NJ Gubernatorial Primary

NJ Republicans have a varied choice of candidates during this primary season. The two leaders are Doug Forrester and Bret Schundler, who lost to the shady Jim McGreevey last time around:

Political conservatives of the tax-cutting, limited-government sort must be feeling lonely in New York these days. But taking a look over the river to New Jersey might help rouse their spirits. In the Garden State, a raucous primary campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination is under way, with each of the seven candidates sparring over how best to cut property taxes and control waste and corruption in Trenton. The election is on June 7.

The two leading candidates - a former mayor of Jersey City, Bret Schundler, and a former state pension director, Douglas Forrester - offer competing plans for easing the property-tax burden on New Jersey's homeowners. Mr. Schundler wants to constrain state and local spending constitutionally, leading to cuts in property taxes. Mr. Forrester has promised to cut property taxes directly by 30% over three years. Another candidate, former Bergen County freeholder Todd Caliguire, plans to reduce the state payroll by between 10% and 15% over three years and lower state spending by 10%.

I doubt any of this is worth a damn anyway. John Corzine is sitting back and waiting with a nearly unlimited budget and the backing of the NJ Democratic machine.

Forrester is very dull and inspires few folks. Schundler is a proven leader but has not been espousing the conservative message he did four years ago when he was beaten soundly by McGreevey.

Lonegan has the conservative rhetoric down but is a serious underdog as he's gotten no press.

It's all academic as Corzine will probably win in a rout and set his eyes toward the White House. The Clinton/Corzine race for the democratic nod should be as interesting to watch as the Republican primaries.

News and Notes

Many new posts below.

American jihadi reveres deposed Indian Ward Churchill.

The media never misses a chance to bring up the Nixon resignation.

Alternate aliases for Deep Throat.

Today would have been John Bonham's 57th birthday.

I like Fred Thompson as the candidate in '08. Here's some background.

Surviving Boot Camp

Military.com has an interesting series on surviving boot camp. This brings back memories of meeting a Drill Instructor (or in my case a Company Commander):

This takes place after the Reception Process (when all your paperwork and medical tests are completed). A bus or “cattle truck” will pick you up. You will be packed in a crowded vehicle, and you may or may not have Drill Sergeants on board. If there are Drill Sergeants they will either introduce themselves, tell you to be quiet or ask you to sing the star spangled banner as loud as you can. Drill Sergeants look intimidating, but do understand, they cannot physically hit you.

Tip: Try your best not to show off or stand out at this point. There is always one person on that ride who tries to show he/she is different, and it doesn’t bring the right results.

Good advice. I remember quite a few recruits who made the experience tougher on themselves by acting like idiots the first day. The CC's remembered that for weeks. More:

After the exercises you will bring your luggage up to your bunk and meet the members of your platoon. You are all strangers now, but rest assured, you will know a little more -- maybe even more than you care to know -- about each and every member of that platoon when basic training is over.

I remember damn near everyone I went through Great Lakes with. Some were fresh off the farms of Iowa and some were off the mean streets of the Bronx. It didn't matter at that point, we were in the shit that is the first weeks of military boot camp and had to get along to get through it.

The most vivid memory was our CC's telling us that there was a coup in the Soviet Union. We had no TV, no radio, essentially no contact with the outside world with the exception of what the CC's told us. They looked tense during that period as no one had a clue who was in charge. It was doubly intense for us recruits who were getting very filtered info.

Al-Libbi to be Deported to US

Pakistan has extracted all the information they've wanted from bin-Laden deputy Abu Faraj al-Libbi:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan May 31, 2005 — Senior al-Qaida militant Abu Faraj al-Libbi will be handed over to the United States for prosecution, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Tuesday, ending speculation the military ruler would seek to try the Libyan-born terror suspect here for two assassination attempts.

"We are obviously going to deport him," Musharraf told a CNN conference in Atlanta, speaking via video hookup from Islamabad. "We don't want him in Pakistan," Musharraf said of al-Libbi.

He said al-Libbi, believed to be a close confidant of Osama bin Laden and described by U.S. officials as the terror network's No. 3 operative, did not provide any leads on bin Laden's whereabouts during his interrogation.

I'm sure he'll be well received at Gitmo.

Compare and Contrast

The news out of old Europe has not been good if you are one who supports the nanny-state form of government.

This is a great example of just how bad things are:

BERLIN -- Germany's jobless rate edged down to 11.6 percent in May, government figures showed Tuesday, but the drop reflected a seasonal upturn instead of economic improvement in Europe's biggest economy.

The unadjusted jobless rate in May was down from 12 percent the previous month. The number of people without a job in Germany dropped to 4.807 million from 4.968 million.

In the US, the jobless rate is steady at 5.2%.

The reasons for this are evident, a strong work ethic that was a part of the German culture has been destroyed by the unemployment insurance available to displaced workers. They receive enormous checks when they aren't working and that just enables the worker to stay at home.
This is a major issue for Europe (and by extension the EU) as a whole and Germany in particular.

Shhhh! E.J. Dionne Is On To Us

Supersleuth and "independent media" representative E.J. Dionne sees through what we Republicans thought was a brilliantly conceived plan:

I write about it now because of the new reports and because I fear that too many people in traditional journalism are becoming dangerously defensive in the face of a brilliantly conceived conservative attack on the independent media.

It's a good thing for the liberal world that they have this Encyclopedia Brown wannabe on their side.

The Line of the Day

James Taranto on Jacques Chirac (second item):

...President Jacques Chirac, the haughty, Massachusetts-looking Paris Gaullist, who by the way served Saddam.

That's an insult to Gaullist's everywhere.

Memorial Day

I hope you all have an enjoyable Memorial Day. Please take time to remember those who have given everything for this great country. Even if you don't attend a parade or other such event, don't let the memories of these great men and women fade.

WWII Memorial

Korean War Memorial

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Gulf War Memorial

List of the good men and women to have died in the War on Terror.

Say a prayer for these men and their loved ones if you are so inclined.

Iraq = Vietnam

Another disjointed comparison of Iraq and Vietnam from the liberal university elite:

American defeats are hauntingly similar. Informed by cultural and political ignorance, we invade and occupy while denying intelligence that warns against folly. Hubris tells us our power is unassailable. Politicians market paranoia to silence reasoned deliberation, and those who profit from war or reconstruction buy into the conflict as long as it adds to the bottom line.

American defeats are self-inflicted. We fight the wrong wars against illusory foes, thinking the enemy is one when it is another. We sense ubiquitous peril from all who differ from "us."

The deliberation of action in Iraq went on for months, months that the so called Iraqi insurgency used to stash weapons throughout the country. Months that allowed radical Islamists to flood the country (those that weren't already there) and prepare for the reconstruction phase they knew would come. These heathens don't want reconstruction, they want Shiites dead.

Our defeats are self inflicted because of people such as the author of this piece who preach the same tired rhetoric about wars for money and "illusory foes". We didn't choose this war, it was thrust on us by a nationless enemy who wants the world to not be secular but part of the next caliphate. Mr. Nelson, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, is seeing the world through 30-year old Vietnam-colored bifocals.

We had a momentarily decisive battlefield victory in Iraq. But triumph was illusory and ephemeral. Too soon, 2,000 Americans will have died, 12,000 seriously wounded, and additional thousands with psychological or other illness will have required evacuation. Iraqi deaths are now 50 to 100 per day. The number of coalition members and their troops are ebbing. The frequency and severity of insurgent attacks against U.S., Iraqi or allied assets continue to rise - encouraged, not abated, by an election and formation of a government. Even the Bush administration's National Intelligence Council reported in early 2005 that global terrorism has been strengthened, recruiting new generations of jihadists to kill and die for charismatic leaders.

The simple fact is that these young men and women were not drafted, they are all volunteers who knew the risks associated with the military life. I knew it when I joined.

Is Mr. Nelson so naive as to think that less than four years into the War on Terror that it would be all tidy and neat? Of course jihadists are murdering civilians. This is the same MO they've employed for years under the guise of rebellion or revolution. Or as the liberal left refers to them; Freedom Fighters. The jihadi's didn't need us to mobilize them, Osama bin-Laden already had them agitated to the point that 19 of them hijacked four planes and murdered 3,000 American citizens. I'd bet one or two of them attended the University of New Haven.

When Americans withdrew from Vietnam, they did not do so because democracy had been preserved or a timetable was set, but because of the unmitigated defeat of the puppet regime they had created and maintained. Washington decision-makers should contemplate such a scenario in Iraq, before we need helicopter evacuation of Americans from rooftops of the Green Zone.

Is Mr. Nelson implying that the democratically elected government in Iraq is a "puppet regime"? Dean Nelson can't separate the Vietnam war with the current situation it seems. Liberals want so badly to see this war end up as Vietnam did that they have inextricably linked the two in their own minds. In other words, leftist gospel is now that Vietnam = Iraq. They cling to this gospel as the evil Evangelical Christians hold to their beliefs. The problem is that the Vietnam = Iraq gospel is far more damaging to our country than any Christian held belief.

America's weakening global position should spur thoughts of withdrawal. The United States today has fewer friends than at any time since the end of World War II, and its strengths are hemorrhaging. The "insecuring" of America involves the rapid and simultaneous ebbing of national capacities: Cultural tolerance is trampled by religious zealotry, political freedom constrained by irrational fear, and financial institutions weakened under massive deficits.

There it is! What took Mr. Nelson so long to inject "religious zealotry' into the debate. In the leftist playbook, that should be included in the first paragraph. I guess he didn't get the e-mail.

What political freedom has been constrained, Mr. Nelson? The financial institutions you caution us about are sounder now than in years. As a matter of fact, the steady crumbling of the EU has only strengthened the dollar as the preeminent currency around the globe.

Those who fall in Iraq soon will have their own monument in Washington. But on future Memorial Days, little solace will come to a nation made far weaker and less secure in these eight years. Survivors will question, as they did in the last generation, the purpose of sacrifice.

"These last eight years"? Is Dean Nelson inferring that this war began under Bill Clinton. I believe it started far longer than eight years ago, but our belated response made the job much more difficult. If this war had started in 1997 or earlier, we may not even be having this national conversation. We'd been under attack in Africa, Yemen and NYC and failed to respond, perhaps if we had shown any leadership then, the situation would be much improved today.

By the way, note that the Inquirer dug up this piece that originally appeared in the far-left site Common Dreams and chose to run it on Memorial Day, a day that us veterans hold sacred.

Ten Reasons Not To Kill Bush?

This is by far the most tasteless piece I've read today, and I've read the NY Times and WaPo:

I can't possibly guess the assassin's reasoning, but I've heard enough people on campus proclaiming their hatred of George W. Bush to know that some wouldn't have shed many tears. And that's a shame.

If the assassin were looking for a way to hurt America, blowing up the president would be a good idea. Bush's martyrdom would put the last nail in the coffin of the liberal agenda. So, for those Bush-haters out there, here are 10 reasons you should stop praying for an assassinated G.W.B.:

1) Killing the president immediately generates sympathy for his cause. If the president died tomorrow, there would be no question that all of his nominees for the judicial branch would make it through the Senate.

2) A dead President Bush leaves a live Dick Cheney in charge. Need I say more?

This girl/guy/it, I really can't tell from the picture, has the writing skills of...well someone worse than me.

From the comments section of that article I've found perhaps the worst blog I've ever read.

News and Notes

New posts below.

The AP reporter who wrote this must have done so through clenched teeth.

RoP adherents kill another hostage.

Congrats, Bill.

About that global warming thing, uh nevermind.

I Didn't Need a Friggin' Test to Tell Me This

Drivers in the Northeast are the stupidest drivers in the US:

The GMAC Insurance National Driver's Test found that nearly 20 million Americans, or about 1 in 10 drivers, would fail a state driver's test if they had to take one today. GMAC Insurance is part of General Motors' finance subsidiary, GMAC.

More than 5,000 licensed drivers between the ages of 16 and 65 were administered a 20-question written test designed to measure basic knowledge about traffic laws and safety. They were also surveyed about their general driving habits.
Drivers in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states did worst. Twenty percent of test-takers failed there.

The state of Rhode Island leads the nation in driver cluelessness, according to the survey. The average test score there was 77, just eight points above a failing grade.
Those in neighboring Massachusetts were second worst and New Jersey, third worst.

As someone who drives alot, this makes complete sense. To my fellow Jersey drivers, if you are in the far left lane and are being passed by those in the middle lane, you are an idiot. The left lane is for...Ah, screw it! Your too damn stupid to understand.

Here's the rankings.

I Thought It Was Evident When JFK Was Released

Oliver Stone gets busted on a drug rap:

Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving and drug possession, police said Saturday.

Stone, 58, was arrested late Friday night at a police checkpoint on Sunset Boulevard after officers determined he appeared to be drunk, police Sgt. John Edmundson said. A search of his Mercedes turned up drugs, Edmundson said. He did not specify what kind.

Wow, Oliver Stone does drugs? That is a shocker, especially after the brialliant piece that was Alexander.

UN Mission in Kosovo a "Farce"

The UN, that upstanding, saintly collection of thugs, is being faulted for it's actions in Kosovo:

The United Nations democracy-building mission in Kosovo is a "facade" which is sowing the seeds of renewed instability in the flashpoint Serbian province, a think-tank said Friday.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said the UN administration (UNMIK) in the mainly ethnic Albanian province lacked credibility and was scrambling for an "escape strategy".

The report came as the UN Security Council is expected to hear a debate about Kosovo later Friday, ahead of talks slated for later this year on the province's final status.

The ICG said that rather than marching towards multi-ethnic democracy six years after the end of the 1998-1999 war between Serbian forces and ethnic Albanian separatists, Kosovo was a tinderbox ready to explode. "Recent weeks have seen an escalation in tension between (the two main ethnic Albanian political parties) so bitter that it risks spiraling into killings," the report said.

As long as any member of the UN contingent doesn't yell at any of subordinates, the UN will be fine. This is more proof of why we need Bolton.

It's Bush's Fault (Again)

Scott Ott:

(2005-05-27) -- Muslims in Pakistan and Afghanistan rioted today in response to new reports that copies of the Koran were were discovered in the ruins of the World Trade Center towers in New York City.

A spokesman for the ACLU said the Bush administration did little to prevent the damage to the Islamic holy books, that apparently belonged to Muslims who worked in the office towers until their "unjustified termination" during the morning of September 11, 2001.

A Feminist Quiz

Danielle Crittenden takes Erica Jong to task for the inane post she wrote the other day.

Songs That Make You Think of Summer

It almost feels like Summer here is South Jersey today. After 3 weeks of shitty, overcast weather, the sun is shining and it's 80. Michelle lists songs that make her think of Summer, including this:

Jessica - Allman Brothers (I don't think there is a song that exists that says "summer" to me more than this one)

Amen to that. I tend to think of any Grateful Dead song as there was nothing better than a Summer Dead tour. I think the Summer of '89 was the best, they had 10,000 Maniacs open up in Foxboro, MA.

I Thought It Was Self Gratification That Did It

Viagra may cause blindness:

WASHINGTON - Federal health officials are examining rare reports of blindness among some men using the impotence drug Viagra.

The Food and Drug Administration still is investigating, but has no evidence yet that the drug is to blame, said spokeswoman Susan Cruzan.

This type of blindness is called NAION, or non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy. It can occur in men who are diabetic or have heart disease, the same conditions that can cause impotence and thus lead to Viagra use.

Feel free to enter your own headline in the comments.

News

More posts below, headlines here.

A nine-year old patriot get his way.

Kerry finally signs to release his records.

Let's not offend those peaceful Muslim sensibilities.

I say we just "shut down" Tom Friedman.

Knives don't kill people, people kill people.

I Can't Help Myself

A while ago I promised to not pick on this guy. He whined like libs tend to do that I was picking on him and I backed off because I am a Compassionate Conservative. That said, I take great umbrage with this sentence:

Associating an entire religion, and one billion people, with tyranny and hatred is LGF/KKK level insanity, the sort that even President Bush rightfully repudiates. Gandelman, consider your bigoted self off the blogroll.

First issue; comparing LGF to the KKK is a serious disservice to the innocents who were lynched by Robert Byrd's brethren. That is just plain libel.

Second, I keep idiots like you on my blogroll even though I agree with exactly 1% of what you spew. That is the beauty of the blogosphere. The sharing of differing opinions. You my friend are a wussy who can't handle having your inane thoughts obliterated in front of the world.

Fallen Heroes

25 year-old Bradley Bergeron from Louisiana is a hero and you didn't even know it. My prayers to Bradley's family and a hearty thank you for serving our country well.

Taking Down Buchanan, Rich and Quindlen

Russ Smith takes some well-deserved whacks at a trio of essayists:

Meanwhile, as left-wing pundits rejoice in Bush's low approval poll numbers—hovering in the mid-40s—Patrick Healy's "Week in Review" story in Sunday's Times, "Believe It: The Media's Credibility Headache Gets Worse," suggests that goofballs like Rich ought to look in the mirror. The statistic Healy reports isn't one you usually see, so take note: "In the post-Watergate 1970's, some 25 to 30 percent of Americans reported to the Harris Poll that they had a great deal of confidence in the press, more than they had in Congress, unions or corporate America. In the 2005 poll, the press ranked only ahead of law firms, with 12 percent reporting high confidence in the media."

Not that Newsweek's self-flagellation—although The New Republic's Martin Peretz called editor Mark Whitaker's explanation "insultingly wan words"—has extended to the magazine's resident sociologist Anna Quindlen. The former Times op-ed columnist, novelist, moral theologian and latter-day feminist attended Columbia University's recent graduation ceremonies and came up with the conclusion that "the terrorists did win" because "since September 11, we've become more like them." I assume Quindlen is excluding herself, and it would be generous, if unexpected, if she extended the same courtesy to the vast majority of Americans.

See, also Mugger's whack at Green Day and Home Depot.

A Dubious Indian Claim

This just seems impossible to me:

NEW DELHI: Bringing a glimmer of hope in the campaign against AIDS, India recorded a 95 percent fall in the number of new infections in 2003-04, according to the ministry of health and family welfare.

With 28,000 new people infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in 2003-04 compared to 520,000 a year before, the number of HIV positive patients was estimated to be 5.13 million at the end of 2003-04. Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, however, said on Wednesday that the government would not show any complacency in the fight against AIDS, which has killed 1,114 people in 2004 in India compared to 1,514 a year ago.

520,000 to 28,000? Call me a skeptic, but that is an astounding claim. Has there ever been a 95% reduction of any communicable disease in one year? If this is true, they have got to forward the plan on to Africa.

Chirac Has Some Problems

The French and Dutch appear to be on the verge of voting down the EU constitution. Chirac, ever the politician, won't let Britain gain if this happens, however:

PRESIDENT CHIRAC of France is preparing to throw Europe into confusion and put Britain on the spot by backing moves to keep the European constitution alive if it is rejected in Sunday’s referendum.

French diplomats say that M Chirac is expected to urge other countries to proceed with ratification because France does not want to be seen to be blocking the European project. Any attempt to persuade other countries to go ahead will dash the hopes of those in the British Government who believed that a French rejection would make a British referendum unnecessary.

British ministers argue that it will be impossible to hold a referendum next year because the final shape of the treaty on which the British would be voting will be unknown.

The EU is an idea that just won't work. Too many cultures, too many old feuds and France trying to lead. It sound like a recipe for disaster to me.

Conyers Misses Something

Representative Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, has called for hearings concerning the media turning into "celebrity journalism". This is telling as to what his problem with the media may be:

"The vast majority of the mainstream media is not only unwilling to accurately report on the failings of the administration, but the few who do have fallen victim to scapegoating and retribution," said Conyers, a Democrat. "We have turned from breaking stories like Watergate and the Iran-Contra scandal to celebrity journalism."

Emphasis mine. I believe Congressman Conyers left out some other stories broken by the media, namely the Lewinsky/Impeachment scandal, Travelgate and my personal favorite; Whitewater. I think what Mr. Conyers is really upset about is the fact that every media contrived scandal against President Bush has yet to stick.

Hat tip: James Taranto

Exposed

I always thought of Rob as grouchy, yet funny, good old boy. I may have been wrong.

The Bush Doctrine Continues

Lebanon is about to stage the third vote in the mideast in a year:

They were indeed, and as Lebanon this weekend begins an election that will take place on four consecutive Sundays, it has embarked on a process of rejuvenation that has at several levels involved the international community, particularly the United States. Those who accuse the Bush administration of incompetence in the Middle East because of events in Iraq may soon have to temper that with an assessment of its shrewder behavior in Lebanon.

Lebanon is today under de facto international trusteeship, and the mainstays of that order, ironically, correspond to what the Bush administration's critics would have regarded as ideal in Iraq: The United Nations is involved; the United States and the Europeans are reading from the same songbook; the administration has not used military force; and a heinous crime may one day be punished. Most important, change came through a combination of outside and domestic pressures, so even compulsive foes of U.S. unilateralism might approve.

The reason that things are moving swiftly and smoothly in Lebanon is only because the US invaded Iraq and deposed the Hussein dictatorship. Does anyone really believe that Boy Assad would've left Syria peacefully if not for fear of a US invasion? While the UN, with France in the lead, was a player, the Assad regime would never have pulled up stakes and quit Lebanon simply because of the UN.

NY Times to Fire 190 Employees

The Times is in the midst of a "trough" that will lead to the elimination of nearly 200 jobs. Who will be canned? Not the high-priced newsroom folks:

Newsroom reductions will come from a "voluntary reduction program," the company said. The reductions should be implemented by the end of August, Times Co. said.All told, the reductions amount to less than 2% of the company's total workforce, it added.

"Staff reductions will be carefully managed so that they do not adversely affect journalistic quality, the smooth functioning of the Company's daily operations and the ability to achieve its long-term strategic goals," the company's statement said.

Journalistic quality?

Bill Keller, executive editor, wrote that the newspaper "concluded we can tolerate a slight contraction in staffing in certain parts of the newsroom, by reorganizing and consolidating duties in a waythat will not damage the paper," in a memo posted at Romenesko at www.poynter.org.

How can such a staunch supporter of working people lay so man blue collar types off? It wouldn't be because of the almighty dollar would it?

"Given the current challenges in the advertising at the Times and the Globe and the cloudy economic outlook for the remainder of the year, we believed it was prudent to accelerate these ongoing cost control efforts.

"The Times Co. said it had not yet calculated how big a charge against earning it will have to take because of the staff reduction. It said it will likely make the size of that charge public at the Mid-Year Media Review in June.

Why yes it is about money. My goodness, how Republican of the Times.

News and Notes

More new links below.

Chrenkoff has more (paid) reporting of good things from Iraq.

More Newsweek shenanigans in the Japanese edition.

Senator Kleagle's KKK hood.

An interesting study on education, the sexes and sleep patterns.

Go read Indymedia Watch and see how despicable the radical left has become.

Going non-Nuclear

As a follow up to last night's post, I want to clarify my position.

The majority of Americans weren't paying close attention to the fillibuster debate, and if they were, they only heard the names Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen. If they heard those names, they heard that they were evil conservative radicals who would ban abortion, ban homosexuality and do all those other things that evil conservatives do.

Those two women will be confirmed in the next week or so. That is why this is a win for the Republicans and President Bush. The Donkeys vilified these two women and now they will be sitting on very high courts with the agreement of the Democrats.

In PR terms--generally the only terms that matter in Washington--the public will only remember that these two judges that were dragged through the mire are going to be on the bench. If they were so poorly qualified, why did the Democrats allow them to be two of the judges that will voted upon by the full Senate?

Look, this whole thing will fall apart when a Supreme Court nominee is put to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Just like campaign finance, John McCain got his mug on the front page but didn't solve the problem.

This isn't over by a long shot, only delayed.

Some are in a pissy mood over this and some agree.

The Dems Blink

The Democrats looked as though they almost had some heart, alas they couldn't muster up any. They have absolutely pilloried Priscilla Owen and now she will be confirmed. The Dems don't seem to have gotten much out of this. Reid, however puts a happy spin on it:

Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada welcomed the agreement - although he hastened to say he remains opposed to some of the nominees who will now likely take seats on the appeals court.

"We have sent President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the radical right of the Republican party an undeniable message....the abuse of power will not be tolerated."

Uh, okay Harry. The Republicans are going to get their judges confirmed and probably their SCOTUS nominees and Reid says he defeated the "radical right". Right, Harry. Frist wins and Reid loses it. George Bush-28 Democrats-0.

Blurbs

The lawsuit should be filed in about twenty minutes.

Media Vs. the Military.

Go read Lileks!

The Wolf Bites Again.

Hitch Hits It Out

New Hitchens:

Toward the end of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, when music had already been banned and women excluded from Islamic rituals by being immured in their homes, and when new non-Quranic punishments—such as being buried alive—had been promulgated for homosexuals, an arcane point arose among the fierce Islamists who ran the place: Should paper bags also be haram, or forbidden? The point was an exquisitely delicate one. It was known that such bags were made from recycled paper. It had been alleged that old and torn copies of the Quran had been thrown, or must have been thrown, somewhere and sometime, into the vats of pulp. Was there, therefore, not a real risk that each paper bag might contain a profaned fragment of the divine word? The thought of toilet paper being made in this manner may have been too obscene even to consider, but in the event, paper bags were banned, just as most reading material had already been.

Hitch has been writing alot lately. That's good to see.

This'll Really Get Them Rioting

After the Newsweek kerfuffle last week, we heard about respecting the Koran at all costs. Today we have this story:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A car bomb blew up Monday outside a Shiite mosque in a town south of Baghdad, killing at least 10 people and injuring another 30, authorities said.

I imagine in the Muslim world, putting a Koran in a toilet is a sure way to get yourself a ticket to hell. What is Allah's sentence for destroying a whole building full of them?

SCOTUS to Hear Abortion Case

The Supreme Court is set to hear an abortion case on parental notification:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court, re-entering the abortion debate amid burgeoning speculation about Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's retirement, agreed Monday to hear an appeal of a decision striking down a state parental notification law.

Justices will review a lower court ruling that struck down such a law in New Hampshire. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the 2003 law was unconstitutional because it didn't provide an exception to protect the minor's health in the event of a medical emergency.

The decision to review the emotional case, which also comes at a time of bitterly partisan fighting in the Senate over President Bush's nominees for federal judgeships, will be heard in the next term beginning in October. Liberal groups have vowed to fight any Rehnquist replacement who opposes the high court's landmark 1973 decision legalizing abortion.

I believe that they may well overturn the lower courts findings. This will be a tough battle for the Donkey's as there are alot of parents who don't feel to good about their child being able to get an abortion without being notified.

Leaving the Left

Keith Thompson, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, pens one of the finest essays I've read about the disintegration of the left in the US. Liberalism in the US is currently at its lowest point ever. That is why the Republicans hold all branches of government.

Does that mean that ex-liberals agree with Bush? No way. It means that liberals are taking a hard look at themselves and where the left is headed in a post-9/11 world. The honest ones are seeing where the left in this country is currently positioned and not liking at all what they see.

Thompson truly writes from his heart. He traces his final break with leftism to the day of the Iraqi election:

I choose this day for my departure because I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity with oppressed populations everywhere -- reciting all the ways Iraq's democratic experiment might yet implode.

My estrangement hasn't happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades, yet refused to truly see. Now it's all too obvious. Leading voices in America's "peace" movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World country because they hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom.

The ferocity of the left when someone breaks ranks is palpable. I hope he's ready to get slammed with every epithet he's imagined. This anecdote is quite telling of the beginning of the decline of modern liberalism:

A turning point came at a dinner party on the day Ronald Reagan famously described the Soviet Union as the pre-eminent source of evil in the modern world. The general tenor of the evening was that Reagan's use of the word "evil" had moved the world closer to annihilation. There was a palpable sense that we might not make it to dessert.

When I casually offered that the surviving relatives of the more than 20 million people murdered on orders of Joseph Stalin might not find "evil'" too strong a word, the room took on a collective bemused smile of the sort you might expect if someone had casually mentioned taking up child molestation for sport.

My progressive companions had a point. It was rude to bring a word like "gulag" to the dinner table.

As I've said on many an occassion, the country as a whole has tilted to the left. Conservatives as a group and Neocons in particular are centrist, while the left has drifted farther to the left. The Republican voters are not just Christians, they are Libertarians and social moderates who try but can't vote Democratic.

As they say, read it all.

Update: Oops! There goes another one.

Al-Qaeda in Gaza

Captain Ed posts about al-Qaeda gaining a foothold in Gaza:

Now we face the possibility of pushing the creation of a pre-failed state, a proto-Taliban in which al-Qaeda freely operates. Why the US should find that in our interest, or in the interest of peace, escapes me completely. The Palestinians themselves have made it clear at the ballot box that they prefer the warlike approach of Hamas over the pseudomoderate approach of Fatah, and now AQ has begun to provide them the war they obviously want against both the US and Israel. Even if Abbas wanted to eject the terrorists, he clearly has shown he cannot, even with the existing Hamas and IJ. He certainly won't have the fortitude to stand up to AQ.

And the Palestinians are the ones who will be stuck in the middle unless they act decisively to oust AQ. I imagine that Israel will not sit still while an even more radical Islamist movement gains on their borders.

Political Correctness Run Amok

200 years ago, Admiral Nelson led a navy that routed the French fleet. Nowadays, because of the risk of hurting French sensibilities, the true story is being revised.

Update: In that one paragraph, I had three typos (since fixed). Lesson learned, never blog on Sunday morning before having your cofeee.

More of the Same at the Times

Outgoing NY Times big, Daniel Okrent took a shot at his opinion writers, including MoDo and Krugman:

2. Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults. Maureen Dowd was still writing that Alberto R. Gonzales "called the Geneva Conventions 'quaint' " nearly two months after a correction in the news pages noted that Gonzales had specifically applied the term to Geneva provisions about commissary privileges, athletic uniforms and scientific instruments. Before his retirement in January, William Safire vexed me with his chronic assertion of clear links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, based on evidence only he seemed to possess.

No one deserves the personal vituperation that regularly comes Dowd's way, and some of Krugman's enemies are every bit as ideological (and consequently unfair) as he is. But that doesn't mean that their boss, publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., shouldn't hold his columnists to higher standards.

I didn't give Krugman, Dowd or Safire the chance to respond before writing the last two paragraphs. I decided to impersonate an opinion columnist.

The incoming Public Editor looks like he's got a case of premature emasculation.

News and Notes

Uzbekistan round-up here.

Mugabe gets payback, big time. On a similar note, there's this.

Bloggers are evil!

My beautiful wife will not be happy with this.

Saddam's Abu Ghraib, when compared to the current edition, was way more brutal. I guess we haven't tried hard enough.

Democracy in Iraq?

Tim Blair has a great post on democracy in Iraq that includes this:

One thing we do know: ain’t no way reform and democracy were coming to Iraq if Uday, Qusay, or Big Daddy Underpants were left in charge. Removing them—the Hussein clan, that is, not underpants—creates at least the possibility of positive change.

Heh. Also, via Tim's site, a link to the Brothers Judd post that contains this telling anecdote that illustrates the excellent relationship between Australia and America:

In mid-March one of the most remarkable diplomatic scenes involving Australia took place in the White House. Our outgoing ambassador to the US, Michael Thawley, went there with his wife to pay his scheduled farewell call on the President.

Thawley was in for a surprise. Instead of a momentary grip and grin, an extraordinary scene unfolded in the Oval Office. After a few minutes the President said he had a couple of others who wished to farewell the Australian. He went out and returned with Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, national security adviser Stephen Hadley, White House chief-of-staff Andy Card and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers.

Blogroll Additions

I've deleted some links of bloggers who gave up long ago and added new links, including:

INDC Journal (I should've added that long ago as I read it often)

The Spirit of America blog. They are doing great things in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lightbody, who blogs mostly about computer related matters but does occasionally post about politics.

MEMRI TV. A critical component in the drive to alert people of what exactly is being said in the Islamic world.

I've added some music links. I've added the Grateful Dead free download site and GD Radio. I've also added a lnk to the System of a Down site and Radio Margaritaville, Jimmy Buffett's site.

One last thing, the links for Jeff Goldstein and Ali, formerly of Iraq the Model have been fixed.

Blurbs

The Brits should send George Galloway on this appeasement mission.

Mets-Yanks tonight at Shea and Michele rekindles the rivalry.

San Diego is starting to resemble Philly with their ongoing political shenanigans.

Bill's taking a well-deserved break, but he has a round-up of blogosphere reaction to Glenn Reynolds' takedown of Andrew Sullivan.

Jeff channels Margaret Cho.

Huffingtons Toast has joined the Onion, Scott Ott and Iowahawk as the best satirists on the web.

Dave Barry will make you click on more links in a minute that anyone on the web. A truly hilarious site.

ROP Watch

"Peaceful" practicers of Islam show their compassion with an Italian hostage:

A MAN claiming to have kidnapped an Italian aid worker in Afghanistan told media overnight he had killed her, but a government spokesman said she was still alive.

Clementina Cantoni, 32, who works for the CARE International aid agency, was snatched this week when four gunmen stopped her vehicle on a central Kabul street and bundled her into a white Toyota car.

Timoor Shah, who has claimed in several conversations with media to be holding Ms Cantoni, said he killed her after President Hamid Karzai's government refused to accept his demands.

"We strangled her with a rope at nine o'clock last night," said Shah, who was contacted on Ms Cantoni's mobile phone number.

"I will not give her body to anyone," he said.

Real manly men, aren't they. The next time a liberal compares Christians to Islamofascists, remind them of the death of this woman and Nicholas Berg and...

Condi Scolds Bashar

Dr. Condoleeza Rice let's Boy Assad know we expect him to rein in the insurgents hiding on his border with Iraq:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday broadened U.S. accusations that Syria was contributing to violent insurgencies in Iraq.

After a meeting with Iraq's planning minister, Barham Salih, Rice again accused Syria of supporting terror. To that, she added an allegation that Syria may also be providing financial support for insurgents as well as "allowing its territory to be used to organize terrorist attacks against innocent Iraqis."

Moreover, Rice said, Syria was supporting Palestinians trying to undercut cooperation with Israel on a projected withdrawal from Gaza.

For months, the State Department has complained that Syria was not guarding its borders to prevent infiltration of fighters into Iraq. "We are concerned in particular about Syrian behavior on its own border," she said Friday.

My how the mideast has changed under the Bush doctrine. I wonder how Assad looks in the eyes of his dictator brethren being smacked around by not only an American, but a woman.

The Iraqi's also send Assad the message.

The UN Warns US

The second-in-command to Lord Kofi says the US had best not withold money that the UN needs to keep up with its thuggish ways:

May 19 (Bloomberg) -- United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan's top aide today warned the U.S. against withholding funds to force change at the world body, saying ``a big stick rather than a hand reached out'' will alienate America's friends.

``The option of withholding immediately separates you from your allies because it's seen as America acting alone rather than in partnership with reform-minded allies,'' Mark Malloch Brown, Annan's chief of staff, told the House International Relations Committee.

It seems to me that the UN is the one reaching out their hands. My goodness, they are accusing us of acting unilaterally. We'll be a world pariah. Whatever.

This is like enabling a drug addict, they swear it's the last time they need money, until the next time. I say we make an agreement, we'll take the average allocation of all the nations on the UN Commission on Human Rights, figure out what percentage of their GDP that encompasses and we'll pay that percentage.

That sure seems fair to me. Or better yet, let's give them nothing until they can police themselves and not contribute to the rape and pillaging of countries they were sent to protect.

Update: I for one am stocking up on foodstuffs and water as those blue-helmeted warriors may just attack us.

The Reason Liberalism is Dying

Liberals are interesting people. I can tolerate them because I know they really have nothing of significance to say when it comes down to it. Try it some time; ask a liberal to explain why they support abortion. How you defend killing a million children as a means of birth control would be an exercise in futility for just about any sensible person. That doesn't stop libs, though. They can rationalize it and almost seem as though they believe what they are saying.

Generally, when they are overwhelmed with facts contrary to thei position, they thrash out a say things such as "Bush is Hitler" or "Haliburton!". They think they've won the argument when they scream that one.

You see, just like the providers of their talking points; Kos and the NY Times, inconvenient facts are to be ignored or revised. Hell, in today's media, facts aren't even necessary as witnessed by the Newsweek kerfuffle.

I think that's why libs really, deep down in their wretched bones, hate Ann Coulter. I mean hate with a ferocity that conservatives couldn't raise within themselves for Bill Clinton. I won't link to this pleasant site, I'll link to Katinula and if you wish, you can click the link to those disgusting posts. Katinula should be ashamed of linking to it, but alas, libs have no shame. Hell, they have a former KKK member as their senior Senator.

She'll say that I've linked to worse or what have you. It doesn't matter really, the liberals are a dying breed who just haven't taken time to see the rot that exists within them.

Update: Katinula does that irritating thing that those on the left like to do; rationalize things prior to linking to them:

Warning, this is not for the faint of heart. Everything and anything that could be considered offensive is contained in the 'blog' (link removed--ed.). But...enjoy is (sic) you must (as I did).

Now K. can say that she didn't write it, she just linked to it. If you enjoyed that, us Neocons have already won way more than we've thought.

Update: Katinula responds and says she got under my skin. It appears the opposite is true as her response to me in the comments was nearly longer than my original post.

Also, Dave Justus responded in the comments with this:

It is always easy to find ideological opponents that we can easily feel superior too. It is more useful though to examine the best, rather than the worst of one's opponents.

I would and have. By far the most liberal (on everything except the war) is Christopher Hitchens. I've linked to him when I agreed and when I did not.

I try to discuss issues with liberals and they tend to have no substance to what they say. As if they're just mouthing the words. I am a libertarian on most social issues, centrist to moderately conservative on alot of others. The problem with what you say, Dave is that the Democrats and liberals are farther to the left than Republicans are to the right.

In fact, todays Republicans are your fathers Democrats.

Update 2: Patrick responds. It's good to see him writing about politics again.

Indy Media and Terrorism

I don't know if the anyone in the intelligence business monitors Indymedia on a regular basis. The Watcher does and finds some interesting stuff:

And just in case you want to argue that they're not terrorists, they seem pretty comfortable with the idea:Hizbullah's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah: We Would Rather Remain a "Terrorist Organization" Than Lay Down Our Arms

I'm sure that since this material is interspersed with sports news and music clips, it's okay by Reporters Sans Frontieres. It sure isn't with me!

This is not the first time Indymedia has shilled for terrorists. I previously reported on Indymedia serving as a propaganda outlet for Hezbollah. Read it and see just how "unbiased and fair" they were.

The Watcher is doing a great service. That dude must feel kind of like an undercover drug agent or a cop busting child pornographers; the sickness of the Indy Media types is something that you just can't wash off.

A Sullivan Takedown

Ouch:

As Mickey Kaus has noted, Andrew can be excitable. A while back he apologized to me for some of his criticisms during the election, and more recently he has apologized to his readers for his waffling and defeatism on the war last spring. Perhaps he'll apologize for this at some point in the future. But, I confess, I find the question of what Andrew thinks less pressing than I used to.

That'll definitely leave a mark.

And Give Us Back Our Peace Pipe!

Ward Churchill's "tribe" denies he belongs:

"The United Keetoowah Band would like to make it clear that Mr. Churchill IS NOT a member of the Keetoowah Band and was only given an honorary 'associate membership' in the early 1990s because he could not prove any Cherokee ancestry."

The tribe said that all of Churchill's "past, present and future claims or assertions of Keetoowah 'enrollment,' written or spoken, including but not limited to; biographies, curriculum vitae, lectures, applications for employment, or any other reference not listed herein, are deemed fraudulent by the United Keetoowah Band."

Not much ambiguity there. How the hell is this guy still getting a government paycheck? Knowing what a scumbag Churchill is, I suspect he'll call them "little indian givers".

A Bubble Burst

I had high hopes for Lorraine. She seemed smart, ambitious and can definitely write. Alas, she is a Met fan. A Met fan! All the links I've sent her way, all the good things I've had to say. Man, if she is a Giants fan, I'm never reading her again.

The UN is Still Scamming

The UN is in the midst of an upgrade to their Manhattan digs. It will cost in excess of $1-billion:

In the midst of these controversies, the United Nations is proceeding with plans to upgrade its Manhattan headquarters. The organization's headquarters at Turtle Bay were completed in 1950 and renovated in the 1970s. The United Nations now believes that another renovation project is necessary, and has prepared a $1.2 billion plan to carry out the work.

While the construction is underway, the organization will need to be housed elsewhere. In its original form, the U.N. plan included construction of a new, 35-story building over Robert Moses Playground, a park near Turtle Bay, at a cost of an additional $650 million. This new building was slated to be the U.N.'s home during the renovation project, and to continue in use by the organization thereafter.

The US pays the bulk of the UN's stipend. Do you still think someone like John Bolton is not necessary? Powerline is on the case.

News and Notes

Kuwait moves into the 19th century.

Chrenkoff has some things to say to George Lucas.

"The dollar is heading down, no matter what". Not!

The cycle of violence continues.

Live blogging Kofi.

Lampley Is Wrong

From the site that keeps on giving, Jim Lampley lamely attempts to rebut Roger L. Simon. While flailing away and hitting nothing, Lampley shows exactly what makes this blog a joke:

That the magazine is responsible enough to voluntarily admit an error amid the ensuing firestorm is something to be respected, not to be used as Mr. Simon did, as a jumping-off point for suggesting that general media and their reporters have a get-Bush mentality. If general media had a get-Bush mentality, they'd have been much quicker to respond to the significance of the British intelligence memo further substantiating the administration's Iraq buildup perfidy, and for that matter they'd work a lot harder at determining what really happened in the Presidential election of 2004.

Come on, Jim. Newsweek did not admit the error because they felt responsible, they admitted wrong doing because they were caught printing fictional information by the blogosphere. As for the Brit memo and the 2004 election, you might do better posting over at DU or Indymedia.

As for expressed neoconservative outrage over the fourteen deaths, get real. Those of us who oppose this administration and its private $300 billion Iraq war are as saddened as we should be about the fourteen people who died in Afghanistan because of this. We're equally saddened by the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians cavalierly sacrificed on the altar of Messrs.
Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz/Rumsfeld's preconceived "anti-terror" initiative. For pro-Bush writers to attempt to guilt-trip professional reporters for collateral damage is beyond ludicrous. It's immoral.

This "private" war took place in 2003. We had a presidential election in 2004 and Bush, along with his cronies who were all there during the campaign, was elected with a majority of the vote. Something that hadn't happened in a while.

Keep trying, Jimmy. Eventually you might get the hang of this thing.

Newsweek Lied, People Died

The Newsweek/toilet flush kerfuffle is at full speed right now. Austin Bay is all over. I was never stationed at Guantanamo and was a sailor, not a soldier. That said, I'm reasonably sure that they don't have toilets that are big enough to flush a Koran.

How could Newsweek run with that blurb? In their attempt to pin another false story on Bush, Newsweek ended up being the latest MSM casualty laying in a broken heap by the side of the road while Bush motors along.

Update: James Taranto says it best:

Journalists have to make myriad judgment calls, and this is far from the first time a news organization has jumped the gun and reported information that turned out to be false--though usually the consequences aren't so bloody. But it's fair to say this is an example of "adversary" journalism getting out of control. Reporters are not agents of the government, but it wouldn't hurt if, at least during wartime, they were restrained by some sense of patriotism.

A Hitchens Must-Read

Christopher Hitchens on the NY Times and the use of the term "insurgent":

When the New York Times scratches its head, get ready for total baldness as you tear out your hair. A doozy classic led the "Week in Review" section on Sunday. Portentously headed "The Mystery of the Insurgency," the article rubbed its eyes at the sheer lunacy and sadism of the Iraqi car bombers and random murderers. At a time when new mass graves are being filled, and old ones are still being dug up, writer James Bennet practically pleaded with the authors of both to come up with an intelligible (or defensible?) reason for his paper to go on calling them "insurgents."

I don't think the New York Times ever referred to those who devastated its hometown's downtown as "insurgents." But it does employ this title every day for the gang headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. With pedantic exactitude, and unless anyone should miss the point, this man has named his organization "al-Qaida in Mesopotamia" and sought (and apparently received) Osama Bin Laden's permission for the franchise. Did al-Qaida show "interest in winning hearts and minds … in building international legitimacy … in articulating a governing program or even a unified ideology," or any of the other things plaintively mentioned as lacking by Mr. Bennet?

Read the entire thing.

Spirit of America

Check out the good things going on in Iraq via the Spirit of America blog. I'm proudly wearing my SOA T-shirt and hat that I received after raising money for the cause.

The Motor City Madman

Ted Nugent is a great interview. The guy talks like David Lee Roth with a high IQ and doesn't back down when a politically correct lefty whines about him. He's a man with alot to say:

"Isn't it fascinating that without compromising a spit, that now those who traditionally despised me and all my NRA, Bambi-slaughtering lifestyle, now realize that my connection to the huge segment of America is something to instead of condemn and run away from, they might want to upgrade their level of that awareness and tap into it," Nugent said.

Even the Secret Service is on board with him, Nugent told The Associated Press during a recent interview at his 300-acre ranch outside President Bush's adopted hometown.

Three dozen agents took target practice last month at Nugent's ranch, he said. They initiated the visit, bringing machine guns and other government-issued weapons and ammunition — and spent hours having fun at taxpayers' expense, Nugent said with a laugh.

Secret Service officials would not confirm or deny the incident.

Keep talking Ted, we love to hear your interviews and though I may not always agree with you, you are definitely entertaining, in spite of that whole Damn Yankees phase.

Free Muslims Against Terrorism

The website of the group Free Muslims Against Terrorism has this on their homepage:

Help us send a message to radical Muslims and supporters of terrorism that we reject them and that we will defeat them.

Be a part of history with Muslims and Middle Easterners leading the rally against terrorism and in support of freedom and democracy in the Muslim world.

It appears that message didn't get out.

More On Bolton

Mark Steyn:

When rent-a-quote senators claim to be pro-U.N. or multilateralist, the tsunami operation is what they have in mind -- that when something bad happens the United States should commit to working through the approved transnational bureaucracies and throw even more "resources" at them, even though nothing will happen (Sri Lanka), millions will be stolen (Oil for Food), children will get raped (U.N. peacekeeping operations) and hundreds of thousands will die (Sudan).

John Bolton's sin is to have spoken the truth about the international system rather than the myths to which photo-oppers like the Canadian prime minister defer. As a consequence, he's being treated like a container of Western aid being processed by Indonesian customs. Customs Inspector Joe Biden and Junior Clerk Voinovich spent two months trying to come up with reasons why Bolton's paperwork is inadequate and demanding to know why he hasn't filled out his RU1-2. An RU1-2 is the official international bureaucrat's form reassuring the global community that he'll continue to peddle all the polite fictions, no matter how self-evidently risible they are. John Bolton isn't one, too. That's why we need him.

Bolton is the lightning rod for the angry left. He's clean of corruption but mean to his subordinates. Democrats who were members of the KKK, allowed a woman to die in a river, or perform sex acts with a subordinate in the Oval Office are OK, just don't raise you voice to your underlings.

Bolton is needed because it won't be the same old, same old. He will represent US interests in that useless collection of thugs and hypocrites and that is what we need.

Sara Berg's Letter

It seems that the letter written by Sara Berg yesterday has started getting the loonies a bit riled up.

A Good Day

You know how every once in a while you just have good days?

Today was one for me. It started with a link from INDC Journal, then LGF and finally Tim Blair. In between I received unexpected checks for invoices for my company, which will allow me to make payroll for the next couple of pay periods. To top it off, the team I coach won 10-1 and kids who couldn't play baseball a month ago are playing well and learning the game.

What is the best thing to happen today? I'd say it was watching a few kids who weren't hitting a baseball lately make contact and get on base. I have two kids who play for me that are not the best or worst players, but in between. Yesterday, as I alluded to last night, they had a good game and got big hits at crucial moments. Today you couldn't wipe the smile off their faces with a Brillo pad. Unfortunately as we get older, we tend to forget the pure joy of hitting a baseball when you've struck out five consecutive times. I was reminded of that confidence-building feeling today looking into the faces of those two kids.

That my friends is why I coach. I don't do it for the kid who is a great athlete and makes big plays all the time. I do it for the kid who makes that one big play in a season, then dreams about it for months.

My son is a good athlete who plays at the highest level in every sport. I enjoy being there with him and teaching him the game. The other kids who will be in band by the time they hit high school are the one who really make it worth it. Ten years from now I'll still be "Coach Scott" to them even though they haven't played sports for years and that is a great feeling.

The other stuff was icing on the cake. A link from three of my favorite bloggers is a treat that I wish I could explain to friends and family who don't blog. My business is doing well and that's great also.

It was a good day.

California Politicians Are Nuts

California is looking to amend a law that allows police to impound a car for a person driving without a license. The amendment would exempt people who were never issued a license. The majority of folks in California who've not been issued a license are illegally in the country.

This is a bill that not only is not fair to anyone except illegals, but it is another example of California politicos pandering to the Mexican population, both legal and not.

Welcome

Welcome lizardoids. Look around and come back. My link to Sara Berg's letter is here.

Update: Thanks also to Bill at INDC Journal who links to this interview he conducted with Michael Berg.

Rough Trade

I am opposed to quotas with regard to imports. I opposed the steel tariffs when they were instituted and cheered when they were removed. That said, I have no problem with the Bush plan to slap tariffs on clothing manufactured in China:

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is re-imposing quotas on three categories of clothing imports from China, responding to complaints from domestic producers that a surge of Chinese imports was threatening thousands of U.S. jobs.

The administration action will impose limits on the amount of cotton trousers, cotton knit shirts and underwear that China can ship to this country. American retailers say that will drive up prices for U.S. consumers.

In announcing the decision Friday, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said a government investigation had found that a surge in shipments from China since global quotas were eliminated on Jan. 1 was disrupting the domestic market.

I support our government not because I want to protect American jobs. While a noble idea, if we can't make products at a competitive price, we have no business manufacturing them. That's just plain and simple free-market economics.

I support this because China is our next adversary. Every dollar we send to that country is another nail in democratic Taiwan's coffin and supports a barbaric regime and ideology. China has relations with nations who wish to do us harm and we still send billions their way.

Predator Eliminates al-Qaeda Leader

The CIA has been putting the Predator unmanned plane to excellent use:

May 13, 2005 — A senior al Qaeda operative was killed by a missile fired from a CIA Predator aircraft on the Pakistani side of the remote area near the Afghan border earlier this week, U.S. intelligence officials told ABC News.

The CIA refused to confirm or deny any operational matter.

Haitham al-Yemeni, a native of Yemen known for his bomb-making skills, had been tracked for some time in the hope that he would help lead the United States to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, intelligence officials said. But with the recent capture in northwest Pakistan of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, thought to be al Qaeda's No. 3 man, officials worried al-Yemeni would soon go into hiding, and decided to take action.

Al-Yemeni was in line to replace al-Libbi, intelligence analysts said.

I imagine that the capture of al-Libbi directly resulted in finding this guy. Hopefully bin-Laden or Zawahiri are next.

A Devastating Indictment of the Media

When Nicholas Berg was beheaded by Zarqawi in Iraq, his father blamed the Bush administration and the media have enabled him. He is one of the more vocal anti-war activists out there.

His daughter does not believe the same things, however:

Some things are unforgivable. What Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his many accomplices did to my brother Nick is unforgivable. It was not an act of war; it was a cold-blooded, premeditated heinous crime. To call it anything else suggests that it is an acceptable act of war, an acceptable response to America's military action. It is not.

The world would be a better place if al-Zarqawi was no longer in it. He is pure evil. I don't think someone like him is capable of any human feeling anymore. The only way to keep people like him from harming thousands of other people is to eliminate them.

Before this happened, I did not comprehend the magnitude of his evil and of people like him. But to experience the heinousness of what he did to someone as good and as innocent as my brother has totally changed my perspective. I don't know how to respond in a humane way to such inhumane acts. I don't think a humane response is necessary.

What the media did to my family is also unforgivable. They made the worst week of my life infinitely worse. Decision-makers in the media need to make more humane decisions about what is a story and how they get it. Someone should have thought of a shocked, astounded and grieving family when they made those decisions. They spoke of their sympathy for us, but not once did they think the sympathetic thing to do would be to stop harassing us and allow us to grieve in peace.

Sara Berg
Virginia Beach, Va.

Update: Thanks to Bill at INDC Journal for linking to this. He interviewed Michael Berg last year.

Update 2: Welcome Tim Blair readers. Tim is my favorite blogger and I greatly appreciate the link. Thanks to him I know more about Australian politics and events than some Aussies do. Take some time and look around, I post on everything from politics to sports to music.

News and Notes

• The figure of Iraqi deaths from the war, according to the UN, is less than 25,000.

• Smash is all over the latest BRAC list. My area took a hit with proposed closing of Fort Monmouth up north and NAS Willow Grove across the river north of Philly. My former town, San Diego, appears to have gotten off fairly lightly, as did most of CA. My former places of work at NAS North Island and Point Loma appear to have gained as has Naval Station in National City.

• A Pulitzer Prize winning writer for the Sacramento Bee has been fired for fabricating sources. The Pulitzer now means about as much as winning the Palme D'or at Cannes. Well, Mareen Dowd did win one, so I guess it lost any prestige at that point.

• Uzbekistan is in turmoil.

• A seven year streak by Tiger Woods ends at the Byron Nelson Classic. What an amazing streak. BTW, keep an eye on the US Open qualifying, I have a friend who needs to play well for a few more weeks and he may get to play at Pinehurst.

Huffingtons Toast

This didn't take long. A satirical Huffington (dumb as a) Post site. The Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds posts are hilarious, as is the blogroll link to Robert Fisk.

A Happy Friday Post

I've just finished coaching perhaps the funnest game I've yet coached. The league I coach in is a nine and ten-year old pitching league. For most of the kids it's the first time they've seen real pitching.

To make a long story short, we were down 11-3 going into the bottom of the last. We hit and walked and hit and walked and the bases were loaded and the before you knew it, we were down 11-7. A kid on my team who's not been hitting at all ropes a ball to right field, I'm waving my arms like an idiot and the kids are rounding the bases. I see the cutoff man throw the ball to third high and I send the kid who hit the ball home. The third baseman backs up to try to catch the overthrow and forces my runner to swing wide. The ball hits the fence, the opposing player picks it up, throws it home and the runner is...OUT! at the plate. We lose 11-10 on a play at the plate!

A phenomenal game. Sure we lost, but I was proud that the kids hung in there and got to feel the joy that baseball can bring. Sure we lost, but the kids didn't give up when things looked really bleak. Sure we lost, but tomorrow we play again and we will be ready. Sure we lost, but to look at the bench and see a whole gaggle of nine and ten-year olds wearing their "rally caps"-- which is the luck-bringing act of turning your hat inside-out--was the greatest.

Baseball. The greatest game ever created.

What is Your Definition Of A Hero?

Not all acts of heroism are performed by unflawed men:

MIAMI (AP) - A homeless man who did odd jobs for a local restaurateur was stabbed to death as he defended her against a knife-wielding intruder, authorities said.

Kelcy Ruiz, 32, was mourned as a hero for coming to the aid of Melida Murillo during an attack Monday at her Colombian restaurant, Mama Leonor.

Ruiz, described by relatives as a crack cocaine addict who lived mainly on Miami's downtown streets, did occasional work for Murillo in exchange for food.

"Even though he was a forgotten member of society, he acted better than most people who are not homeless," said Detective Delrish Moss, spokesman for the Miami Police Department.
Ruiz's uncle described his nephew as "a lost soul" who had emigrated from Honduras four years ago in hopes of kicking his drug habit and finding work.

Rest in peace, Kelcy. I hope you find peace of mind in the next world.

Indymedia Blows

The Watcher is still watching. He has found this nice little story from down under. These guys are quickly being out-idioted by the DU, though.

Voinovich Has No Heart

Senator Voinovich decided to "allow" the John Bolton nomination to go to a full Senate vote:

The pivotal vote came from Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich (news, bio, voting record), who said Bolton was a sometime bully whose short fuse would have gotten him fired in the private sector.

"This is not behavior that should be endorsed as the face of the United States to the world community at the United Nations," Voinovich said. "It is my opinion that John Bolton is the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be."

In spite of that, the good Senator voted to send it on to a full vote by that august body. I personally think Bolton is a good man for the job. A strong presence is needed to get that collection of corrupt rapists and thieves in line.

That said, how can a Senator be quoted saying those words printed above and still vote for the guy? He should be voted out for being spineless. What a show-boating scumbag he is.

A Brutal Whacking

The always subtle Ann Coulter takes down two columnists in two paragraphs as is her wont:

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Trudy Rubin claimed to be talking about "grim Iraq realities," explaining to her readers that if elections were held, the new Iraqi government "will likely be dominated by religious parties. If the economy stays bad, radical Islamic parties could do well." So you can see how leaving the tyrannical Hussein dynasty (slogan: "We're the rape room people!") in place was preferable to that.

Winning the category of Most Wrong Predictions in the Fewest Words, Joe Conason predicted in the Sept. 27, 2004, New York Observer: "a series of horrifically violent confrontations in Iraq's cities, a postponement of the January elections, a wider call-up of National Guard and Reserve units, or even a renewed military draft." And if Bush won a second term, Conason said: "Beware the 'November surprise' that will begin to bring home the true costs of his feckless adventure."

I've had my issues with Trudy Rubin in the past.

Bashar Must Be Pissing Himself

The Marines are putting the wood to terrorists on the Syrian border:

As many as 100 insurgents were killed in the first 48 hours of Operation Matador, as American troops cleared villages along the meandering Euphrates then crossed in rafts and on a pontoon bridge, the U.S. command said. Many of the dead remained trapped under rubble after attack planes and helicopter gunships pounded their hideouts.

At least three Marines were reported killed and 20 wounded during the first three days of the offensive - the biggest U.S. operation since Fallujah was taken from extremists six months ago.

The operation was launched after U.S. intelligence showed followers of Iraq's most wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, took refuge in the remote desert region - a haven for smugglers and insurgent suppliers. The fighters were believed to have fled to Anbar Province after losses in Iraqi cities.

After intense fighting with militants entrenched on the south bank of the Euphrates River early in the operation, Marines saw only light resistance Tuesday and advanced through sparsely populated settlements along a 12-mile stretch to the border with Syria, according to a Chicago Tribune reporter embedded with the assault, James Janega.

This must have Boy Assad seriously thinking about cracking down on his border with Iraq. I doubt that Bashar is long for this world, he may talk defiantly this week or month, but long-term, he will have to take some action that benefits the US and he risks looking weak to the hard line Baathists.

My prayers go out to the families of the Marines who were killed.

A Daily Read

I link to his blog frequently. Generally it's specific posts or several on the same topic. I am remiss for not just linking to his main page (I do on my blogroll, but you know what I mean). Dave Justus is a good blogger and shows what this medium is and could become.

The Huffington Post Keeps On Giving

Former Clinton Press Secretary, Mike McCurry has an inane post on the Huffington (dumb as a) Post:

Get caught in the buzz in DC and you get caught with a lot of swarming bees that don't really sting. Washington conventional wisdom is about Delay, filibusters, someone (or two) resigning from the Supreme Court in the next few hours, who’s up and sideways, blah, blah, blah.

Here’s an interesting fact: four million children die each year around the world within one week of being born. Three million (yes, 3,000,000) babies could be saved within the first 24 hours of being born if they had proper sanitation, clean water, nutrition. Simple things. Things that cost less than $10-$20 per kid. There are some good ways to save 3 million babies and it doesn't break the bank.

I know of a way to save 1.3-million babies, idiot.

News and Notes

New posts below.

Tim Blair "Fisks" the Australian ABC within an inch of their government supported life.

Canada is about to experience regime change, it appears. Cap'n Ed comments.

Did you know that felons would overwhelmingly vote for Democrats? I'm shocked.

Another member of the extended Kennedy clan gets off. Man, to be a Kennedy family defense lawyer has got to be the greatest gig out there.

My "bubblehead" buddies in the US Navy sub fleet have a new target to track. Go get the sorry excuse for a boat, boys.

Celebrities Get Fisked Within One Day

I love my brothers and sisters in the blogosphere. The Huffington Post started yesterday and we already have a take down of epic proportions.

Celebrities live in a a nice, tidy little flock like sheep. They have the MSM as their watchdog protecting that flock. It's a happy equilibrium where the celebs are irritated by the National Enquirer and assorted photographers who are looking to get paid for a picture of Brad Pitt sticking his tongue down Angelina Jolie's throat. Other than that, their greatest fear is a thumbs down by Roger Ebert.

Well, now some celebs have joined a train wreck arranged by Huffington and in doing so have strayed from the protection of the flock. Beware! There are wolves about and they are really hungry for some mutton.

Only in Boston

Only in the great city of Boston can a major newspaper call Howard Dean a "Centrist".

I guess it is centrist in Boston to support a Socialist for office:

"A victory for Bernie Sanders is a win for Democrats," Dean said in a telephone interview Monday.

Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., announced last month he would not seek re-election, clearing the way for what's expected to be a crowded race in fall 2006.

But Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, added that his support is not unconditional.

"We've got a few things to work out with Bernie," he said, adding, "Bernie's not a Democrat."
Dean, the outspoken former presidential candidate whose aspirations for the White House abruptly ended during the primary more than a year ago, refused to describe Sanders' shortcomings in the eyes of Democrats.

"I'd rather tell him in person," Dean said.

The Huffington Post Debuts

Arianna Huffington, the woman with most irritating accent ever, has launched her new group blog. Participants include: Larry David, Walter Cronkite and Senator Corzine. One question leaps to mind, does the blog have to give equal time to the other NJ gubernatorial candidates like Brett Schundler and Doug Forrester?

If this moronic post by Rep. Ed Markey is any indication, this thing will crash faster than Air America:

One little, two little, three little nukes...four little, five little, six little nukes...

I wonder how many North Korean nuclear weapons we will have to discover in order for this Administration to conclude we can no longer continue to preach nuclear temperance from a barstool. The Bush approach to non-proliferation has become a dangerous policy pretzel: demand UN inspections, ridicule UN inspections, invade the countries with no weapons, and demand that others forswear nukes while we build a new generation of new nukes. Meanwhile, today the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced its estimates that North Korea has close to six nuclear weapons.

While President Bush is off in Moscow, the leaders of the world are gathering in New York, for the United Nations Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference to formulate policy on what Vice President Dick Cheney identified on the campaign trail as "the most serious threat facing our nation" -- a nuclear weapon detonating in the middle of one of our cities. It is a rare moment when I concur with the Vice President, but he is speaking the absolute truth about how dangerous nuclear threats are.

Today, I will join Hans Blix at the United Nations for a discussion on the need to balance disarmament and non-proliferation. The real “nuclear option” that threatens our national security is not the one being debated in the Senate – this nuclear option will end in a devastating plume of smoke over our cities. The weekly threats from North Korea and Iran continue to be swept under the rug.

My goodness, I've written posts that make me cringe when I go back and read them, but this is really bad. I foresee this blog giving all of us libertarian and conservative bloggers alot of fodder.