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Showing posts from August 6, 2006
Ha! Brilliant!
Here's one reason I love John McCain. He's got a great sense of humor. It's a must see.
Captain's Quarters is pointing to signs that the glow may already be wearing off for Lamont. He's currently trialing in polls for a 3 way race. Democrats may have done themselves a grave disservice by ousting him. If he is elected after all, they're going to have to suck up to him quite a bit to prevent him from siding with the GOP more often than not. It has also been noted that if the Democrats pick up six seats and Joe wins, he decides the fate of the vote in the Senate. If he loses, there has been speculation that he may take a cabinet post, possibly Transportation. I don't see how he could do a worse job than Mineta who is, if you'll pardon the pun, a train wreck. November is forever and a day away. Anything can happen but I won't be surprised if Connecticut stays with Joe which is really going to upset the Democrat's apple cart.
I was listening to The Gerry Ryan Show the other day and Kenny Rogers was on. He was talking about the business of music and specifically, performing. He explained that when you're performing, the audience expects to hear your biggest hits. You can play your new stuff or the stuff you want to play but you have to intermix that with your big hits. He said that's how you connect with your audience. They know the song and join you for the ride whereas a "new" song which might not be as popular requires the audience to listen a bit more and pay attention rather than sitting back and enoying the show. His method for coping with the "new song syndrome" is to speak to the audience and tell them something about it like "I wrote this song for my wife" which piques their interest and audiences tend to be more forgiving. I wish more performers would take his advice. There's nothing more annoying than the performer that refuses to play the one or t
The Anchoress answers the charge that “None of this would be happening if Bush had not invaded Iraq” . Indeed his detractors have very short memories. We're seeing that Bush's staunchest critics are conceding that Democrats offer no solutions other than vague references to building "real alliances" and "getting Osama". We're also told they will "redeploy". This is one of those code words like "invest". It means something completely different than the actual meaning. "Redeploy" when used by Democrats means to withdraw. Cut and run. They cannot use the actual words because they know they'd get slaughtered at the polls. I have yet to hear any solutions for Iraq other than leaving which is no solution. I've heard no plan for dealing with a nuclear Iran. No plan for fighting the War on Terror other than nonsense about "root causes." Carping about root causes is not a plan. It's navel gazing.
Happy Days are here again.. Excellent news and it's long overdue. Now we'll see how much the MSM really believes in their principles. Let's see how many of them will be willing to go to jail for a story. Not too many I'll wager. Leaking classified information is crime. Publishing it is a crime. Receiving it should be (and now is) a crime. If a whistleblower is really uncovering something illegal or unethical I am confident a jury will exonerate them. This raises the bar to ensure that the leaks going forward are not simple sabotage by partisan opponents in government.
File under; Red on red . The left wing of the Democrat pary is poised to devour the middle. They claimed their first scalp in Lamont and will likely set their sights on Hillary and John Kerry. As noted in the article, Michael Moore says that every candidate running for them in 2008 is now vulnerable. If they do indeed field a stridently anti-war candidate, they will not be doing themselves any favors. Americans don't like to leave something undone. The wounds of Vietnam healed very slowly for exactly that reason. We didn't win only because we quit. A repeat of such a withdrawal would carry the same scars 30 years into the future. We had to go back to Iraq after a decade of withdrawing short of Baghdad. Many Americans (left and right) saw that as a major mistake then and still do today. We left Saddam in power to slaughter the Shia and declare victory. We put sanctions in place that, if you listen to the anti-war crowd, simulataneously kept Saddam "in his box&q
The Irish Trojan sledgehammer's the anti-war crowd with a post called The plot: 9 planes, 29 terrorists, 2,700 would-be victims . He correctly points out exactly why Democrats are (or are considered) weak on security and war issues. They don't have the stomach for it and the American voters know it. Read the whole thing.
GOP voters: like a rock . Looks like more bad news for Democrats. This poll may be indicative of the base but there's no mention of whether the voters sampled are likely voters or just registered voters. There's a world of difference between the two. Anything can happen in the next few months but if they're this solid now in the face of recent events it seems unlikely that anything is going to shake their conviction in November.
Elmo's Dad goes to war. I suspect we'll see this on YouTube before long. Kudos to Sesame Street for putting this together. I have no idea how you can explain something like deployment to kids, especially young ones.
Mein BlogoVault has lots of good reading. Just keep scrolling.
Chavez: Castro in 'Great Battle for Life' Translation: Castro is dead. Raul and company can't be too happy about this quote. They're telling us he's doing fine and then Chavez drops this one. I wonder if he's unhappy with Raul and this was intentional. I don't think so. I think Chavez has a big mouth and just says whatever is on his mind.
The news coming out now is that the would be bombers in the UK were going to use a binary liquid agent . Whether this was going to be a poison or an explosive is still a matter of some debate. Via Andrew Sullivan, I find this story about a plan to gas the NYC subway system . Which makes a compelling case that the agents to be used in this most recent attack would be poison. Since the ventilation system in commerical airliners are the same for both passengers and flight crew, it is likely the jets would have crashed into the sea after killing everyone on board. It would likely require several autopsies before recognizing the passengers were killed not by the plane crash but rather by gas. Conversely, Donald Sensing points the finger at North Korea as they used a binary liquid explosive to destroy a South Korean airliner in 1987. Given the repeated stories of the DPRK shopping missile technology to Iran and others, it's not unlikely they wouldn't sell or even give designs
The "C word" in Israel . Rumors are swirling that a military coup may be fomenting in Israel if Olmert loses his political will. This would be very very bad if true. While I agree that Olmert's hamstringing of the IDF has had grave consequences, a coup is not the answer. The IDF must fight this war unbridled but not as a military junta. That would only exacerbate their position in the public eye and even erode their support here in the US. I would rather see a no confidence vote bring Olmert down and replace him with someone more hawkish and willing to expend the political capital needed to pound Hezbollah mercilessly as well as giving Syria a kick in the ass to let them know they're not getting off scot free in this war. It's early and this is speculation from one source but all things are possible if this continues apace.
De La Where is one of my favorite lefty blogs. He's a local which helps frame things often and he's always been fair with me (much less so with the GOP, but I digress.) One thing I've learned from reading it is how divorced his thought process is from mine. I often read things there and for the life of me, I cannot fathom how the writer reached such a conclusion. One prime example is a post called I think they call this a moment of clarity It got me to thinking that in a sense what Rhoden said, not that I agreed with him. But I expanded on that thought and took it a step further. As I sit here and watch the American values twisted to serve the uber rich that is when it hit me. We have cut taxes for the the top 1%, they have had their capital gaines reduced to nothing (taxes I remind you on profits mostly being earned on income that was never taxed to begin with) which leads into the Estate Tax, the "death tax" as they like to call. they (the rich) want to get r
Boston Hearld asks: Did liberal bloggers topple Lieberman? . The answer is clearly no (according to the article) and the author is correct. However, as is typical of MSM, he can't write an article about bloggers without a cheap shot. To wit: "In their basement, of course, munching Pringles and staring at a flickering screen." Who, really, has their computer in the basement? It's a lame attempt to smear bloggers as social misfits who have no friends and sit in Mommy's basement growing ever fatter. Another reminder that ad hominems are the surest sign you're losing the arguement.
Reuters Photo Fraud by the numbers. Read the whole thing and look very carefully at photos and videos in the news.
Best take on the Lamont win ever: Um, the Bush Candidate Got 48% in a Dem Primary [!] Let's hope Joe wins the general election. One Democrat wrote to Andrew Sullivan thus: You ask if anyone is crying over Lieberman's defeat. I am not crying, but I am leaving the Democratic Party. Here's why: 1) Unlike your intimation, he has been critical of the war's implementation. Has he been brashly partisan? No. Has he suffered from Bush Derangement Syndrome? No. The Dems now think he is no longer qualified to be in the party that he almost brought to 2000 presidential victory. 2) He is for Dems like me socially tolerant and liberal while actively pro-defense. Now the Dems are going to retreat into a repeat of Vietnam — pull the troops out, let a massacre happen in Iraq, and pat themselves on the back for a job well done. The party no longer speaks for Dems like me who want a strong defense abroad with a dose of libertarianism in social issues at home. 3) The Dems
Western values 'are causing mental illness' . Interesting. The Japanese are falling apart because they are moving away from a group focused model to one of individualism. This is a fundamental clash with traditional values. The Japanese have proved very adaptable to business trends (until about 10 years ago). They've favored the kieretsu and Zaibatsu model. One that kills struggling companies off in favor of the big boys. This worked well to protect their domestic business in the 80's but organizations this large are now unable to respond to the smaller, more nimble competition. Japanese banks have dropped the interest rate on lending to nearly zero in an attempt to spurn growth through borrowing and investing but with little luck. Western and even domestic managers are now realizing they're going to have to adopt the individually focused model to increase employee productivity. There is a common mispreception that the Japanese salaryman who works until
Sen. Clinton Turns Her Back on Lieberman . Unsurprising. She's trying to stave off any attacks from the Kos Kidz but I doubt it will help her in the long run. It appears to me that as time goes on, Hillary's chances for 2008 are getting worse, not better. Granted there's an enormous amount of time between then and now but I don't see how this can get better for her.
The Volokh Conspiracy talks about the most famous "rescue worker" in the world, Green Helmet. He's not a rescue worker at all. Rather, he's a media manager for Hezbollah. Here is the video of how he abuses dead children to serve his own aims. If they'll do this, I have no doubt they'll allow these kids to be killed so they can be used for their media war. Evil. Heartless. Bastards.
Once again, Bush stands idly by while a hurricane slams into the coast . None of this would have happened if we had elected a Democrat and approved the Kyoto treaty. Kanye West is reported to have said; "George Bush does not care about Chinese people."
Democrats are against "Big Donor Politics", right? Well, no. Not really, no. Keep that in mind when you're reminded who Republicans are beholden to big money and such.
Lamont's victory. I don't see this as a win for the Democrats. It's clearly a win for Nutroots but that automatically makes it a loss for Democrats. The Lamont victory will cause the party to lurch to the left further alienating themselves from John Q. Public. Ironically, Nutroots first and only scalp is a Democratic candidate. If they become emboldened by this win they will likely look to pick off other candidates who supported the war. If so, their victory will by a pyrric one. The Left may yet be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of imminent victory. What the Kos Kidz fail to realize is that passion + weblogs != victory. Kos realizes it and has said so but I think he overstates the influence of the blogosphere. This trend, if continued through 2008 will be very bloody indeed. If the criteria for a Democratic nod becomes anti-war credentials there is a dearth of candidates who fit the bill. The current crop are all vulnerable fromm left as well as right if th
The biggest building site on earth . No doubt. I've been keeping an eye on this one since I first heard about it (I think that was early 2002). Dubai is building at a breakneck pace as a means to set themselves up as the Hong Kong of the Middle East. They're running out of oil and they've known in for a long time. They know they're going to have to make money somehow. Originally, they were confining their scope to trade. Importing, exporting, banking and the like. They later realized they were primed to become the choice destination for vacation in the Gulf. Pristine beaches, alcohol available, central location and great shopping make a good case for your average Saudi to go there. I wonder if they're shooting themselves in the foot by doing so much at once. That much construction can only increase the cost of labor and supplies which drives the prices of the construction artificially high. That, in turn, leads to higher prices for these places. Combine
China builds up troop levels, ouposts on N. Korean border . I missed this one last week. The article postulates that China is expecting a flood of starving people crossing the border in search of food. I'm inclined to agree. A flood of refugees is usually a sign of a state's imminent collapse. China, as noted, does not want the DPRK to collapse as it would inevitably end up like a re-uninfied Germany. That's a long border to secure. The manpower and cost to keep an eye on a unified Korea would be problematic. Further, it would likely be much more hospitable to the US and it's allies. Additionally, I'll wager that the DPRK's archives have a lot of secrets the Chinese would like to see buried forever. How much assistance did the DPRK get for it's nuclear and missile programs? How much did China know about their counterfeiting efforts or their drug trading? US experts and observers (esp. those on the right) have been predicting the DPRK's imminen
Quote of the day: Varifrank : "Note To Reuters: This is NOT a school bus, milk truck, red cross relief vehicle, a tour bus filled with refugees, or a roving gypsy pipe organ."
New York Times Busted in Hezbollah Photo Fraud! Fauxtography is all the rage these days. How many more of these will we see before the MSM stops playing patsy.
Years of fancy classical music training, and now you get to play music to Centipede and other old video games. I'm old enough to remember most of these games and played them in the arcade days. Hell I remember when Atari 2600 came out and it was the cutting edge of entertainment.
Democrats mum on 'corruption' File under: Methinks thou doest protest too much. Democrats know they can't run on an anti-corruption platform without risking a deluge of corruption probes that will uncover a host of misdeeds. Partisans of either stripe will tell your their party is the clean one and the other one is dirty to the core. Designed that way. Sane people realize that your time in Washington is directly proportional to corruptability. The longer you stay, the better you know how to game the system to your advantage. The real crime is not what is illegal, but what is legal.
Snakes On A Plane :: Send a Message From Samuel L. Jackson! This is just too funny. I just tried it and sent myself a message. Hilarious. Brilliant marketing to boot. This is the kind of advertising that people will not put on mute or ignore. I expect we'll see more and more "viral" marketing until it becomes the norm.
Lanny Davis smells the coffee . The right has been saying this for ages and the left continues to deny it. Political movements cannot and should not be defined by the fringes. Kos' nutroots keeps crowing they own the party. If that is the case, we can judge them by their fruits (or more accurately, nuts). That Kos is silent regarding the current war against Israel and does nothing to stem the rising tide of anti-semitism on his website is very telling. Keep voting Democrat folks! All is well!
I was watching a special about American POWs in Vietnam. Absolutely horrid. They interviewed the survivors and showed artist's renderings of what sorts of torures were visited upon them. One man featured was James Stockdale. I knew little of the man so I looked him up: James Stockdale : "He was held as a prisoner of war in the Hoa Lo prison for the next seven years. Locked in leg irons in a bath stall, he was routinely tortured and beaten. When told by his captors that he was to be paraded in public, Stockdale slit his scalp with a razor to purposely disfigure himself so that his captors could not use him as propaganda. When they covered his head with a hat, Stockdale beat himself with a stool until his face was swollen beyond recognition. He told them in no uncertain terms that they would never use him. When Stockdale heard that other prisoners were dying under the torture, he slit his wrists and told them that he preferred death to submission." That's a hard man
Pallywood News is an invaluable resource to show how the Palestinians play the MSM like a fiddle. They are masters of media warfare. They know they have a willing accomplice in the American media and they produce slickly packaged media bites for their consumption. The footage is carefully scripted, shot and edited. They know the local stringers are reliably anti-Israel and they would never release any raw footage. The MSM only cares about the burning car, dead body (preferably children) or anything that explodes. The American public knows this to some degree but is now getting smarter and fighting back. They are holding the MSM's feet to the flames. Those video and photo editors are going to have be much more careful if they are going keep even the veneer or credibility. We'll soon see what's more important to them. Keeping their stories honest or getting the exciting story.
Popular Mechanics - Looking For A Miracle: We Test Automotive 'Fuel Savers' . Short version: None of them make anything better and most make things worse.
TIS the MSM wising up? The article discusses al-Reuters' photo problems and pointed asks if they were an accomplice or a willing patsy. Either answer is not a good one. This is a prime example of bloggers taking the MSM to the woodshed and getting results. The blogosphere will never replace traditional reporting but they're damn sure going to keep them on their feet. The days of the lazy journalist or worse, partisan journalist, are over. The lone blogger can make enough noise to get the ball rolling about malfeasance or laziness. That's win for everybody (except journalists). Personally, I'd be very unhappy if I had thousands of unpaid volunteers fact-checking my work on a daily basis.
McCain: Drinking contest with Hillary didn't happen . Interesting. I wonder if there's going to be a retraction. I'm not holding my breath. Every day I think my confidence in the MSM can go no lower and every day, they prove me wrong.
Advocates of 'proportion' are just unbalanced . So says Tim Blair. He's dead right. I do remember soft headed lefties crying for a "proportional" response in Afghanistan on 9/12/01. They were largely dismissed with rolling eyeballs by the rest of America. America's Jacksonian tradition held fast.
X-rays reveal Archimedes secrets . This reads like an episode of Alias. I wonder how many other manuscripts will undergo the same process to unlock previously held secrets. Given the cost and time involved, probably not many. Still amazing they're pushing the boundaries of research into the past with the machinery of the future.
File under: Red on Red; Saudi religious leader blasts Hizbullah
'Hezbollah aren't suckers, they know how to fight. You're scared all the time' The article makes the point that Hezbollah are the best non-state fighters in the world. They are well funded and well organized. They are much more clearly defined than Al-Qaeda and clearly deserve more attention from our boys who lurk in the shadows. It pains me that Israel appears to lack the political will to put a serious hurting on Hezbollah. Worse yet, we don't appear to be doing much of anything to drive a stake in their evil heart. I would have liked to see an act of war passed against Hezbollah after the Beirut bombing and again on 9/11. We have fought undeclared wars against non-state actors before . I would much rather preferred we put this to a vote in the House and Senate to see where everyone stands. Nobody would have voted against either resolution as that would have been career suicide. Much the same way the votes went in the Senate and House votes for militar
As Power Bills Soar, Companies Embrace 'Green' Buildings . A great case for "green conservatism". Speak to their wallets and you'll see them adopt ecologically friendly initiatives very quickly. The challenge has been to figure out a way to make money while helping the environment. I used to work for a company that had a 'green' building and was one of the few in Delaware. It was no different from any of the other buidlings aside from being nicer than the older ones. The one thing that you might notice is the windows were thicker and absorbed more sound. More please.
Delawareliberal : "While civilian blow hards like Duffy" Pot, meet kettle...
BevWizard looks interesting. Maybe I'll buy this and see if it works at all.