplish that.

"The first thing we want is tough border control," he said. "We have to do a much better job on our borders than George Bush has done. And then we can go to the policy disagreements about how to get it done."
Republicans reacted with surprise to Mr. Dean's announcement, which puts the DNC chief's views at odds with those of many Democrats in Congress.
"If Dean means what he says about border enforcement, that would put the Democrats somewhere to the right of President Bush on immigration," said Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican.
A spokesman for the Republican National Committee dismissed Mr. Dean's "newfound commitment to border security" as "not believable."

On the other hand, Dean's suddent interest in controlling borders might have more to do with this little tidbit of information than any real principle. "A Gallup Poll of 1,004 Americans this month found that 81 percent think illegal immigration to the United States is out of control and that 79 percent think it's extremely or very important for the government to take steps this year to halt the flood of illegal aliens."

Howard Dean is nothing if not a cynical opportunist - the perfect man to lead the Democratic Party.

The Mexican Solution

Mexico lectures us constantly on how we should treat illegal immigrants. Perhaps, rather than listening to Vicente Fox, we should instead follow his example.

The level of brutality Central American migrants face in Mexico was apparent Monday, when police conducting a raid for illegal aliens near a rail yard outside Mexico City fatally shot a local man, apparently because his dark skin and work clothes made officers think he was a migrant.
Virginia Sanchez, who lives near the railroad tracks that carry Central Americans north to the U.S. border, said such shootings in Tultitlan are common.
"At night, you hear the gunshots, and it's the [state police] chasing the migrants," she said. "It's not fair to kill these people. It's not fair in the United States, and it's not fair here."
Undocumented Central Americans complain much more about how they are treated by Mexican officials than about authorities on the U.S. side of the border, where aliens may resent being caught but often praise the professionalism of the agents scouring the desert for their trail.
"If you're carrying any money, [Mexicans] take it from you -- federal, state, local police, all of them," said Carlos Lopez, a 28-year-old farmhand from Guatemala crouching in a field near the tracks in Tultitlan, waiting to climb onto a northbound freight train.

Actually, I'd rather we didn't. But let's put Mexican preaching in its proper context and ignore their bitching while we debate a solution that works for us, while preserving our infinitely more humane standards.

At Least It Wasn't Me

The world's unsexiest man is unveiled.

Maybe that was a poor choice of words.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

I feel so much better after that. It's like taking a big dump.

He Peed in Public! He Must Be a Rapist!

And, he's rich too!

The AP outlines the mass of evidence against the Duke lacrosse players accused of rape.

Duke has said it is investigating the behavior of the school's nationally ranked lacrosse team, some of whose members had been found guilty of public intoxication and public urination.

Finnerty, however, was charged in Washington, D.C., with assault after a man told police in November that Finnerty and two friends punched him and called him "gay and other derogatory names." Finnerty agreed to community service.

And, most damning: Both Seligmann and Finnerty are products of wealthy New York City suburbs and all-male Roman Catholic prep schools. Finnerty attended Long Island's Chaminade High School, where 99 percent of the students go on to college. Seligmann went to the exclusive Delbarton School, a lacrosse powerhouse in Morristown, N.J.

Twanna Brawley, anyone?

More: One of the accused seems to have an airtight alibi. The DA's gonna look like a real ass after this one.

Eat Meat, Take the Chill Off

From my perspective, the earth is too damned cold. So, I advise that we all eat more hamburgers.

Miniballs

Miniballs were a bullet invented during the Civil War by a Union officer, whose name I believe was Mini.
Miniballs have applications today regarding ammunition. It has to do with Democrats who are forcing the military to stop using ammunition made in Israel.

Palouse Blogger Hits the Big Time

Tom Forbes ranks alongside CNN and ABC. It makes me think of the first little mammals skittering around the lumbering dinosaurs. Evolution is coming.

Times Slowly, Every So Slowly, Admits an Error

After reporting that FISA judges were "skeptical" of the President's authority to order wiretaps on the enemy without consulting a court, the New York Times has finally admitted that their star reporter, Eric Lichtblau made it up.

This is what Lichtblau falsely claimed March 29: “In a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the secretive court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, several former judges who served on the panel also voiced skepticism at a Senate hearing about the president's constitutional authority to order wiretapping on Americans without a court order.”

Today the Times admits: “An article on March 29 about congressional hearings on the Bush administration's program of domestic eavesdropping referred imprecisely to testimony about the secretive court known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which requires warrants for eavesdropping under most circumstances. While two former judges said they believed that Mr. Bush was bound by federal laws governing intelligence gathering, they did not explicitly express skepticism about whether he has the constitutional authority to order wiretapping on Americans without a court order.”

Gee, that only took 16 days.

I'm With the Terrorists!

Fewer and fewer mainstream journalists are requesting embeds with US trooops. They fear being identified with the enemy.

In an interview Monday with EIB Radio host Rush Limbaugh, Rumsfeld noted that "far fewer journalists . . . have stepped up to become embedded" compared to the early days of the war.

The defense chief recalled: "I asked one reporter about that, and there was kind of the impression left that, 'Well, if you got embedded then you were really part of the problem instead of part of the solution and you were almost going over to the other side.'"

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon

Because I'm feeling cranky.

The World' s Gonna End Tomorrow

But, what if it doesn't?

It's about time somebody considered that.

Kill 'em All

Convicted 9/11 terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui's defense team has brought forth a social worker who is trying to create a little sympathy for the bastard, saying that he was brutalized by his dysfunctinoal family as a child.
Hmmm. To me, it sounds like she's making a pretty good argument for executing the entire hive.

No Oprah Suicide Bombers

South Park returns to safer targets. This week, it's Oprah. I'm certain that Comedy Central excecs will be sleeping much better.

A Crack in the Great Wall?

John Leo points up a startling development over the weekend. The Washington Post told the truth.

In a surprising editorial, The Washington Post deviated from the conventional anti-Bush media position on two counts. It said President Bush was right to declassify parts of a National Intelligence Estimate to make clear why he thought Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. And the editorial said ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson was wrong to think he had debunked Bush on the nuclear charge because Wilson's statements after visiting Niger actually "supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium."
In the orthodox narrative line, Wilson is the truth-teller and the Bush is the liar. But Wilson was not speaking truthfully when he said his wife, Valerie Plame, had nothing to do with the CIA sending him to Niger. And it obviously wasn't true, as Wilson claimed, that he had found nothing to support Bush's charge about Niger when he (Wilson) had been told that the Iraqis were poking around in that uranium-rich nation.

This bizarre turn of events prompted an explanatory column by the Post's ombudsman to mollify outraged leftists.

Boycott Hilton Hotels

Fran O'Brien's, a well-known Washington, DC steakhouse is being kicked out of the Hilton Hotel there because of its tradition of offering free steak dinners to Iraq war veterans who are recouperating at Walter Reed Hospital. The veterans expose, among other things, that the Hilton is not in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Jim Mayer, a veteran who works at the Department of Veterans Affairs and who helped start the steak dinner tradition, is concerned that the hotel wants to eliminate the spectacle of hundreds of severely disabled soldiers coming in and out of its building or that the restaurant's repeated requests for a new elevator or escalator to accommodate them was too much.

Meanwhile, our allies the Italians are better Americans the Hilton Hotel chain.

O'Brien's intends to hold two more Friday night dinners. In the meantime, the Italian Embassy has called O'Brien, offering its digs for the dinners until he comes up with another plan.

The Black Heart of Liberalism

Liberalism is an angry ideology. What liberal do you know who is not at the very least, chronically indignant.
Here's an article in the Washington Post that is about as accurate an example of today's liberal.

In the angry life of Maryscott O'Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and her family is asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, O'Connor, 37, is out of bed and heading toward her computer.

Out there, awaiting her building fury: the Angry Left, where O'Connor's reputation is as one of the angriest of all. "One long, sustained scream" is how she describes the writing she does for various Web logs, as she wonders what she should scream about this day.

She smokes a cigarette. Should it be about Bush, whom she considers "malevolent," a "sociopath" and "the Antichrist"? She smokes another cigarette. Should it be about Vice President Cheney, whom she thinks of as "Satan," or about Karl Rove, "the devil"? Should it be about the "evil" Republican Party, or the "weaselly, capitulating, self-aggrandizing, self-serving" Democrats, or the Catholic Church, for which she says "I have a special place in my heart . . . a burning, sizzling, putrescent place where the guilty suffer the tortures of the damned"?

I really pity her family. What must it be like to be married to someone who is so angry all the time? I actually know and work with people like this. Their happiness is actually dictated by who wins elections. And of course, every one of these people is a liberal.

It's Not As Though The Networks Are Sensitive to Religion

MTV used a cartoon advertisement that makes fun of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

As Christians around the world prepare for Easter, magazine readers in Germany were confronted this week by full-page advertisements depicting Jesus, wearing a crown of thorns but descended from the cross, enjoying a television program.

"Laughing rather than hanging around," (Lachen statt rumhaengen) reads the tagline of the ad, which has drawn strong protests in Germany, where two-thirds of the population identifies as Christian.

But no bombs or beheadings, as you've surely noticed.

Cowardly Central

In one, yellow-bellied action, Comedy Central has forfeited all claims to the cutting edge.

The network's decision was made over concerns for public safety, the person said. Comedy Central said in a statement issued yesterday: 'In light of recent world events, we feel we made the right decision.' "

"Recent world events" is the phrase tiptoeing television executives use when referring to the insane embassy burnings, deadly riots, and murder-minded Muslim fanatics who wielded machetes and placards threatening to "BEHEAD ALL THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM" over a bunch of cartoons in Denmark mildly critical of Islamofascism.

Parker and Stone vividly underscored Comedy Central's selective standards of religious sensitivity by featuring offensive images on Wednesday's show that the network did not choose to censor even during Easter Week - images of Jesus Christ defecating on President Bush and the American flag. The real-life analogy is The New York Times, which has blithely run photos of the Virgin Mary coated in animal dung while refusing to run the Mohammed cartoons out of respect for Islam and a need to "refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols."

Christians, you see, don't have politically correct protected status. That privilege is bestowed only on riotous Muslims and celebrity Scientologists (Comedy Central recently pulled a "South Park" episode satirizing the latter). In fact, the day after the Mohammed "South Park" blackout, MTV (owned by Comedy Central's parent company, Viacom) announced plans to air a pope-bashing cartoon in Germany depicting the pontiff as a pogo-stick-riding loon.

As you would expect, Michelle Malkin is all over this with loads of great spoofs on her website.

Courting the Criminal Vote

Clearly unnerved by the narrow margin of victory that imaginary votes, duplicate votes, and suppressed votes gained them in the 2004 Washington State gubernatorial election, some on the left are now paving the way for the participation of another reliable Democratic Party voting block – the criminal vote. Nationally, Democrats from Hillary Clinton to Jesse Jackson have advocated restoration of felons’ voting rights, knowing full well that the benefit will accrue to their political ambitions.
In 2004, at least 544 felons were identified as having cast votes illegally in the governor’s race. If we assume that Washington’s felons’ voting patterns resemble those seen in other states, then this was more than enough to provide Christine Gregoire’s margin of victory, which officially stands at 129 votes,. In the 2004 Florida election, between 5,000 and 10,000 felons illegally cast votes and went for the Democrats at an 85% rate. This is about what is seen nationwide. It’s no wonder that Ms. Clinton has made the criminal vote such a legislative priority. They’re her natural constituency. Not even teachers’ unions are so loyal.
Late last month, the ACLU won a court case that restored voting privileges to thousands of Washington state felons. Current law permits felons to have their voting privileges restored only after they have completed the terms of their sentences, including community service, probation, court fines and fees. King County Superior Court judge Michael Spearman ordained that voting rights should not be based upon the ability to pay and restored voting privileges for all who had served their time in the jug, but had not yet settled up on their fines.
Governor Gregoire publicly expressed her approval of the judge’s ruling in solemn terms, but in private was undoubtedly celebrating the judgment with a lot of fist-pumping and high-fives with her closest political allies.
While graciously allowing that felons should not vote while in prison, she did not approve of withholding the right to vote until the entire debt to society is paid: "[O]nce they have served their time, withholding certain rights due to fines becomes a virtual debtors' prison."
Democrats often rely upon the courts to achieve those ends that they lack the courage to champion either democratically or legislatively. You don’t suppose that they fear being held accountable for such views by the voters, do you?
As Attorney General, Gregoire used the court to subvert the clear intention of a voter-approved initiative that banned the use of union dues for partisan political purposes. She did this so that the Washington Education Association could continue to funnel its members’ forcibly extracted dues into Democratic campaign coffers. The union undoubtedly repaid that debt by purchasing far more than 129 votes that gained Gregoire her current job. Her history shows that she is not one to allow her insatiable political ambitions to be impeded by election laws.
It’s not surprising that Democrats would seek to incorporate new victims groups into their coalition of the aggrieved. The Democrats’ declining ability to attract mainstream voters to their banner has certainly contributed to their electoral decline over the past couple of decades. As their activist base has swung further and further toward the extreme left, the party has had to abandon the ideological center to keep money flowing in from the passionate extremists. Every day “Reagan Democrats” find themselves ideologically abandoned by a party that embraces Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink and MoveOn.org more tightly than the working man.
This has inspired the Democrats to increase their reliance upon, what I shall delicately refer to as, “fringe voters.” This was most obviously manifested in the 1996 election when the Clinton/Gore administration accelerated the citizenship applications of hundreds of thousands of immigrants so that they could quickly be registered as Democrats in time to ward off the Bob Dole juggernaut that threatened their second term. Many of these voters should not have qualified for citizenship based upon criminal records, among other things.
Gregoire’s successor as Attorney General, Rob McKenna and Secretary of State, Sam Reed, have promised to appeal this decision. Certainly states should have the authority to determine when a debt to society is paid. And if Democrats really want the felons’ vote, they should say so and pursue that goal in the daylight, where the law-abiding voters can see it happening and pass their own judgment.

Religion of Peace Update

Iran's on the verge of getting the bomb. On the other hand, enriched uranium and peace to hand in hand. This picture proves it.

Global Warming Equals Weaker, Fewer Hurricanes

The global warming alarmists have been quick to blame global warming for last year's severe hurricane season. But, the very models that global warming enthusiasts rely upon predict fewer, weaker storms.

If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.

This Brochure Says It All

The Democrats will do anything for votes. This was an actual brochures passed out by Democrats at an immigration law protest rally.

No Need to Kill Babies

Scientists have now grown a complex, replacement organ for humans using their own adult stem cells.

The once-fanciful dream of regrowing the heart and other failing organs has suddenly edged closer to reality: The first complex organ, the bladder, has been rebuilt in seven patients from living tissue cultivated in the lab.

“It’s really science fiction at its best,” marvels Tracy McNamara whose daughter got one of the first transplants and is living a more normal life because of it.

The breakthrough was reported online Tuesday in The Lancet medical journal where doctors explained how they mostly replaced diseased bladders from seven youngsters with tissue grown from the patients’ own cells. Though simpler tissues like skin and bone have been regrown and transplanted, this is the first time it has been accomplished with a more complex organ.

No babies were harmed in making this stupendous medical advancement.

Another Good Reason not to Rebuild New Orleans

Had we known as much then as we know now about New Orleans and it geology, we never would have built a city there in the first place. Well, we have a second chance. Don't rebuild.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

Why the hell not? And besides, it's banned at Borders.

Cynthia McKinney, Original Thinker

Guess what? Cynthia McKinney, who faces arrest for assaulting a police officer is blaming her legal difficulties on racism. I wonder how long she had to consider her options before thinking that one up?

"There were two avenues she could take, one being the high road — admitting her error — and the other is to use the race card simply because the officer was trying to do his job," said Peacock, Dekalb County delegate to the Fraternal Order of Police.