Democrats Are Crazy

I knew that Democrats were nuts. I only had to look at polls showing that a plurality believed 9/11 conspiracy theories. But now, there's a survey showing that, yes, Democrats are much crazier than Republicans.

Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent, according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans report having excellent mental health, compared to 43% of independents and 38% of Democrats. This relationship between party identification and reports of excellent mental health persists even within categories of income, age, gender, church attendance, and education.

So, 62% of Democrats agree that they are nuts.

Global Warming Causes Everything

This article, referenced by Rush Limbaugh Thursday, compiles a list of all the maladies ascribed by the mainstream media to global warming.

Not listed here is CNN's Bill Schneider, whom I heard say with my own ears, that the Asian tsunami was caused by global warming.

Truth Hurts or, The Wisdom Of Yogi Berra

Once again, what's good for America is a problem for Democrats. What does this say about the majority party? Nothing good.

That was then.



This is now.

As Yogi Berra once opined, you can observe a lot, just by watching.

CNN's Willful Blindness

In two consecutive debates now, CNN was gamed by Democrats. The biggest problem is that these plants were easily discoverable, if CNN had only taken the time to look.

Michele Malkin dredges up a beautifully ironic comment from a CNN senior vice president:

The Web is still too immature a medium to set an agenda for a national debate, he claimed. "It's really easy for the campaigns to game the system."

"You've seen how effective the Ron Paul campaign [supporters] have been on the Web," he noted. "You don't know if there are 40 or 4 million of them. It would be easy for a really organized campaign to stack the deck."

What does Bohrman have to say about his crack staff now?

Moscow Mayor's Naive Cynicism

I did a little investigation and I can confidently report to you that it was illegal to commit murder in Moscow on that sad day last spring when Jason Hamilton went on his rampage. Before taking his own life, Hamilton had allegedly murdered his wife, a Moscow police officer and a church caretaker.
Moscow mayor Nancy Chaney responded as one would predict of a liberal – by advocating gun control. Specifically, she seemed to take note that some of the shots had been fired from the city hall parking lot and therefore concluded that a law forbidding firearms on city property would have mitigated the disaster. Presumably Jason Hamilton would have respected this law and attempted longer and more difficult shots from the street.
Mayor Chaney’s clichéd and insensitive San Francisco liberal-style reaction to this tragedy exposes her as either childishly naive, or cynically opportunistic. After all, addressing violent crime with gun control makes about as much sense as fighting obesity with spoon control. If Nancy Chaney is in fact clever enough to understand that, then she is in fact chillingly cynical. I suspect that she is both.
It takes a special sort of cynicism to exploit politically such a tragedy as was visited on Moscow last May. Surely Nancy Chaney cannot honestly believe that a law such as her proposed gun control ordinance would in any way have altered the events of that terrible night. But political opportunism is so deeply ingrained into the political leftwing that nothing is above politics. They will even turn a solemn memorial into a political rally, as Democrats did when they laid the late Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota to rest in 2002.
But if she is cynical, she is certainly naive as well. Rebuffed in her initial efforts to enact her silly law by an inconvenience known as “state law,” she has cooked up another scheme: Change the law.
Idaho representative Shirley Ringo has allied herself with Chaney and hopes to introduce the legislation when the legislature next convenes, where it will meet a predictable fate. Ringo’s bill will not be voted out of committee, it will be laughed out of committee.
If it were not already fated to fail, Nancy Chaney made matters worse with her new and improved explanation for why such a law is needed. She now argues that debate in city hall will be more free and open if participants can feel confident that they won’t get shot by someone holding an opposing viewpoint. That’s been a real problem in Idaho, hasn’t it?
Such nonsense reveals Chaney’s naive side.
Does Nancy Chaney really believe that one of those knuckle dragging Idaho rednecks with a gun rack in his high-rise four-wheel drive pickup is going to shoot her? If so, then that’s probably another manifestation of the same elitist cultural bigotry that informs her opposition to Wal-Mart, Lowe’s hardware stores, and churches that don’t preach a message consistent with her own belief system.
You can certainly see her point. The parking lots of places like that will fill up with just the sort of people that make a liberal’s skin crawl.
The truth is that if anybody on the Palouse needs to fear retaliation for expressing an unapproved opinion, it would be conservatives on college campuses.
One of the hallmarks of a totalitarian state is that everything is political. So it should surprise no one that the phrase, “the personal is political” would have arisen from the leftwing kookiest fringes. What is sad is that this thinking has made its way into mainstream liberal ideology.
Surely Nancy Chaney knows that her silly law would not have discouraged Jason Hamilton’s rampage. And she knows that nobody refrains from speaking up at city council meetings for fear of getting shot by some guy wearing a red plaid flannel shirt and suspenders. It’s just that gun control is a one of the sacraments in the religion of liberalism. In the Jason Hamilton tragedy, Mayor Chaney saw an opportunity to exploit the city’s sorrow and pass a pointless law that would earn her one of the more cherished merit badges handed out by the high priests of the left.
And as the mood of the voters as expressed in the last election portends ill for her re-election, she’s running out of time to get it done.

John Kerry Tries To Bore Opponents to Death

John Kerry claimed to have finally assembled evidence that disproved the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth's accusations against him in the 2004 presidential campaign.

T. Boone Pickens called his bluff and offered Kerry one million dollars "to anyone who could show that anything the SBVT said was false."

So far, Kerry hasn't refuted anything, but he is retreating into his usual blizzard of tedium.

CNN - The Most Busted Name In News

Once again, a CNN debate was infested with Democratic Party plants. Considering how easy it was for conservatives to uncover who these people really are, one must assume that CNN is either incredibly lazy or a willing stooge of the Democrats.

Update: CNN goes into full CYA mode.

Another Clinton Flip Flop

Now, Bill Clinton says that he always opposed the Iraq War. That's a lie, but it's not news.

The news it that the MSM is reporting it as such.



More interesting to me was that ABC News this morning played the whole statement in context and nobody could watch it and arrive at any other conclusion that we were lucky to have such a petulant, childish man with his finger on the button for 8 years. We have a chance to avoid that mistake again.

Will Ted Kennedy Tell The Truth?

Will Teddy finally tell us the truth about what happened at the Chappaquiddick bridge?

How about his attempts to conduct back channel negotiations with the Soviet Union in an attempt to undermine US anti-communist foreign policy?

And will he finally tell us what happened to his pants?

"This is the same Kennedy who was the overwhelmed kid brother in 1963, who had to wear a pair of his dead brother's formal pants because he couldn't find his own, who couldn't bring himself to recite JFK's words at the burial service."

Huma Abedin - International Woman Of Mystery

Who is Huma Abedin? She's icier than Hillary. She might be Hillary's lesbian lover.


She's also supposedly gorgeous, although we all know that standards for Democrat women are considerably lower than Republicans'.


Interestingly, a Yahoo search for a picture returned no results, although similar search on Google turned up quite a few, including this one. I think she'd pass for a Republican.


It's rumored that she lives with the Clintons, which might be keeping Bill happy too.


Update: Anthony Weiner has the hots for Huma!

We can add one more piece of the Huma Abedin jigsaw puzzle: She has very poor judgement when it comes to men.

Asked by The Associated Press about all the time he's spending on the road campaigning for Clinton, the 43-year-old bachelor said, "It's largely because I'm dating Huma."

The UN's Fog Of Bullshit

The UN has been caught in another lie. And Michael Fumento once again shows why people seeking honesty should not look in the direction of the United Nations.


The UNAIDS program has issued its annual report in which, finally, it doesn't say how many more current HIV infections there are this year than last. Rather it drops the figure by over six million from its 2006 estimate. Specifically, it went from 39.5 million to 33.2 million. Further, the Agency now admits the number of new HIV infections per year peaked way back around 1998.

For years, some of us have dared write that worldwide HIV and AIDS figures have been grossly exaggerated; that we were being lied to by just about everybody, including -- or especially -- the UNAIDS program and the World Health Organization.

For example, pious Peter Piot, executive director of the UNAIDS program since its founding, in 2004 bemoaned that "Projections now suggest that some countries in sub-Saharan African will face economic collapse unless they bring their epidemics under control." (Emphasis added.) Obviously he knew whereof he spoke; he'd been using those exact words for at least five years.

Just last year, former President Bill Clinton told attendees at the International AIDS Conference: "It's difficult to imagine how the world can grow unless we tackle AIDS." Never mind that world population growth is fastest in areas hardest hit by AIDS.

In 1988, a high Ugandan official on ABC News' Nightline said that within two years his nation will "be a desert." Nightline's reporter declared that by 2000 "50 million Africans may have died of AIDS." Yet Uganda's population has since increased by over a third and is among the fastest-growing in the world. As to the 50 million death figure, seven years after that prediction was to come to fruition, the worldwide AIDS estimate is just over half that.

Those who have criticized such gross exaggerations, as I did in my 1990 book The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, were labeled liars ourselves, whackos, racists, and variety of other colorful epithets. Now I'm being told I should gloat; but personally I'm too busy shaking my head and wondering how despite our best efforts the AIDS alarmists were able to sustain their fiction for so long.

Meanwhile, that other fount of all wisdom has the highest AIDS infection in the United States.

Meanwhile, ABC could stand geography lessons.

Hillary: Shoot The Messenger

When the polling news looks bad for Saint Hillary, it's the bearer of the bad tidings who gets the blame.

All is fair in love and war, the centuries–old proverb states. Politics is not included, but given the way the game is played in modern–day America, maybe it should be. That’s the sense I had again this morning watching Mark Penn, the chief political strategist for Democrat Hillary Clinton, denigrate our latest Zogby Interactive survey simply because it showed his client in a bad light. Penn made the contention on the MSNBC morning news program hosted by Joe Scarborough.

Penn mischaracterized this latest online Zogby poll as our first interactive survey ever – a bizarre contention, since we have been developing and perfecting our Internet polling methodology for nearly a decade, and since Penn’s company has been quietly requesting the results of such polls from Zogby for years. We always comply as part of our pledge to give public Zogby polling results to any and every candidate and campaign that asks for them. What is interesting is that no other campaign has made as many requests for Zogby polling data over the years than Penn has made on behalf of Clinton.

Because Mark Penn is a quality pollster himself, we chalk up his contention that our poll is “meaningless” as a knee–jerk reaction by a campaign under pressure coming down the stretch. Several other polls – Zogby surveys and others – have shown her national lead and her leads in early–voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire have shrunk. This is not unusual. These presidential contests usually tighten as the primaries and caucuses approach.

Fritz Wenzel
Director of Communications
Zogby International

Those Frisky French "Youths" Party Down Dude

It's time once again to play, "Name That Religion!"

Actually, this one isn't too bad, by the AP's depressingly low standards. You can find the word "Arab" in the fifth paragraph, which is unusually informative for an Associate Press story. If you couldn't guess which faith animates these thugs before then, you should be able to now.

There is still the usual bullshit blaming French society for the "youths'" behavior.

Youths, many of them Arab and black children of immigrants, again appeared to be lashing out at police and other targets seen to represent a French establishment they feel has left them behind.

Those on the front lines see it a little differently.

"I don't think it's an ethnic problem," Wiart said. "Most of all it is youths who reject all state authority. They attack firefighters, everything that represents the state."

Is There A Greater Insult Than To Be Granted An Exlusive Interview With Hillary Clinton?

CBS was very proud that the perky Katie Couric was granted an exclusive interview with Hillary Clinton. Considering that Hillary doesn't like taking tough questions from journalists, I would think that an invitation to an exclusive interview as conclusive evidence that the Clinton campaign is confident that you are not capable of asking tough questions.

The Clinton Campaign was right.

“In an exclusive one-on-one interview,” Couric trumpeted, “Clinton exudes confidence.”

Couric's questions to the Democratic frontrunner in the excerpt aired at the start of the CBS Evening News: Why she's launched a “more aggressive” campaign, how does she “feel” about Oprah Winfrey campaigning for Barack Obama, and “how disappointed” she'll be if she loses the nomination?

Good News For Democrats

It's not official. A majority of Americans are now idiots.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government had warnings about 9/11 but decided to ignore them, a national survey found.

And that's not the only conspiracy theory with a huge number of true believers in the United States.

The poll found that more than one out of three Americans believe Washington is concealing the truth about UFOs and the Kennedy assassination - and most everyone is sure the rise in gas prices is one vast oil-industry conspiracy.

Those Frisky French Youths Are At It Again

In this country, it's often fun to play "name that party" whenever there's a bit or criminal behavior on the part of a politician. (Hint: If it's not mentioned in the first paragraph, the crook is almost certainly a Democrat.)

In France, when "youths" go on the rampage, you have to guess the ethnic/religious origins of the troublemakers. (Hint: They're the same bunch who've been rioting off and on and torching cars for years.)

Let's see if the French are fast learners or not. As the story reports:

A recent study by the state auditor's office indicated that money poured into poor French suburbs in recent decades had done little to solve problems vividly exposed by the 2005 riots, including discrimination, unemployment and alienation from mainstream society.

Clearly American reporters haven't learned anything: Discrimination by native French is not the problem.

Back From Vacation

You might not think that California is a good place to get away from it all, but there are regions there that have just recently gotten land line telephone service. Cell phone service is very spotty at best and internet is essentially non-existent. It's hard to even find a daily newspaper.
I spent the last five days in one of those places and I could get used to it. I had good hikes, good food, and took lots of good pictures.
I'll probably be back in the blogging groove sometime tomorrow.
In the meantime, check out the picture of a family of sea otters I discovered swimming in an inlet.

A Blizzard Of Squirrel News

You know its slow when the mainstream media start making a big deal about shark attacks. It must be really slow when squirrels are headline news.

Squirrels Cut Power in Two Midwestern Cities.

Brian Elwood, a spokesman for Xcel Energy, said a squirrel came in contact with an overhead transformer and knocked out service to 177 customers Monday. Power was fully restored in just under an hour, and repair crews found the remains of the "unfortunate squirrel," he said.

By coincidence, another squirrel got into a substation 40 miles away in Ironwood, Mich., Monday morning and caused a temporary outage that affected about 1,400 customers in Ironwood and two nearby communities, Elwood said.

Mystery Animal Squirrel, Not Orangutan

An animal sneaking around Baker County is not an orangutan as originally thought but likely a fox squirrel, state wildlife officials said Friday. Officers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission laid doughnuts at a base of a tree after residents reported seeing a "big orange ball of fur."

The animal was probably an orange phase fox squirrel, Fish and Wildlife investigator Ken Holmes told The Florida Times-Union. The red-orange animals can grow to be about 2 feet tall and can climb in trees.

"I'll be astonished if it's an orangutan," Holmes said. "I can quite confidently say it's probably not an orangutan."

He said the animal's eating habits did not match with the patterns of a primate.

New Jersey Squirrels OK To Eat

Squirrel eaters in the US state of New Jersey have been told that the bushy-tailed rodents are likely safe to eat, after earlier being advised the unlikely delicacies could contain toxic metals.

Another explanation for the flurry of squirrel news is that the traditional Thanksgiving homeless stories are turning off news consumers.

Too Fat For New Zealand

A portly British woman is being banned from New Zealand for obesity.

A British woman planning to start a new life with her husband in New Zealand has been banned from entering the country - because she is too fat.

Rowan Trezise, 33, has been left behind in England while her husband Richie, 35, has already made the move down under leaving her desperately trying to lose weight.

When the couple first tried to gain entry to the country they were told that they were both overweight and were a potential burden on the health care system.

If we could kick Rosie O'Donnell and Michael Moore out of the country, then maybe I could learn to like socialized medicine after all.

We're Only In It For The Money

It turns out that the Iraqi insurgency was a coalition of the bribed.

"I was out of work and needed the money," said Abu Nawall, the nom de guerre of an unemployed metal worker who was paid as much as $1,300 a month as an insurgent. He spoke in a phone interview from an Iraqi military base where he is being detained. "How else could I support my family?"

U.S. military commanders say that insurgents across the country are increasingly motivated more by money than ideology and that a growing number of insurgent cells, struggling to pay recruits, are turning to gangster-style racketeering operations.

Gee it sounds as though the insurgency was just a bunch of mercenaries. After glorifying them for years, will the left now just say "screw them."

Guns, The Bedrock Of Civilization

Robert Heinlein said as much, though in far fewer words that: "An armed society is a polite society." The Munchkin Wrangler has elaborated nicely on Heinlein with an essay that everybody should read.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

As the legendary Arizona lawman had engraved on his Colt .45,

"Be afraid of no man,
No matter what size.
When trouble threatens, call on me,
For I shall equalize."

Celebrate National Ammo Day, November 19th.

Ethnic Grovelling Gone Awry

Hillary Clinton's tribal politics hit a snag when she decided to stiff the Sikh community in California.

And, Nancy Pelosi's cowtowing to racial politics has led her to toss the Salvation Army under the bus to appease leftwing Hispanic activists within her party.

Prissy Artistic Cowards

Artists frequently congratulate each other when they courageously exercise their legally protected right criticize their government.

So why don't they criticize radical Islam? They're scared.

Britain’s contemporary artists are fêted around the world for their willingness to shock but fear is preventing them from tackling Islamic fundamentalism. Grayson Perry, the cross-dressing potter, Turner Prize winner and former Times columnist, said that he had consciously avoided commenting on radical Islam in his otherwise highly provocative body of work because of the threat of reprisals.

Perry also believes that many of his fellow visual artists have also ducked the issue, and one leading British gallery director told The Times that few major venues would be prepared to show potentially inflammatory works.

“I’ve censored myself,” Perry said at a discussion on art and politics organised by the Art Fund. “The reason I haven’t gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat.”

It's a good thing that civilization does not depend upon its most annoying critics for survival.

Judge John Edwards By The Company He Keeps

George Will gives us a peak at the environment that incubated the latest scam artist promising to clean up Washington.

Since 1965, the firm has won, often by tactics indistinguishable from extortion, $45 billion from corporations -- more than $1 billion a year for plaintiffs claiming to have been cheated as investors. Plaintiffs firms such as Milberg Weiss are paid contingency fees -- they are paid only if they win, but up to 30 percent of what is won. Mel Weiss, whose case is going to trial, and his former partner, Bill Lerach, who specialized in volatile stocks of Silicon Valley companies in the 1990s and is now going to jail, each pocketed -- it would be strange to say they earned -- more than $100 million in the 1990s. The firm itself has been charged with paying $11.4 million to three serial plaintiffs who testified in 180 cases over 25 years, claiming to have been repeatedly defrauded.

A Remarkable Success! The Surge That Is

That's the opinion of that right wing rag, The Washington Post.

THE EVIDENCE is now overwhelming that the "surge" of U.S. military forces in Iraq this year has been, in purely military terms, a remarkable success. By every metric used to measure the war -- total attacks, U.S. casualties, Iraqi casualties, suicide bombings, roadside bombs -- there has been an enormous improvement since January. U.S. commanders report that al-Qaeda has been cleared from large areas it once controlled and that its remaining forces in Iraq are reeling. Markets in Baghdad are reopening, and the curfew is being eased; the huge refugee flow out of the country has begun to reverse itself. Credit for these achievements belongs in large part to U.S. soldiers in Iraq, who took on a tremendously challenging new counterterrorism strategy and made it work; to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of that strategy; and to President Bush, for making the decision to launch the surge against the advice of most of Congress and the country's foreign policy elite.

Who doesn't get it? The Democrats, of course.

Iraq's politicians aren't the only ones suffering from inertia. On Wednesday, House Democrats passed an Iraq spending bill that would have required Gen. Petraeus to abort his successful strategy, limit operations to counterterrorism and training, and withdraw all troops by the end of next year. Democratic leaders acted as if nothing has changed in Iraq since January. Perhaps the most charitable interpretation of their initiative is that they knew it would never survive scrutiny by the Senate, which promptly killed it.

That's a very charitable interpretation. The more likely interpretation is that the Democrats are rushing to surrender before victory can solidify.

Metal Storm Reaches Navy Test Range

You don't want to be on the wrong end of this puppy! How does a firing rate of a million rounds per minute sound? Makes the 6000 rounds per minute of a minigun sound pretty tame by comparison.

Brisbane, Australia-based Metal Storm has delivered a four-barrel weapon to the Naval Surface Warfare Center for testing that uses a small electrical current instead a conventional firing pin to deliver stacked rounds at an astounding rate.

How astounding? Try 1 million rounds per minute. That's the rate, by the way, not the volume; still, there's no way you want to be anywhere near the wrong end of one of these puppies.

One version, the Redback, features a remotely operated 40mm that can automatically track targets by slewing around at almost 2 complete revolutions per second, according to the company. "The employment of Metal Storm's stacked round technology for a U.S. military weapon system is a huge step for us," Metal Storm CEO Lee Finniear said in the company's press release.

Rail guns and Metal Storm - the bad guys have even more to fear from the good guys every day.

CNN - Suckers for Blondes? Or, Stupid White Men For Hillary

Researchers have found that blonde women make men dumber.

Researchers discovered what might be called the “bimbo delusion” by studying men’s ability to complete general knowledge tests after exposure to different women. The academics found that men’s scores fell after they were shown pictures of blondes.

Further analysis convinced the team that, rather than simply being distracted by the flaxen hair, those who performed poorly had been unconsciously driven by social stereotypes to “think blonde”.

“This proves that people confronted with stereotypes generally behave in line with them,” said Thierry Meyer, joint author of the study and professor of social psychology at the University of Paris X-Nanterre. “In this case blondes have the potential to make people act in a dumber way, because they mimic the unconscious stereotype of the dumb blonde.”

So, this begs the question: Does Hillary dye her hair to keep her fan base stupid?

Fighting The Last War

John Kerry is taking a break from trying to lose this war to re-fight the last battle he lost.

Renewing a debate that raged through much of the 2004 presidential race, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., on Friday accepted Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens' offer to pay $1 million to anyone who can disprove allegations by veterans who disparaged Kerry's Vietnam War record.

Kerry and his top aides said that failing to respond more quickly and aggressively to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads had been a mistake, and they attributed the Democrat's narrow loss to President Bush, in part, to the attacks.

Kerry said Friday that he would no longer let such challenges go unanswered.

"I welcome the opportunity to prove that you are a man of your word and that the so-called 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' lied," Kerry wrote to Pickens.

Pickens was one of the principal financial backers of television ads that alleged Kerry, a Navy veteran, had lied about his war experiences, didn't deserve his medals and betrayed soldiers with his vehement protests after the war.

The Texas billionaire, a prominent supporter of Bush and other Republicans, made his $1 million challenge at a Nov. 6 dinner in Washington sponsored by The American Spectator magazine.

This is just what the Democrats need - one of their most colorless politicians ever re-emerging to remind America just what the Democrats are really all about.

Obama's Balls Follow Wolf Blitzer's Into The Box

Hillary Clinton's thugs clearly frightened Wolf Blitzer into submission, and now they're setting to work on Barack Obama.

According to Clinton's whisperers, Hillary has dug us some serious dirt on Obama, but has magnanimously decided not to use it - yet.

Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party's presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed.

This word-of-mouth among Democrats makes Obama look vulnerable and Clinton look prudent. It comes during a dip for the front-running Clinton after she refused to take a stand on New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's now discarded plan to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens.

So, Hillary gets to appear above it all, while warning Obama that his balls are hers. Well, at least he has Wolf Blitzer for company.

CNN - No Ethics

To this day, liberals are still critical of George Will for not disclosing his association with Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign.

So, why did CNN seek out James Carville's analysis of Hillary Clinton's performance after last night's (11-15-2007) debate.

CNN seemed to go out of its way to violate just about every journalist ethic - including this one.

But, considering how CNN has conducted itself in the past, this shouldn't surprise anyone. In 1992, Larry King was interviewing President George H. W. Bush, when a caller into the program just happened to be George Stephanopoulos, Bill Clinton's communications director.

Nancy Chaney, Queen of the Palouse

When I went over my ballot the other day, considering whom and what I would be voting for and against, I couldn’t help but notice that one name was missing – Nancy Chaney’s. I turned my ballot over several times searching. Surely this must be a mistake. But no, her name was not to be found anywhere.
How could that be? I had just been reading in my local paper about how Ms. Chaney was working to micromanage economic development policy in Whitman County, which is another way of saying that she is doing her level best to frustrate economic development in Whitman County. Surely as a resident of Whitman County, I should have the opportunity to vote someone out of office whose economic policies I find offensive. But Ms. Chaney does not have to stand for election in Whitman County. So if I can’t vote against her, then why should she have the authority to intervene in the economic affairs of Pullman, Washington, Whitman County and the state of Washington?
Nancy Chaney and her now depleted gang of henchmen have made it their business to micromanage and massage economic development in Moscow and the Palouse at large. As far as I can tell, their goal was to achieve a harmonic convergence of health food stores, head shops, locally owned bookstores and restaurants, handicraft peddlers, and just enough high paying, high tech engineering firms to keep the aforementioned hippie commune afloat. And oh, yeah, it all works best with a steady infusion of public money channeled through higher education. Ideally, all commerce would be conducted at the Farmer’s Market.
What Nancy Chaney and her allied ex-councilmen and women sought was nothing less than to remove the market from the marketplace.
The Nancy Chaney economic model suffered from a number of fatal flaws, the most glaring of which has been the limitation of her power to the Moscow city limits. When a proposed Wal-Mart superstore was judged a poor fit for the cultural facade that the Chaney bloc envisioned for their little utopia, Wal-Mart was told to take it elsewhere – which it did, just outside the city limits in Latah County. Wal-Mart’s new store will be casting its shadow on the Moscow city limits, but it won’t be paying any taxes into the treasury. And it will draw consumers away from other Moscow businesses.
Although frustrated in her efforts to dictate Latah County policy, she has seen fit to interfere in the affairs of a state, county and a city, where no one has the power to vote her out of office. Hawkins, a Boise-based developer, is planning to build a 700,000 square foot shopping mall in Whitman County, just across the state line from Moscow. Again, a big retailer’s building will cast shadows on the Moscow city limits. Since the mall will be closer to Moscow than Pullman, its location plainly indicates the developer’s desire to attract Moscow shoppers while avoiding Moscow’s notoriously anti-business climate.
Closing the deal depends upon the successful transfer of groundwater rights to Hawkins and the company purchased and applied to transfer three such water rights. Two of the three were approved by the Washington State Department of Ecology. The third, and largest transfer, was denied. This was a surface water diversion involving the South Fork of the Palouse River. It was denied because the DOE deemed that Hawkins’ plan failed to adequately mitigate effects on Paradise Creek.
For much of the summer and early fall, Paradise Creek is little more than treated effluent from Moscow’s sewage treatment plant. To call that Paradise, and demand that Hawkins remediate its effects on that ditch before it can build, strikes this observer as ironic. But even as Hawkins appealed that one silly denial, Nancy Chaney appealed the water rights transfers that the Washington Department of Ecology did approve.
“It has nothing to do with economic development and it has everything to do with water,” she said. Somehow, if the water were needed within Moscow city limits to fill hooka pipes, she would find that a thoroughly appropriate use of the groundwater.
I would like to propose a deal with Queen Nancy. She can stick her nose into Whitman County’s business when Whitman County voters are allowed to vote in Moscow elections. As poorly as her anti-business block fared recently, she might take the deal.

Hillary's Twisted Record

Let's see now. First she was for drivers licenses for illegal aliens, but now she's against drivers licenses for illegal aliens.

And she's accusing her opponents of "twisting" her record.

She insists that the American people, "know where I stand."

Really? I don't have a clue.

And Yet Another Grim Milestone Ignored By The Press

Roadside bomb attacks are down sharply. In particular "explosively formed penetrator" bomb attacks are down, indicating that the supply line from Iran has been disrupted.

So far, we passed 3000 bomb attacks and 2000 attacks per month. And, we're on our way to 1000.

Another Grim Milestone

The world has suffered its 10,000th Islamic terrorist attack since September 11, 2001.

The establishment media is seemingly obsessed with “grim milestones” in the War on Terror, as the Associated Press reminds us this past weekend. But in the next week those same establishment media outlets will probably stand mute when yet another “grim milestone” is reached – the10,000th attack by Islamic terrorists and militants since 9/11, which is responsible for approximately 60,000 dead and 90,000 injured.

I'm expecting another grim milestone to be passed soon. Has anyone counted the number of stories either ignored or misreported that favored our enemy?

I Blame George Bush

It seems that everyone is cuddling up to the United States these days.

I still hear Democrats complain about how George Bush has destroyed America's reputation in the world. They might be right. Nobody looks at the US as a wimp to push around anymore.

Are Democrats Suffering O. J. Envy?

Okay, we all know how unpopular George W. Bush is. We also know that the Democrats running Congress are even less highly thought of. But, who would have guessed that the Democrats are less popular that O.J. Simpson.

We have a president with a near record-low job performance rating – 24 percent. (The record lows were Harry Truman after he fired Douglas MacArthur, and Richard Nixon the day before he resigned. Both were at 23 percent. )


But the Democrats who run Congress have an 11 percent job approval rating. Let’s just note that in my polling in 1995, O.J. Simpson was at 16 percent.

Hat tip: The Blogfather

Hollywood Medicine

What drives medical research? Guess what? It's not reasoned public health concerns.

[A]ll of the recorded worldwide recorded deaths from Ebola, SARS, and avian flu to date combined — 2,621 — are fewer than the number of Americans who die of MRSA every two months. MRSA also annually kills more Americans than AIDS, yet the federal AIDS research budget is over 13 times larger than that for the whole field of antimicrobial resistance.

I guess we'll have to wait for a movie, a book, or some liberal approved victim group to complain.

The Folly of Trusting Government Global Warming Consensus

Al Gore transformed global warming alarmism into a business opportunity that made him a very, very wealthy man. He says the debate is over. Anthropogenic global warming is a fact and we should give him mountains of money to solve it.

John Stossel points out a few flaws in the process of reaching global warming consensus. The most obvious flaw is that politics is involved.

Part of the problem is the IPCC itself. Reiter points out, "It's the inter-governmental panel on climate change. It's governments who nominate people. It's inherently political. Many of the scientists are on the IPCC because they view global warming as a problem that needs to be fixed. They have a vested interest."

Phillip Stott, professor of biogeography at the University of London, says that the global warming debate has become the new "grand narrative" of the environmental movement. "It's something for people to get excited about and protest. It's more about emotion than science." While the scientists thrash things out, what are the rest of us to do?

There are good reasons to begin with a presumption against government action. As coercive monopolies that spend other people's money taken by force, governments are uniquely unqualified to solve problems. They are riddled by ignorance, perverse incentives, incompetence and self-serving. The synthetic-fuels program during the Carter years consumed billions of dollars and was finally disbanded as a failure. The push for ethanol today is more driven by special interests than good sense -- it's boosting food prices while producing a fuel of dubious environmental quality.

And, you don't suppose Al Gore has a vested interest, do you?

Another Grim Milestone For The Democrats

Zero for Forty.

Hillary Planting Questions?

Say it ain't so.



If Saint Hillary is afraid of questions from college students, how's she gonna stand up to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar Assad, Kim Jong Il or Vladimir Putin.

The presidency isn't the place for training wheels.

Racist Liberals

Blacks represent half of American AIDS victims, but only make up 1% of the AIDS quilt.

The U.S. population is about 13 percent African-American, but blacks accounted for nearly half -- or 49 percent -- of the people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in the United States in 2005, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But,

[F]ewer than 400 of 47,000 quilt panels honor African-Americans, the quilt's curator says.

That's more than enough proof to find conservatives guilty of racism.

The Exploding Whale

How could I have forgotten? Yesterday was the 37th anniversary of the great exploding whale of Florence, Oregon.

Just about everything you would ever want to know about exploding whales can be found here.

Lewis Lapham's Predictive Journalism

Okay, I admit that this is obscure, but I was somewhat amazed to learn that Lewis Lapham is launching his own magazine. Lewis Lapham is infamous for writing and publishing and account of the 2004 Republican National Convention, before the event took place.

As loathsome as I find Mr. Latham, I'll subscribe to his magazine if it will include stock quotes. I am nothing if not pragmatic.

Here is his famous article. Mind you, this appeared on the magazine rack before the doors to the convention had opened.

And remember that this "real journalist" continues to prosper in the world of mainstream journalism.

Hat tip: Mickey Kaus.

Hollywood A Casualty Of War?

It what has to qualify as the biggest crock of shit this fall, AFP tries to jerk tears by declaring Hollywood a "casualty of war."

The wave of recent films set against the backdrop of war in Iraq and post-9/11 security has failed to win over film-goers keen to escape grim news headlines when they go to the movies, analysts say.

In a break with past convention, when films based on real conflicts were made only years after the last shots were fired, several politically-charged films have gone on release while America remains embroiled in Iraq.

Almost without exception, however, the crop of movies have struggled to turn a profit at the box-office and in many cases have received a mauling from unimpressed critics as well.

Boo frigging hoo!

It seems to me that Hollywood is a casualty of its own anti-American sentiments. Americans do not like having their nation besmirched, especially during a time of war. And they certainly aren't going to reward those who attack our troops' morale.

Hollywood might want to try making a movie about the heroism of our troops an see how that works at the box office.

Dream Big

Even if your dream is to live in a giant toilet.

Carbon Offsets and the Emporer's New Clothes

Someday, historians will classify carbon credits with pet rocks – a silly wasteful fad. But, it’s also one that I wish I had thought of. Actually, I did think of pet rocks. As an act of defiance against a landlord who abruptly banned pets, I found a nice river rock and anointed it as my pet. It sat on my windowsill for years before little “pet rock” boxes appeared in stores and sold for several bucks apiece. My big opportunity - missed! H. L. Mencken was right: “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

But as dumb as pet rocks were, I really never could have imagined that there was enough guilt-ridden new money out there to make carbon credits a viable business venture. But then, it never would have occurred to me to peddle lunar real estate by

the square inch or offer to name stars after sweethearts in the “International Star Registry.”

But, while the real money is to be made selling carbon offsets to private jet-setting Hollywood charlatans, you could probably make a few bucks by selling carbon credits to carbon credit wholesalers, like Al Gore. What do you have to sell? Well you have your electric oven, your electric lights, your air conditioner and your electric space heater. You don’t even have to reduce your electricity consumption to qualify. In fact a case could be made that the more you use the more you should be rewarded.

Somewhere in the Third World, a farmer is watering his crops using a treadle pump. And, he’s receiving a few cents a day from limousine liberals for not burning coal. A treadle pump very closely resembles those stair stepper exercise machines hocked in late night cable television infomercials. The difference is that for working out on a treadle pump, the Third World farmer irrigates his crops, whereas after a couple of days, the stair stepper ends up in a corner of the basement until the next church rummage sale.

A prominent carbon credit trading company called Climate Care will actually offset Al Gore’s private jet trips by paying a Third World treadle pump operator for the carbon dioxide he is not producing by using his own legs instead of a gasoline powered pump. Or the Goracle might offset the coal burned to warm his three mansions by paying an African family to cook using dried cow pies. I am not making this up. Some carbon trader somewhere is actually counting cow flops so that he can purchase and resell the carbon dioxide that would have resulted from burning oil.

Now, one would think that we have more than enough BS in this country to offset all the carbon dioxide produced since the dawn of the industrial age. But, domestic carbon trading involves shell games as well. And these shell games should make everybody in the Northwest eligible for carbon offset payments.

In Alaska, the Yup'ik Eskimo village of Kasigluk, formed a cooperative to build a small wind farm to reduce its dependence upon diesel generators. Fuel for those generators has to be barged in, as there are no suitable roads in that area of the marshy Yukon River delta. Nobody in the village was giving a thought to saving the planet. And it isn’t even costing them anything. The money is coming from a federal grant.

But, the village is going to profit from carbon trading anyway. The carbon trading company Native Energy immediately purchased 25 years worth of imaginary carbon emissions, 9000 tons worth, for $36,000, which it can resell to starlets for several times that value. Thanks to those Eskimos, Al Gore can guiltlessly fly coast-to-coast 300 times in a private jet, and keep his three mansions warm with enough left over for John Edwards.

So why can’t Northwesterners cash in? When we use electricity here, no carbon is produced. We’re hydroelectric and nuclear baby! Every kilowatt we use deserves carbon reimbursement just a much as a treadle pump. I wouldn’t mind if my electric bill were lower.

I really wish I had thought of this carbon trading. It’s big profits with no risk or capital investment. It wouldn’t require the physical labor of harvesting, packaging and shipping pet rocks. And, it would be great for laughs. How often do you sell new clothes to the emperor?

Hillary's Staged Spontaneity

Hillary does not like unexpected questions. So she plants her own "spontaneous" questions in her audience.

What's she going to do if Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Il does something unexpected - whine about it?

John Edwards - Neocon?

Once upon a time, when hardly anyone was listening, John Edwards was very much in favor of the Iraq War.

I Know You Are, But What Am I?

The lovely John Edwards rightly criticized Slick Hillary's confused and defensive straddle on immigration policy. But, for real entertainment, ask him where he stands.

"He supports licenses as part of a path to citizenship. He doesn't support the Spitzer plan because it doesn't include a path to citizenship," said Edwards' deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince in an e-mail referring to the New York governor’s plan that prompted the question that flummoxed Clinton.

"That's not a rational position — Eliot Spitzer couldn't ever offer somebody a path to citizenship," said Margie McHugh, the Co-Director of the National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy at the Migration Policy Institute, which favors immigration reform.

"I don't know if they think you're stupid or what they think," said Frank Sharry, the executive director of the National Immigrantion Forum, another broadly pro-immigration policy shop.

Sharry laughed aloud when read Prince’s statement of Edwards’ position.

That is "sort of like saying I oppose the confederate flag in Southern states because there's not a corresponding flag burning amendment to it. It's nonsensical," Sharry said.

I have often read that John Edwards is actually thoughtful and intelligent, but no one has yet cited a single spot of evidence supporting that claim. All the evidence that I've seen is consistent with the John Edwards revealed in his immigration policy.

Hillary Proposes New Government Program

Hillary recently discovered that waitresses are a low-paid profession that relies upon tips to make ends meet.

However, she also learned that the generosity of customers is not always reliable.

"We understand that this has been a recurring problem. When I become president," she declared, "the federal government will see to it that all wait persons receive a gratuity equivalent to 20% of the bill."

Asked how she would pay for such a program, she answered, "Cigarette taxes. We pay for everything else with cigarette taxes."

Hillary Playing Prevent Defense

It seems a little early in the game to be coasting on early momentum.

If Tim Russert and Matt Lauer are too tough for Hillary, then how's she going to deal with Vladimir Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or communist China?

Oops! Never mind the Chinese - they own the Clintons.

S-Chippers Get Their Asses Handed To Them

Oregon is about as liberal as western states get. But it's not liberal enough to embrace the Democrats' idea about extending socialized health care coverage.

Oregon voters passed judgment Tuesday on a plan that would have made their state children's health insurance program "universal." Sound familiar?

It should, because Oregon reproduced the current Schip fracas in D.C. on the state level--and the referendum took a major shellacking, with voters siding three to two against. Oregon's expansion was almost identical to the one backed by Congressional Democrats, so let's conduct a post-mortem, which may also be a portent.





Like Beltway Democrats, Governor Ted Kulongoski and his legislature wanted to broaden eligibility for Oregon's "Healthy Kids" Schip program to 300% of the federal poverty level. They would also allow all families to opt in, regardless of income, though higher earners wouldn't get subsidies. Again like Congress, Salem intended to pay for the expansion with cigarette taxes, which would increase to $2.02 from $1.18 a pack. That would be one of the highest state tobacco levies in the nation.
Democrats couldn't dredge up the three-fifths approval required for a tax increase in the legislature, so they kicked the expansion over to the ballot. And already, Measure 50's defeat is being blamed on $12 million in advertising by Big Tobacco. "What happened was, the tobacco industry bought the election," Governor Kulongoski declared yesterday.

We're surprised the Governor thinks voters in his left-leaning state are so easily gulled--especially in a contest between "healthy kids" and cigarettes. More persuasive is the notion that voters didn't want to pass a state tax increase to finance a health-care expansion that Congress might soon pass, along with buckets of federal dollars. But most likely, voters understood that a tax increase on cigarettes is still a tax increase, and a highly regressive one at that. Only about 20% of Oregonians smoke, and most of those are lower income.

South Park - Banned In Britain?

It could happen.

The right to crack jokes or be rude about homosexuals could fall victim to new government laws to stamp out "homophobic" behaviour, Rowan Atkinson, the Blackadder star warned yesterday.

I suppose hip hop music would also be banned.

That is so gay.

Carbon Offsets, Capitalism To The Rescue

Carbon offsets, Al Gore style, are quite simply a sham. Little kids in the developing world are set to work operating treadle pumps so that rich elitists can fly private jets.

But now, there's a real prospect of actually removing CO2 from the atmosphere and environmentalists are against it.

The WeatherBird II, a 115-foot private research vessel, has put to sea from Florida as part of a novel and contentious effort to commercialize the removal of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by triggering blooms of plankton.

The ship is operated by Planktos, one of a host of companies involved with the fast-growing global market in “carbon offsets,” credits bought by individuals or companies seeking to compensate for carbon dioxide emissions from flying, electricity use or other energy-intensive activities.

The WeatherBird II entered international waters on Sunday, said Russ George, the chief executive of Planktos, based in Foster City, Calif.

Plankton blooms happen naturally when dust containing iron settles on ocean waters where a lack of iron otherwise prevents plankton from thriving. But efforts to replicate the process artificially have met with strong opposition from some environmental groups.

These include the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which for years has confronted, and sometimes rammed, whaling and fishing vessels. It had also planned to try to block a fertilization effort by Planktos this summer near the Galapagos Islands, but the company delayed that project for a variety of reasons, officials said.

As I've said many times before, I'll take global warming seriously when its alarmists take it seriously. That means carbon sequestration and nuclear energy.

Hillary: Coos Like A Dove And Screeches Like A Hawk

Saint Hillary">Poor Hillary.

Somehow, she just can't distance herself from herself.

Bad News For Democrats

So far, Washington election results seem to favor smaller government and lower taxes.

Throw The Kooks Out

It appears that the Seattle School Board has a lot in common with cockroaches - they don't fare well when light is shined on them.

Update: Soriano and Flynn - out.

MSNBC Achieves Balance

So, you've already got a fairly literate and articulate extreme left wing wacko doing a show. So, if you're MSNBC, what do you do to achieve balance.

Well, you add a illiterate and inarticulate extreme left wing wacko.

You see. Television news can be balanced.

Dreading Success

The New Republic is fearful that we might actually be winning in Iraq.

What do the Democrats do if--yes: if, if, if--the surge appears to have succeeded?

Gee. You'd think that The New Republic wasn't just partisan, but foreign owned.

If The Fu Hsits, Part 3.5

This really isn't about Hillary's Chinese funny money. It's about the media and their selective indignation.

When the Wall Street Journal in late August broke the fugitive Norman Hsu illegal fundraising scandal, it took ABC's World News three days to get around to reporting it -- and despite developments as the fugitive has moved through the court system, ABC hasn't mentioned him since. But after the Washington Post on Sunday disclosed the criminal past of an adviser to Fred Thompson's campaign, ABC pounced immediately with a full story Monday night. CBS also got into the action with a brief item. NBC, which waited two days to touch Hsu, got to Thompson with even less delay, citing the matter in a larger Nightly News story Sunday about Thompson's appearance on Meet the Press where Tim Russert asked him about the Post story. (In the EST and CST zones, only NBC had a newscast on Sunday night.)

Gee, you'd think that the media were ideologically biased or something.

Let's Play, "Guess That Party!"

Two people were convicted for voter fraud in Ohio.

Care to know which party they were committing fraud for? Don't expect the Associated Press to clue you in.

They Were In Yesterday's New York Times

In the war on terror, either you're with us, or you're the New York Times.




Remember the old phrase, "loose lips sinks ships?" Either the Times doesn't or they are consciously and intentionally traitorous.

Al Qaida Successful Getting Its Message Out

The Democrats may be unhappy with the job that the mainstream media is doing, but Al Qaida's just fine with it.

What's Worse Than A Hsitting Fu?

How about campaign donations from terrorists?

Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has taken thousands of dollars in cash donations from Islamists under federal investigation for terror-financing, money laundering and tax fraud, WND has learned.

The Democrat senator over the past seven months has received $1,000 from M. Yaqub Mirza and another $500 from M. Omar Ashraf, federal campaign records show. Federal agents raided the Virginia homes and offices of the Muslim donors after 9/11 for ties to terrorism.

Others tied to the still-active probe also have contributed money to Clinton, including one Muslim man who after 9/11 complained the U.S. government should focus on changing its Mideast policies instead of killing Osama bin Laden and other Islamic terrorists.

Mirza, who also has given to other candidates, including Republicans, is said to act on behalf of Saudi millionaire Yassin al-Qadi, who the U.S. Treasury Department in October 2001 blacklisted as an al-Qaida financier.

More recently, Wachovia Bank closed the accounts of a shadowy Muslim charity supported by Mirza after an entity controlled by the Pakistani immigrant donated $150,000 to the charitable front, known as FAITH. The bank in 2005 cited suspicious activity in its accounts related to possible money laundering.

Let's have a look at the special interest groups that want Hillary in the White House, Islamist terrorists and the communist Chinese government.

Two John Edwards For The Price Of One!

Which John Edwards are you voting for?

This one?

The 2004 vice presidential nominee stepped up criticism of Clinton's vote in Congress to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, which Edwards said is a mistake. He has said that by her vote, she and other lawmakers are allowing Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to "rattle the sabers" of war, and giving them the excuse they need to attack Iran, just as they attacked Iraq.

Or this one?

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard will soon be deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S. As president, Edwards will ensure that such steps are not just more rhetoric, but actually lead to results.

If Bono Sees It, Then It Must Be Real

Is Islamofascism a threat? Yes.

I want to be very, very clear, however: I understand and agree with the analysis of the problem. There is an imminent threat. It manifested itself on 9/11. It's real and grave. It is as serious a threat as Stalinism and National Socialism were. Let's not pretend it isn't.

I think people as reasoned as Tony Blair looked at the world and didn't want to be Neville Chamberlain, who came back from meeting with Hitler with a piece of paper saying "peace in our time," while Hitler was planning to cross the channel from France.

Of course, as a liberal, he thinks we can talk Islamofascists to death, but at least he admits their existence.

Meanwhile, As The Taliban Murders Children, America Saves Them

According to Afghan officials, Every year 89,000 children survive infancy who would have perished under the primitivism of the Taliban.

Close to 90,000 children who would have died before age 5 in Afghanistan during Taliban rule will stay alive this year because of advances in medical care in the country, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.

The under-5 child mortality rate in Afghanistan has declined from an estimated 257 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2001 to about 191 per 1,000 in 2006, the Ministry of Public Health said, relying on a new study by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.N. and aid agency Save the Children both hailed the advances in health care in Afghanistan.

"This is certainly very positive news," said the U.N. spokesman in Afghanistan, Adrian Edwards. "To come from such low life expectancy to see this improvement does appear to be an indication that the work on the health sector here is beginning to pay off."

Karzai, surrounded by children at a news conference in Kabul, thanked international aid organizations and Afghan health workers for the work they've done to raise health standards. He said 89,000 children will be saved each year because of the improved health care.

But, of course, the liberals find fault with the US even as they seek common ground with Islamofascism.

Hat tip: Captain Ed

North Korea Disabling Its Nuclear Reactors

Now, this would have been big news, if it had happened on Bill Clinton's watch.

Murdered For Going To School

The Islamofascist Taliban has now taken to murdering children for going to school.

"If we could go to school and learn, we will be able to build Afghanistan and have a peaceful country in the future," she says. What our children can take for granted, Afghanistan's cannot.

It is increasingly difficult for children to go to school. As the Taliban crack down on girls' education, parents often have to choose between safety and literacy.

What would you do: keep your girl at home uneducated or send her to a school where her life might be in danger?

Children have been killed this year for just going to classes. Roads that were safe a year ago are definitely unsafe now.

Move along now. No such thing as Islamofascism.

Guess What? A Fence Works!

According to liberals, nothing works. Well, a certain piece of very low tech equipments seems to be working here.

At this fabled border crossing, where the last armed conflict between the United States and Mexico flared, the rancorous debate over the new U.S. anti-immigrant fence has been resolved.

The fence works, residents north and south of it say. At least it works for now on this snippet of the line.

"You hear it all the time: Fences don't work. Fences don't work," said Mark Winder, a transplanted New Englander and part-time deputy sheriff who lives on a small ranch outside Columbus, N.M., where a 3-mile stretch of wall was completed in August. "I live 2½ miles from the border, and the fence is working."

One bit of evidence is that the economy on the Mexican side of the border is in steep decline. Normally, that would bother me. But, as the economy had been based upon drug smuggling, I think that's a good thing.

Seems to me that Israel solved a problem it was having with Palestinian terrorists by walling them out of Israel.

Finish the damned fence! This should be an issue for the 2008 election. Democrats would rather give illegals drivers licenses than tighten border security. Let's use the fence to highlight the contrast.

Ignore Hungry Kitties At Your Own Peril

If the Fu Hsits Part III With A Gratuitous Fuk Ching Thrown In

The American Spectator has new information on those shady donations that Mrs. Clinton has been collecting from Chinese dishwashers.

In a 2001 article entitled "From Fujian to New York: Understanding the New Chinese Immigration" (posted on a U.S. Department of State website), authors Zai Liang and Wenzhen Ye write that "...most of the recent undocumented Chinese immigrants have come from rural Fujian and have mainly settled in the New York metropolitan area." The authors add, "Furthermore, there has been a heavy concentration of Fujianese immigrants in some sections of Manhattan's Chinatown; for example, some have called East Broadway "Fuzhou Street."

One story of Fujianese smuggled into the U.S. by "snakeheads" became public on June 6, 1993 when the tramp freighter, Golden Venture, ran aground off Queens with 286 emaciated Chinese abroad. Ten drowned. On March 16, 2006 Cheng Chui Ping, the snakehead who ran the smuggling enterprise, was sentenced to 35 years in prison. In his April 24, 2006 article in the New Yorker magazine entitled "The Snakehead," Patrick Radden Keefe told the Golden Venture story and noted Ms. Cheng's address as 47 East Broadway -- it's in the box. Keefe wrote, "While ships no longer deposit smuggled Fujianese directly on U.S. shores, officials say that there is no evidence to indicate that the total number of Fujianese entering the country illegally has diminished in the years since the Golden Venture incident." They are still coming.

Peter Kwong, Professor of Asian American Studies, Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, Manhattan, is an expert on the fate of Fujianese immigrants smuggled into the U.S. He used the word "trap" to describe the ethnic enclaves where they settle. "Not only are the immigrants doomed to perpetual subcontracted employment, but the social and political control of these enclaves in also subcontracted to ethnic elites, who are free to set their own legal and labor standards for the entire community without ever coming under the scrutiny of U.S. authorities....After arrival in the United States, they are forced to work for years under what amounts to indentured servitude to pay off large 'transportation' debts with constant threats of torture, rape, and kidnapping."

The Department of Justice study estimates total fees assessed each smuggled immigrant to be $50,000-$60,000. As was done by Ms. Cheng, Chinese street gangs, in her case the Fuk Ching gang, are often hired to enforce fee collections.

Yep. Sounds like just the sort of thing that we look for in presidential candidates.

Unwitting Tool Of Islamofascists Attacks College Republicans

Post-Intelligenser columnist Robert Jamieson Jr. doesn't think that Islamofascism is such a big deal and dumps on UW College Republicans for hosting Islamofascism Awareness Week.

While Mr. Jamieson's manages to dazzle the reader with the depth and breadth of his willful ignorance, he needed help from the New York Times' Enron adviser to achieve consummate stupidity.

As Paul Krugman, a columnist for The New York Times puts it: "There isn't actually any such thing as Islamo-Fascism -- it's not an ideology; it's a figment of the neocon imagination."

When you have to reference Paul Krugman to reinforce your ignorance, well you are really, really, really determined to stay stuck on stupid.

Boston Globe: In The Tank For Hillary or, The Media Spin Of The Year

This Boston Glove editorial might qualify as the greatest media spin of all time: Hillary's refusal to actually take a position is a statesmanlike preservation of options.

Hillary Clinton won't say how she will fix Social Security. She spurns a deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq. She's for free trade, except when it doesn't work. She defends her home state's issuing of driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, but doesn't really like the idea.

Yet a closer look reveals one thing Clinton has been quite explicit about - that as she campaigns, she is being careful to preserve her options as president if she goes on to win. While her speeches, debate performances, and policy prescriptions often feature hedging, Clinton has been startlingly straightforward about her refusal to be pinned down.

We used to call this cynical obfuscation. Now, it's called "preserving options."

Could Palouse Farm Purchase A Livelihood From Environmentalist Wackos

If Al Gore and his Hollywood pals can fly Learjets guilt-free by paying off the parents of little kids in India to operate treadle pumps all day instead of going to school, then surely Palouse farmers can pay protection money to somebody to keep environmentalists from putting them out of business. Earlier this week, a coalition of environmental groups filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to pursue endangered species status for an earthworm that until recently nobody knew still existed and would never have been missed if it didn’t.

As the giant Palouse earthworm’s habitat is known colloquially as “farm land,” it follows that if the earthworm’s population has been harmed by human activity, then the human activity that has harmed it is known as “farming.” If the giant Palouse earthworm is to recover, then that offending human activity will have to cease or at least be seriously curtailed. As such, the economic survival of Palouse agriculture may well depend upon identifying the relevant outstretched palm and satisfying it.

Paying protection money to keep liberals off your back has become a growth industry in this country. If you wish to keep Jesse Jackson from declaring an economic boycott against your business, then you’d better cross his palms with silver when he comes knocking on your door with his hand open. And you’ll probably have to appoint one or two of his henchmen or family members to your board of directors as well.

But, while the modern civil rights movement has adopted the business model of the Gambino crime family, or Hillary Clinton’s campaign fundraising efforts, the environmentalist shakedown more closely resembles the selling of indulgences by the Catholic church prior to the Reformation. The most dramatic example is the trading of carbon offsets.

To celebrate his Nobel Peace Prize, Al Gore jumped onto a private jet, flew to Arizona where he rented a resort and partied down with other beautiful people. Considering the crowd he surrounds himself with, his guests probably traveled to Scottsdale in a similar fashion. The buffet table at Al Gore’s party was straining under the weight of culinary delights flown in fresh from Alaska, the east coast and Asia. And all of the carbon dioxide generated was waved away with carbon offset proofs of purchase.

This is one way that carbon offsets work. Throughout the developing world, agricultural fields are commonly irrigated using treadle pumps. Treadle pumps are like those stair stepper exercise machines you see on late night cable television infomercials. The difference is that nobody claims that a treadle pump will help you get into a size 4, although they often stand between their operators and graduating from the fourth grade.

Children are often forced to work treadle pumps because their families have been paid by carbon traders to retire their diesel-powered pumps. The carbon traders can then sell the rights to the CO2 not generated by that diesel to Al Gore so that he can resell it to his Hollywood pals or use the indulgence himself to spew 10,000 pounds per hour on his private jet trips.

So why not follow the Al Gore model to keep local environmentalist wackos off the farmers’ backs? I propose that we organize to establish a system of endangered species trading. There are vast swaths of the planet where the Endangered Species Act has no force, and the people who live there are far more concerned with their own survival than the well-being of some cute little creature that warms the souls of Earth liberationists.

It only makes sense that Palouse farmers have the option of buying endangered species offsets. Farmers could buy a few acres of Madagascar jungle and devote it to preserving an endangered species of lemurs. Any species of lemur is cuter and far more charismatic than an earthworm and would sell far more copies of National Geographic as a glossy cover critter.

There are other glamorous endangered species that could be saved and would also make great plush toys for the Audubon Society’s Christmas catalog. Endangered species offset could preserve habitat for the elephant, the Siberian tiger and the manatee.

Capitalism conquers all. The left has evolved from its doctrinaire roots into a pragmatic ideology complete with a price tag. To survive, farmers just need to negotiate the cost.

Hillary Caught In Another Lie

Ho hum. Hillary's been snagged lying about the solvency of Social Security.

Hillary Clinton says that when her husband left office — Social Security was projected to be solvent until the year 2055. She contends that now — solvency is predicted to end in 2041 — a loss of 14 years — because of what she calls "fiscal irresponsibility" by the Bush administration.

But the Social Security Administration says that its official statistics at the end of 2000 put the solvency year at 2037 — not 2055. It says that the current figure is — as Mrs. Clinton states — 2041. But instead of it being a 14 year loss — it is actually a four year gain.

"We Shouldn't Be Doing Nothing"

But, what should we do? Inquiring minds want to know, but Hillary's not saying.

Brian Williams: "What would make it crystal clear in your mind that" the U.S. "should

Senator Clinton: "I think that what we're trying to do here is put pressure on the Bush Administration. We've got to rein him in."

Reign him in? Reign in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Nope. She was talking about reigning in George Bush.

"We're not in my view, rushing to war. We should not be doing that. But we shouldn't be doing nothing."

One wonders how Mrs. Clinton would perform on a game show where she was asked to choose, "door number 1, door number 2 or door number 3."

The Wall Street Journal recalls other examples of her evasive performance.

A bit later Tim Russert, the other moderator, tried again: "Senator Clinton, would you pledge to the American people that Iran will not develop a nuclear bomb while you are President?"
"I intend to do everything I can to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb," Mrs. Clinton replied, in a formulation that would make her husband proud. "But you won't pledge?" Mr. Russert asked.

"I am pledging I will do everything I can to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb," Mrs. Clinton repeated. Mr. Russert then tried a third time, with the same ambiguous result.

And the Journal recalls Mrs. Clinton's clumsiest moment.

Senator Clinton was especially clumsy in trying to evade any clear position on New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's proposal to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. When asked why, in her words, it "makes a lot of sense" to give licenses to illegals, her first answer sounded like an endorsement. Mr. Spitzer is trying to "fill the vacuum left by the failure of this Administration to bring about comprehensive immigration reform," she said.

But after Senator Chris Dodd disagreed, calling a license a "privilege" not a right, she broke in a moment later to clarify: "I just want to add, I did not say that it should be done, but I certainly recognize why Governor Spitzer is trying to do it." This prompted Mr. Dodd to interject that her second answer didn't sound like her first. So Mr. Russert tried again: "Do you support [Mr. Spitzer's] plan?"

"You know, Tim, this is where everybody plays gotcha," Mrs. Clinton replied. "It [Spitzer's proposal] makes a lot of sense." So, she does support it? Unfortunately, she wasn't done speaking. "Do I think this is the best thing for any Governor to do? No." At that point, Mr. Williams changed the subject.

This particular exchange reminded me of her husband's efforts to simultaneously occupy two positions on the 1991 Gulf War.

"I guess I would have voted for the majority if it was a close vote. But I agree with the arguments the minority made."

A far smoother answer than John Kerry's “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” "

Clearly the primary lesson she gained from her experience as First Lady is the value of obfuscation. Unfortunately for her, she lacks her her husband's comfort level with dishonesty.

When The Facts Conflict With Dogma

The Blogfather linked to this post yesterday about how puzzled journalists were about the declining violence in Iraq.

This reminded me a a story I read in the New York Times a few years ago. The Times' reporters found it confusing that America could simultaneously have a declining crime rate and a high incarceration rate.

In seeking to explain the paradox of a falling crime rate but a rising prison population, Mr. Beck pointed out that F.B.I. statistics showed that from 1994 to 2003 there was a 16 percent drop in arrests for violent crime, including a 36 percent decrease in arrests for murder and a 25 percent decrease in arrests for robbery.

But the tough new sentencing laws led to a growth in inmates being sent to prison, from 522,000 in 1995 to 615,400 in 2002, the report said.

Similarly, the report found that the average time served by prison inmates rose from 23 months in 1995 to 30 months in 2001.

Among the new measures were mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which required inmates to serve a specified proportion of their time behind bars; truth-in-sentencing laws, which required an inmate to actually serve the time he was sentenced to; and a variety of three-strikes laws increasing the penalties for repeat offenders.

Clearly the New York Times could not grasp the simple fact that bad guys in jail prevents them from committing crimes. Similarly the today's news media do not understand that dead terrorists commit no violence.