WHY I DON'T WATCH

The sublime silliness of the Mommy President.

SUPPORTING OUR TROOPS

I can think of no better a representative of the Left than Ted Rall.

RE: "NICER SORT OF PERSON" UPDATE

I see. Good to know that the other side is still intent on spreading peace and good will at this cheery time of year. (Can we post a big Santa hat at our website banner?)

Anyway, as for the Marsden hater, hear that giant sucking sound outside? It's called your life.

"NICER SORT OF PERSON" UPDATE

Speaks for itself.

WELL

Bush is in da club. Goes to show it's true - and tests the logical limitations of the point - that a Republican is a Democrat who's been mugged. My solidification in the post-mugging camp was re-emphasized this weekend when someone broke into my car, but that's an aside.

MICHAEL LEDEEN . . .

. . . a guy who knows a lot more about this stuff than I do, agrees with me.

Simply put, WIN THE DAMN WAR. It's the best thing for the country, the world, and for Bush -- in that order of importance, frankly. Does Bush want to end the harping and sniping? Does Bush want to win back his base, who are leaving him in droves (explaining his record-low polling of late)? Does Bush want to leave a lasting, meaningful, Reaganesque legacy -- not only for himself, but because we'll all be better off for it?

Says Ledeen:

The proper debate has still not been engaged, and the administration's failure to lead it bespeaks a grave failure of strategic vision. The war was narrowly aimed against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. But, as President Bush himself said after 9/11, it was logically and properly a war against both the terrorists themselves and against the regimes that foster, support, arm, train, indoctrinate, and guide the terrorist legions who are clamoring for our destruction.

I worry that the strategic vision is not there. I thought it was, on September 20, 2001. I'm not so sure anymore.

RE: THE MIND POLICE ON THE MARCH

That type of history-cleansing demonstrates that we are clearly one step closer to the complete takeover of the Matrix.

THE MIND POLICE ON THE MARCH

I don't smoke.

I never have.

I never will.

I hate being around it.

I think it's dirty, disgusting, and vulgar and I wish people wouldn't do it.

But what's more dirty, disgusting, and vulgar has been the Goebbels-esque campaign of disinformation and outright lies to attack not the practice, but the industry -- and ironcially using every "dirty trick" they accuse Big Tobacco of using to get kids to smoke: cartoons, games, comics, the whole gamut.

I don't know if this is backed by the "Truth" organization, but this takes it to a whole new level.

Do you remember that scene in "1984" where Winston has a photo of Party bigwigs at a function in New York, but one of them has fallen out of favor? The photo had already been doctored -- there had been yet another who had fallen out of favor earlier, but was previously excised from the photo; this time, however, Winston's job was simple. He slid it down the "memory hole," which was a chute to the incinerators. That's how Big Brother dealt with inconvenient facts about history.

Well, so, too, do the rabid anti-smoking hordes. Harper Collins, on new editions of a popular children's book, has doctored the photo of the book's illustrator to remove the cigarette he has in his hand.

We wouldn't want to give the children the wrong idea, ideas like history happened once and it's paramount to have an accurate assessment of it, rather than to retool it into something we like better these days. No, better to shield them from all that thinking for themselves.

RE: HUH??

There must be some kind of mistake, Mark, because only the Bush Administration restricts free speech. At least that's what I hear . . .

Truth is, in Europe, which loves to castigate us for keeping nudity off broadcast television, has never held political speech in the same regard we have. For them, "free speech" means being able to say "fuck" on TV, or have nude pictures in the newspapers, whereas to us it means being able to make political statements without fear of being jailed.

Which is one of the reasons we decided, 230 years ago, that we were going to do our own thing and let Europe do theirs.

HUH??

This needs no further explanation regarding its disturbing nature.

POINT AND LAUGH

If Ramsey Clarke weren't enough of a cracked nut for entertainment, now we have a former Canadian Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister claiming that Bush, apparently not content with conquering the whole of Earth, plans to start a war with aliens:

Mr. Hellyer went on to say, "I'm so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something."

Hellyer revealed, "The secrecy involved in all matters pertaining to the Roswell incident was unparalled. The classification was, from the outset, above top secret, so the vast majority of U.S. officials and politicians, let alone a mere allied minister of defence, were never in-the-loop."

Hellyer warned, "The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning. He stated, "The Bush administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them, if they so decide."

This is the face of the rational, compassionate "world opposition" to Bush. (The "reality-based community"?)

THANKS FOR THE GUNS

I got this bizarre e mail yesterday. I guess cheap ammo is something we should all be thankful for:

A Brief History of the Gun
Before the firearm, man walked in fear of nature's creatures, who thought little of man and his ability to make bowls out of clay. But then, one man invented the gun - I believe his name was Bob - and, the next time Bob ran into a bear, he kicked its ass. From then on, all animals knew that man was the superior species and then relegated themselves to performing in circuses for our amusement. Soon after, a woman came upon a gun --we'll call her Moesha -- and accomplished what thousands of years of feminism couldn't: physical equality of the sexes. For a gun fired by Moesha was just as deadly as a gun fired by a man or a chimpanzee (don't give guns to chimps). Now everyone embraced this new technology and the equality it brought to all mankind, but then evil arose in its palace of destruction and challenged the gun owners. And there was much kung fu fighting. Through the use of magic confuse rays, the evil gained the upper hand convincing many to turn against guns, taking them away from their loving families and imprisoning them with safety locks. But, to this day, there are those who still fight for the gun, wishing to return the brave firearms to their proper place in society, once again bringing peace, love, and cheap ammo to the masses.

Happy Thanksgiving. Cheap ammo to all, and to all a good fight.

GOSH! I WONDER . . .

. . . where they may have gotten this idea:

The governor [Ishihara of Tokyo] said the U.S. military could not counter a wave of millions of Chinese soldiers prepared to die in any onslaught against U.S. forces. After 2,000 casualties, he said, the U.S. military would be forced to withdraw.

THE LONG, LONG ROAD AHEAD

Just got back from working out a little bit ago; I had the news on down in the gym. I was floored by one of the stories (to which Stuttaford links over at the Corner, I see) -- that Iraqi leaders are calling for a timetable for US withdrawal (which frankly doesn't bug me that much), but also that they voted to recognize a "right of resistance" and apply it to the head-sawers in Iraq, and that they should not be labeled "terrorists" if they don't target civilians or institutions meant for the public good.

My brother likes to repeat a single word when we come across unbelievable moronity such as this: "DOOOOOOOOOOM." He means that civilization is doomed to collapse under the weight of useful idiots.

Now, let it be said that I believe that the United States of America was founded upon a legal principle which recognizes a "right of resistance," and armed, if necessary. Our Revolution was a violent rebellion against the vested legal authority, and it was justified.

However, a "right of resistance," under that principle, exists only under certain narrow conditions. The animals who burn bodies and leave them on bridges, and perform brutal acts of horrific terror on camera, fulfill exactly none of them, neither in condition, behavior, or standing to do so.

For a right of resistance to apply, there have to be certain conditions. First and foremost, all non-violent avenues of civil redress must be abrogated. This is not the case in Iraq; there is an elected government with functioning courts and a representative, elected parliament. There is freedom of the press. There is a constitution approved by the people which guarantees these things.

Second, a right of resistance can only be claimed by the actual people of a nation. When critics of Bush think they can score points that way, they love to broadcast that most of the "insurgency" is of foreign origin.

Third, the rebellion must be open, authorized by representatives of the people (even if they meet outside the offices of the government in charge, as was the case with the Continental Congress) . . . and must obey the accepted rules of warfare.

This sludge in Iraq meets none of these, and in fact seek to impose exactly the kind of "law" which would justify a right of rebellion.

That the Arab League would pay this kind of lip service and give a wink and a nod to the insurgent animals is not surprising. But this appears to have been adopted among Iraqi governmental representatives, which is horrifying, sickening, and casts a pall on everything we've tried to accomplish for four years.

It begs a question -- in the end, were these people WORTH saving from Saddam?

RE: MOUNTAINS. MOLEHILLS.

Yeah. But who cares? The story would be a lot more significant if this were, say, 1990, and there were still meaningful debate about whether CNN was unabashedly liberal-biased. Even if it's an intentional degredation by the network, the ultimate significance of it is meaningless, considering that CNN has clearly moved to about the 87.5 mark on the radio dial following the rise to cable dominance of Fox. It wouldn't shock me if they "accidentally" flashed the word "liar" or "Halliburton" on the screen during Cheney's next televised speech.

Is there a even a pseudo-conservative left at that network besides Lou Dobbs? Has Lou Dobbs been exiled to Elba yet?

MOUNTAINS. MOLEHILLS

One thinks it's pretty easy to make a little too much out of something.

As one who's no stranger either to video production or live TV, I know how easily something like this can happen entirely by mistake.

RE: RIGHT . . .

That's maybe the only benefit of Nazism (besides my lovely VW): it's the one 20th century philosophy on which there is consensus repudication from both the right and the left. Of course, alluding to your comment, Dave, the consensus was post-hoc only. This makes it an effective baseline (albeit overused) for demonstrating the logical limitations of "tolerance" and appeasement.

RIGHT . . .

. . . imagine if the world thought the Nazis were just guys with a different point of view.

Oh, wait; that's what the European elites DID think, and it cost tens of millions of lives.

RE: SEND HIM

And . . . notice how Matthews kid-gloves Islamofacists by referring to them as not being "the enemy", but just guys with a different point of view. I'll bet he's probably more forgiving of them than of conservatives in his own country. Thank God for moral relativists like him who consiuder people that freely send 14 year olds out as human grenades as folks just as good as us who simply have another take on things.

Sometimes I don't know if the other side has just lost it or just looks for every excuse it can find to disagree with GWB.

SEND HIM

It's good to know that Chris Matthews has figured out to solve the WOT through his great insight into AQ, Islamofacism and their motivations as he indicates here. I think we should send him to meet with al-Zaqwari, assuming he's not a steaming corpse at the moment, OBL, and every Iranian mullah. He could promise U.S. funded health care and education for all Muslims everywhere, plus greater "understanding"of their cultures and troubles, and we can all go home.

BURN IN HELL, YOU UNSPEAKABLE MONSTER

One can only hope that the reports of Zarkawi's death aren't exaggerated:

The Elaph Arab media website reported on Sunday that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of the al-Qaida in Iraq terror group, may have been killed in Iraq on Sunday afternoon when eight terrorists blew themselves up in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

The unconfirmed report claimed that the explosions occurred while coalitionforces surrounded the house in which al-Zarqawi was hiding. American and Iraqi forces are looking into the report.

SHAMELESS

This weekend, America Public Media’s Weekend America ran a story on an economic microcosm found online, specifically, within the fantasy game EverQuest. In it, players enact with each other in a virtual world, develop skills, and charger other players electronic “gold pieces” for their services. Co-host Barbara Bogaev interviewed economist (and player) Ed Castronova, author of Synthetic Worlds, The Business and Culture of Online Games. Castronova said that no one really liked these kind of online games as much as they do now when everything in it was free; it wasn’t until a real economy was introduced that these games took off. Some of his findings: people like to work for value; they feel better about themselves when they do. Also, players do not mind when other players make more money than they do, as long as they all started with a level playing field, which they do – every new player starts with no money at all. In fact, players tended to respect other players who had accumulated a great deal of wealth and reputation. Castronova thinks this taps into the societal consciousness.

Well, Bogaev was beside herself listening to what pretty much amounted to an anabashed endorsement of capitalism which would make Adam Smith beam. Taken to its logical conclusion, Castronova is saying that people naturally prefer working, being challenged, for a living than just having it handed to them, that capitalism seems to be engrained into human nature, and people are happier under it.

Imagine that -- people care more about equality of opportunity than they do equality of result, and to make matters worse, they actually respect people who achieve!

Holy cow, all the ways Bogaev tried to get Castronova to take it back, or at least to temper it, so much did it fly in the face of dearly-held Leftist economic theories! Castronova even went so far to say that had people been able to test Communism online, millions of lives might have been saved. It was radio, but you could almost see the apoplexy this cheerful man was putting Bogaev through.

Listen for yourself here. (Link from Weekend America's website.)

RE: AIDING AND ABETTING

Hmmph. In researching music, I came across an online article about the legendary garage punk band, the MC5 which celebrated the band’s left-leaning politics by noting that the band’s music served to:

condemn a system which eats its young, filling their heads with lies before sending them off to war.

Well, that’s interesting. Isn’t the Islamofacist terrorist system one that uses deception and propaganda to encourage young Muslims to strap dynamite to themselves and hurdle themselves into rush hour traffic for leaders that don’t wish to fight for themselves - let alone die for their asserted crucial cause - all in the name of Allah, a contrived religious figure used to impose backward social mores upon a vulnerable and unenlightened society?

But the Left wants to protect these folks and preserve their religious rights by entitling them to Korans and unprecedented due process? I don’t need to say the word.

AIDING AND ABETTING

From the NYT:

In a sign of increasing unease among Congressional Republicans over the war in Iraq, the Senate is to consider on Tuesday a Republican proposal that calls for Iraqi forces to take the lead next year in securing the nation and for the Bush administration to lay out its strategy for ending the war.

The Senate is also scheduled to vote Tuesday on a compromise, announced Monday night, that would allow terror detainees some access to federal courts. The Senate had voted last week to prohibit those being held from challenging their detentions in federal court, despite a Supreme Court ruling to the contrary.

Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who is the author of the initial plan, said Monday that he had negotiated a compromise that would allow detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to challenge their designation as enemy combatants in federal courts and also allow automatic appeals of any convictions handed down by the military where detainees receive prison terms of 10 years or
more or a death sentence.

The proposal on the Iraq war, from Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, and Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, would require the administration to provide extensive new quarterly reports to Congress on subjects like progress in bringing in other countries to help tabilize Iraq. The other appeals related to Iraq are nonbinding and express the position of the Senate.

The plan stops short of a competing Democratic proposal that moves toward establishing dates for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But it is built upon the Democratic approach and makes it clear that senators of both parties are increasingly eager for Iraqis to take control of their country in coming months and open the door to removing American troops.

Mr. Warner said the underlying message was, "we really mean business, Iraqis, get on with it." The senator, an influential party voice on military issues, said he did not interpret the wording of his plan as critical of the administration, describing it as a "forward-looking" approach.

"It is not a question of satisfaction or dissatisfaction," he said. "This reflects what has to be done."

Most welcome news . . . that is, for the animals who saw people's heads off.

When did we become a country more worried about "ending" wars than "winning" them?

Furthermore, why, after 10 years in the majority, do the Republicans still allow the Democrats to set the agenda? A talking point on the Left has long been, "Mr. President, what's your plan for ending the war?" It's a rhetorical question, meant only to score points among the drooling masses who can't decode it.

The President has answered that question many times, giving the only answer that's appropriate to give. His plan for ending the war is WINNING the war. "Victory."

There used to be no question of that. If we were in a war, we were going to fight until we win. No one would have asked fifty years ago.

But that was before the dark time, before the Emp . . . er, Boomers.

RE: NO. NO MEDIA BIAS

So if you're actively trying not to help one side and therefore knowingly helping the other side, what does that make you? Is that journalism?

I love it how the Right is in third place (or worse) in France according to the implication of that article. Does that mean they get to sweep out parliament after each session?

NO. NO MEDIA BIAS.

What do you say when a left-leaning British paper runs a story about a left-leaning French TV news network actually admitting an editorial policy designed to retard support for right-leaning parties?

In the words of Ford Prefect, "well, it must be TRUE then!"

Witness:

One of France's leading TV news executives has
admitted censoring his coverage of the riots in the country for fear of
encouraging support for far-right politicians.

Jean-Claude Dassier, the director general of
the rolling news service TCI, said the prominence given to the rioters on
international news networks had been "excessive" and could even be fanning the
flames of the violence.

Mr Dassier said his own channel, which is
owned by the private broadcaster TF1, recently decided not to show footage of
burning cars.

"Politics in France is heading to the right
and I don't want rightwing politicians back in second, or even first place
because we showed burning cars on television," Mr Dassier told an audience of
broadcasters at the News Xchange conference in Amsterdam today.

"Having satellites trained on towns across
France 24 hours a day showing the violence would have been wrong and totally
disproportionate ... Journalism is not simply a matter of switching on the
cameras and letting them roll. You have to think about what you're
broadcasting," he said.

I wholeheartedly disagree . . . what could be more objective than simply turning on the cameras and letting them roll?

THE NEXT VAST HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

Remember when it was about starvation? Disease? Pestilence?

Not anymore. Now, it's about unfair limitations to high-speed Internet connections.

NO PRESSURE HERE

Imagine arguing a moot court case . . .

In front the Chief Justice of the United States.

RE: CAPOTE

There was a time when the American Left was as genuinely patriotic as the Right. For all the things I may disagree with Bobby Kennedy over, for example, his patriotism certainly was never in doubt.

But when did the "my country, always wrong" wing of the Left sprout?

My knee-jerk reaction is to blame it on the Boomers, which I am wont to do. But it must go further back than that. There's George McGovern, for example. Jimmy "my fellow Americans, you make me sick" Carter. Ramsey Clarke (though he may just be a genuine nut). And others.

RE: THE MOMMY PRESIDENT

Oh, yes. In fact, what you wrote could have easily been a mock prediction of the show three months before it aired when we first became privy to it's being unleashed this fall. I'll never watch an episode because last I heard, life isn't eternal and therefore I only have so many minutes to spare, but I'll be curious as to what other propaganda emanates from the show in the future.

IS THIS A FIRST?

Not-insignificant protests in Jordan against al Qaeda.

Jordanians flooded Amman blaring car horns and waving the
nation's flag to protest the suicide attacks at three hotels with Western
connections.

Hundreds of angry Jordanians rallied shouting, "Burn in
hell, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi!" after the terrorist group he leads claimed
responsibility for the blasts.

I think it might be. In most other parts of the Arab world, AQ attacks have sparked anti-US demonstrations, obviously encouraged by the governments. But here, Jordanians seem to be blaming the actual culprits of the atrocity and not buying into the anti-US blame game.

What does it say that the first sizable anti-AQ demonstration didn't occur in the liberal West?

RE: JORDAN

Who's rational, in your surmise?

Blair. Howard.

. . . . ?

JORDAN

Here's to hoping that enough rational world leaders, which is a shrinking category, among both the Muslim and non-Muslim world see through the Jordan attacks and AQ's responsbility for them as just what it is: an attempt to attack a rather neutral country in the GWOT and blame the attack on the Iraq War as a means of further dividing the opinions of Westerners in regard to whether we should fight GWOT or appease AQ. More understanding needs to be emphasized of the fact that the Western Left has become the pawn of AQ every bit as much as the blown-to-bits terror victims of each repeated attack.

THE MOMMY PRESIDENT

OK, I stopped watching "Commander In Chief" (the NUMBER ONE SHOW ON TUESDAY NIGHT! That's like being the #1 newspaper in Kokomo, Indiana, isn't it?) after the first episode, but I have to say, the ads for it manage to insult just about everyone on the face of the earth.

Basically, every one of them begins with "This Tuesday, these are the issues being faced by the First Woman President!" Did you catch that? It's a show about . . . the First Woman President! In case you missed it, that means that the President . . . is a woman! For the first time!

Then they follow this format:

1) Caricature of an issue "ripped from the headlines."

2) Geena Davis peering off into space, obviously in deep consternation and reflection

3) Someone saying she's not fit to be President (often, because . . . she's a woman! Of course!)

4) Donald Sutherland as Snidely Whiplash in everything but dress plotting against her (because he's a Republican, and that's what they do to FWPs! Of course!) -- cue dramatic music

5) Geena Davis, arguing with her emasculated husband, obviously in deep consternation and reflection

6) The First Children up to something foolish

7) Geena Davis smiling with her youngest child, who just gave her the wisdom to make her eminently just decision

Have I missed anything?

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

It's a sore spot with me, having been the victim of -- and further witness to -- viewpoint-based discrimination at my own law school. Lefty friends tend to dismiss my complaints as paranoia, but as much as they point out that I can't know what what it's like to live in the world of (insert real or imagined oppressed minority here), and hence, I should hold my opinions on other matters, they don't know what it's like to be right-of-center on a college campus.

So I'm glad NRO is running a piece addressing the matter head-on, as they have in the past.

I just wish it were written at something a but further up the chain than a college freshman level.

And, as much as I admire those guys, more and more of their regular pieces are written this way, even by seasoned professionals (I'm looking at you, Jim Geraghty).

MORE RE: PRE-WAR INTELLIGENCE

I think the debate about the Iraq war is the most telling regarding the state of politics today. I saw the movie Capote last week in which Phillip Seymour Hoffman did a brilliant job recreating the famous writer and author of In Cold Blood, which I am now reading. The movie made me think that, here's this man who had become this gay New York writer living during a war era in 1960 and is clearly on you know what side of the fence. The political fence, that is. But how much would he have in common with today's leftists such as George Soros, Michael Moore, Barbara Boxer or Markos Mitsouksis?

Granted, Capote lived in a pre-Kennedy, pre-Watergate age, before the butterfly had been crushed upon the wheel. But, liberalism used to be about idealism and racial tolernce. Liberalism of this day and age is about brutality and pummelling anyone who refuses to sip when the cup is placed before them.

This is all borne out in the debate over the Iraq War, because liberals today assume the worst about the opposition: the evidence, even to someone like myself who's never been a big proponent of this war, shows, at best, that there was conflicting information regarding whether Saddam had WMD, but certainly enough to make a rational conclusion at the time that Saddam had WMD. But that's a far cry from saying that there was clearly no WMD evidence, which is the basis for the Left's droning cry that "Bush lied." Plenty of other wars have historically been based upon a mistake of fact. However, rationality on the Left is a forgotten virtue, left behind in Capote's era.

WOW

There have been non-stop flights around the world, but always with specialized planes built for the purpose.

This is a standard commercial aircraft, flying non-stop more than 13,000 miles.

It's worth noting, too, that the 777 was the first plane designed entirely on computers.

HOW MANY PEOPLE . . .

. . . who write reviews on Amazon.com actually read the book first?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0895260301/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/002-3023968-6044808?%5Fencoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155


I suspect the percentage goes way, way down when it's a political missive.

RE: CHE CHIC

Yes . . .

I know.

I'm going to make a movie about Che's misdeeds.

I can't WAIT for the protest.

PRE-WAR INTELLIGENCE

This gets the go-ahead run home from third.

ONE LESS PIT BULL

This may offend PETA, but not I. From the AP, roll tape:

NEW YORK -- A Brooklyn man was arrested Wednesday morning after beating his mother and tossing the family dog out the window of a fifth-floor apartment, authorities said.
The dog, a 55-pound pit bull mix named Gemini, was killed.
Police said the suspect, Alan DeCosta, 31, attacked his 48-year-old mother with a vacuum cleaner before hurling the dog. Charges against him were pending.
Officers responding to a report of an emotionally disturbed person found Gemini at about 8 a.m. on the sidewalk outside the home in the Crown Heights section. They arrested DeCosta after his mother told them he had assaulted her; she was treated for bruises to her neck, head and back.
DeCosta was being held by police Wednesday night. There was no telephone listing for him or his mother at the address provided by police.
Gemini's body was turned over to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to determine a cause of death.
"Very often, domestic violence strikes not only humans, but pets, too," ASCPA spokesman Joe Pentangelo said.

Putting on my blue state hat for a moment, I say, isn't DeCosta's action good for society? Pit bulls terrorize people and kill innocent children, don't they? The New York Criminal Court should acquit DeCosta and send a message to these pit bulls everywhere. Take back our streets!!

BLUE STATE BLUES

Howard Dean's blustering aside, it is disappointing that the Republcians could not caputure the Virginia governorship, simply because it's a reminder that the Democrats are still viable in that increasingly red state that will be cruical in 2008 to preventing further erosion of all things good about America. On balance, as that great prophet Hannity said tonight (ahem) the Republicans started Tuesday with 28 governorships. They ended Tuesday with 28 governorships.

Last I checked 28 was more than half of 50. Of course, I'm discounting the RINO factor, I realize, but I'm trapped in blue state jail. Work with me.

RE: RE: UNTITLED FRANCE POST

And while we're at it, hey, lovely Frank woman, how would you like to hear more about liberty? A little personal responsibility? Wanna take part in the Great Experiment?? Who's your ConBro?

RE: UNTILTED FRANCE POST

Oooh La La! I note that I associate use of that phrase with nothing but good things in my life. It bears repeating. Oooh la laaaaa!!!

RE: CHE CHIC

I certainly agree that the Che worship is entirely misguided, but of course not surprising. A friend of mine here in Chicago, a bright lawyer, has a book about Che prominently displayed in his apartment as a decorative statement. A liberal, he respects Che because of the man's fight for the "little people" in society and against Capitalism. The fallacy of that aside, it goes to show you that, to a Leftist, if you advance their cause in any way, which means attacking the things they hate, all of your sins committed along the way are sanctified in measuring your legacy. It's the logical extension of eco-terrorism or Ted Kennedy's existence.

I take back 3,194 of the 105,342 critical things I've said about France:

http://www.fresh99.com/news-anchor-melissa-theuriau.htm

DEANACY

What it means to live in the mind of Howard Dean:

The resounding victories tonight by Jon Corzine and Tim Kaine have sent a
powerful message that when Democrats stand up for what we believe in, we win.
They showed that the values and priorities of the Democratic Party are the
values and priorities of the American people.

Jon Corzine and Tim Kaine were strong candidates who offered vision and
leadership based on the shared values and priorities of the voters of New Jersey
and Virginia. They worked hard to earn the trust and the votes of the people in
their states by not taking a single vote or voter for granted.

Also tonight, voters all across the country delivered a resounding
message: Americans are tired of the politics of hate and divisiveness, and voted
for strong Democratic candidates who offered true leadership for their states
and communities. These candidates showed exactly what our party is going to do
to stand up and win in 2006.

Well, first of all, Howard . . .

Voters of a state returning incumbent parties to office isn't exactly a watershed moment . . .

And if you want to end the "politics of divisiveness," you should probably curtail the Stream of Hatred Tour 2005 you've been on.

THE FACE OF BIG OIL

Not exactly Santa Claus.


From Drudge.

MORE CIA LEAKS

But something tells me the Left isn't going to be screaming for indictments over it.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 - A classified report issued last year by the Central
Intelligence Agency's inspector general warned that interrogation procedures
approved by the C.I.A. after the Sept. 11 attacks might violate some provisions
of the international Convention Against Torture, current and former intelligence
officials say.

The previously undisclosed findings from the report, which was
completed in the spring of 2004, reflected deep unease within the C.I.A. about
the interrogation procedures, the officials said. A list of 10 techniques
authorized early in 2002 for use against terror suspects included one known as
waterboarding, and went well beyond those authorized by the military for use on
prisoners of war

Any takers on that action? Howard? Kos? Hellooooo . . .

THE GODS WHO BLEED

Here, I thought that everything which came out of Cupertino was perfect, mete, and right, and in any case was completely, utterly, and without exception impregnable.

In contrast to the French situation, I do take glee when I read things like this.

CHE CHIC

It disturbs me to the point of distraction whenever I come across it.

This is a man who relished personal executions, instituted the Cuban system of forced labor/political prison camps, rounded up homosexuals and blacks, and stomped out of Moscow because the Soviets weren't militant enough. He died an entirely justified death and his visage should be as reviled as Stalin's or Hitler's. He was Castro's Reinhard Heydrich (for you Lefties who know nothing about history, Heydrich was the most evil force in Nazi Germany and personally devised and ran the death camps).

Some say that we should take some satisfaction that his image is being used to make a profit, in the face (no pun intended) of his ultra-Marxist views. I say that's unadulterated BS.

That said, I may buy one of the doormats.

MEANWHILE . . .

Over at Unclaimed Territory, a handy list of French finger-stroking at America over Katrina, a storm which would have left half of France in complete ruin had it hit there.

We take no glee at the French riots. But we do take glee at being shown again and again that the French Emperor has no clothes.

(And no one remembers the 15,000 who died in France one hot summer not long ago?)

BUCHANAN

I'm no fan of Buchanan, but he's certainly correct about a few things there. And he doesn't say it outright, but there's no effort at all to assimilate the millions of Mexican and Latin American immigrants to this country. There is most definitely a danger there.

My sister's husband is from Honduras. But he's trying his damnedest to become an American, and not just a citizen. That should be -- and once was -- the attitude of any immigrant looking to make permanent residence.

It should also be the no-brainer expectation.

RE: INSANITY

I absolutely agree that becuase "God is dead" in Europe, this contributes heavily to the Muslims' ability to stomp on Western Europe - they won't stop at France. The post-God Europe with its morally superior insistence on whitewashing all religion from the public and the barely-existent private sectors was a contributing factor in the impetus for the riots, in the form of the banning of head-scarves.

This is rare, but Buchannan has an excellent take on the France situation.

RE: INSANITY

By the way, Mark, does it strike you that Europeans may be more apt not to resist the obvious onslaught of Islam because they have largely abandoned their Christian roots?

I mean, Islam tried to take Europe by force a couple of times. It even made some significant inroads. But Western Europe was able to repel them in large part because they had a faith which competed with it.

Not so anymore. Europeans actually like to pride themselves on being "post-Christian" or "post-religious."

And the Left's hostility specifically toward Christianity is another, but related, matter.

I mean, let's be real here. How long would they have allowed Christian riots to go on?

SILVER PLATTER

I think one of the dumbest things I've seen this White House do is, in the wake of the Fitzgerald investigations, requiring up to 3,000 staffers to take an "ethics class."

I worked in corporate America long enough to know why an MBA who's trying to run the governmnet like it's a business would do it. But the government ISN'T a business, and there are times when a CYA move like this is simply pennies from Heaven to the opposition.

RE: INSANITY

It's not enough for the Left to hear the Iranian president -- if anyone has any doubt that he WAS indeed the photographed ringleader of the embassy takeover, I have beachfront property in Antarctica for sale, cheap -- say specifically that he intends to use Western useful idiots in order to sow discord and instability in the West . . . I mean, he just openly SAID it . . . no, they have to continue in their appeasing ways . . .

There are two sources for the behavior of the Left.

Cowardice. This one is obvious. They hope problems will solve themselves. They are utterly ignorant of the history of appeasement (as we know, and as some are honest enough to say, a Leftist's trip through the history books is exclusively a fishing trip to find the crimes of the West in general and of the United States in specific; nothing else matters) and the sorrow sown by following that path, and they hope either to satiate the hunger of the beast by giving in a little, or to temper its anger. At no cost will they ever actually face it head-on.

Arrogance. It might seem paradoxical (and it is), but the Left, at the same time as being afraid of these people, are also supremely confident of their own moral superiority. These people are like until children, and no, you don't spank children for acting out, you understand them. They don't really mean to be doing what they're doing (no one would!); they just haven't evolved a superior moral and intellectual outlook yet, so they deserve pity and generosity . . . not hostility.

It's almost cliché to say that the failure of the Western Left has led to unbelievable bloodshed more times than you would care to count, but it also happens to be true . . . and history, of which they are almost entirely ignorant, is repeating itself. Europe is aflame again. How far will it spread?

INSANITY

I'm convinced that the entire world of Western liberalism, on this side of the pond and the other, is insane. The Muslim-led riots in France - is there anyone else rioting there besides young Muslims? - demonstrate the lengths to which the left will go to appease those whom they fear/feel guilt toward/want to use as a way of making Bush look bad. Most mainstream press articles regarding the rioting make no mention of the Muslim status of the rioters. While the left in France and their comrades here in the U.S. may think that such glaring omissions from each account will curry the Muslims' favor, in truth, it's emboldening the hard core Islamofascist population and putting our national security, and that of Western Europe in jeporady. Recent speeches by Iranian leadership clearly indicate they have easily figured out how to use acts of violence ranging from car bombs to street fights to create in-fighting among the Western powers. I suspect this trend will continue until so much power has been ceded to the Islamofacist regimes, either through formal concessions at the U.N. or simply inaction by Western nations, that Islam will essentially run Europe. I can only pray that at that time there is a president in the U.S. that will still be willing to continue challenging the brutal authoritarianism emanating from the Middle East.

RE: SURELY . . .

Certainly this sort of behavior is not new from the Left, but the ugliness does seem to be growing with each year they still find themselves out of power, and I only suspect it will get infinitely uglier if they believe they are losing their last bastion of power, the Federal courts.

Which is a little scary, because if they don't have that, what will they resort to? I don't want to sound like the nuts at the Democratic Underground or the Daily Kos, but the last several years and the unbelieveable underhanded lengths they went to -- documented lengths, not phantom vote depravations -- in the last election give me pause.

RE: SURELY . . .

Yes, I am surprised, not by the arguments being raised but the temper of them. For obvious reasons, I've heard those types of arguments for years as I'm sure you know. But this Maryland episode is a new level of overt ugliness in intra-black racial-political relations. Yeah, it's a logical extension of the Left's belief that anything goes if you believe your ultimate intentions are "good", but it portends more vicious future acts along these lines.

SURELY . . .

. . . you can't be surprised by that. Leftists are allowed to make the basest and ugliest "criticisms" of anyone, if they're conservatives. What they say about Republican women is every bit as appalling, and would (and, frankly, should) raise a din of outcry from these same people if applied to anyone else.

But from that story, I love this:

"That's not racial. If they call him the "N' word, that's racial," Mrs. Marriott
said. "Just because he's black, everything bad you say about him isn't racial."

But what are they "calling" him? "Uncle Tom." Yeah, that has nothing to do with race.

A foul wind is blowing from the Left.

IF TRUE . . .

This is one of the ugliest stories I've ever read.

LET'S GET SERIOUS: ALITO

Now there's a serious matter I should address, which is that of Judge (can't wait to call him Justice) Alito. I thought that the folks at Red State this morning did a nice job of explaining what's at stake in the Alito confirmation process. This whole notion that ideology is a permissible basis to determine whether a judicial candidate is fit for the bench must be instantly, and finally, quashed. Certainly, it is fair during the Senate vetting process to determine whether a Supreme Court candidate is "mainstream," which should be something more along the line of a determinaiton of whether the judge (sorry, Harriet) will rule based on whether he thinks his cat Snoodles thinks Miranda is good precedent, or whether he thinks the Constitution was written by Smurfs in 1534. Anyway, you get the idea.

The Democrats, of course, have subverted this legitimate assessment by questioning whether a judge is mainstream on the grounds of whether he is "too extreme," which in their world is synonymous with conservative. Mainly, if a judge seems liable to overturn Roe, that judge's fitness for duty on the nation's highest court is as questionable as if Nazi paraphinelia and a can of gasloline were discovered in the back of his Ford F-150. As a side note, this also leads me to the question of, if Roe is supposedly so untouchable, such sound legal reasoning, why are Democrats worried about it being jettisoned by every potential Republican Supreme Court nominee? Notice that no Democratic Senators seem particularly worried about any potential high court member overturning, say, Brown v. Board.

Whatever the case, the judicial nomination process should be free of litmus tests based on a candidate's political ideology, and this rule goes for both sides. Republicans are less guilty in their track record for of nixing candidates on ideological grounds, given that they recently gave the okay to liberal Justices Breyer and Ginsburg, but even fellow travelers of the right can admit that should the Republicans lose power in the White House and Senate in the near future, they'd jump at the first opportunity to use an ideological litmus test to thwart the liberal nominees of Hillary Clinton - no, I didn't say that!! - or whatever Democrat was in the White House.

The Founding Fathers have already made it clear how justices should be chosen for the Court based on what those dead white men didn't say. Note that the Constitution has no ideological criteria set forth for the president's nominees to the Supreme Court, because the Founders recognized that the people would have a say-so into who assumed the seats on the High Court based on who the voters put into power. I say this to either side: if you want to decide what the Supreme Court looks like then win elections. Phony vetting criteria described as picking "mainstream" candidates should not be used by the Democrats as a pretext for acheiving in the Senate what they increasingly cannot accomplish at the ballot box.

All of this is why the Alito confirmation process is so vital. It is time for the Republicans to take a stand against the Democrats, liberals, progressives, Deaniacs, whatever you want to call them, in their long-standing effort to hold America politically hostage by winning through judicial fiat what they cannot accomplish at the polls. If the Democrats win this fight on ideological grounds, all of the years of the Reagan Revolution and Republican majority-building might as well have never occurred and will be about as relevant as those little blue men that live in huts while Roe and like precedent will remain our reality.