Duthie On...

If you’ve got 10 minutes, you can learn how we got where we are (h/t Hot Air):

Take the time to watch this, then share it with your friends, family, etc.

Continue reading →

Abraham Lincoln, FDR, JFK, Reagan...what did all of these men have in common? A strong belief in God, and a willingness to pray for His guidance when it came to matters of state, and no sense of shame in invoking God's name and asking for His blessing on this country and her efforts at home and abroad.

It's clear that these traits are shared by Gov. Sarah Palin as well, and despite the clear desire by Charlie Gibson to make her feel shame for her past statements (which included a major omission that distorted her words), Palin doesn't bat an eye:

Continue reading →

Democrats often ask why Republicans “question their patriotism”. To the extent that they actually do (which is far more rare than the Dems would have us believe), it’s because of things like this: The photo, from the Denver Post’s blog , is some of the “thousands of unused flags from the Democratic National Convention that were headed for the garbage.” Perhaps if, in addition to simply using the flag as a prop for their convention, they’d learn and understand enough about it to know that there are...

Continue reading →

This (via Drudge) just goes to show you how far some folks will go to accomodate their political views. Now, I'm not overly exercised by this. Oprah is a talking head, not a journalist, so there's no reason she needs to worry about providing balanced coverage, or anything like that. But it's fascinating that Oprah apparently does not want to have Sarah Palin on despite the fact that 40 million Americans tuned in to watch Palin's acceptance speech at the RNC. That is, BTW, about the same number that...

Continue reading →

This story represents a pretty significant vindication for those who have asserted that science could advance the cause of pursuing genetic cures to common ailments without resorting to the destruction of human embryos: Scientists have transformed one type of fully developed adult cell directly into another inside a living animal, a startling advance that could lead to cures for a plethora of illnesses and sidestep the political and ethical quagmires that have plagued embryonic stem cell research...

Continue reading →

Here's the video that Obama doesn't want you to see: In fact, he wants so badly for you not to see it that he's trying to force the DoJ to silence the group responsible. Think about that for a second...if Republicans attempted to silence a group criticizing one of their candidates by siccing a government agency on them, the left would call them fascists and thugs. But when the shoe is on the other foot? Not a peep. This is an utterly disgusting attack on the very essence of free speech our founding...

Continue reading →

The By Any Means Necessary strategy... don't let the people vote : "The key to defeating the initiative is to keep it off the ballot in the first place. That's the only way we're going to win," said Donna Stern, Midwest director for the Detroit-based By Any Means Necessary. There's something intensely wrong about groups that do not trust voters to decide issues, and it's no surprise that these groups are almost uniformly on the political left. Unlike most of her peers, Stern openly acknowledges that...

Continue reading →

Never mind that this guy wasn't elected, but is only governor because his predecessor had to resign in shame, nevermind that neither Paterson nor Spitzer ran on a promise to legalize gay marriage, and most of all, never mind asking the citizens of New York what they want: David Paterson has unilaterally declared New York a gay-marriage-friendly state: ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Gay rights advocates had reason to celebrate on both coasts Thursday, with New York set to recognize same-sex marriages performed...

Continue reading →

Wow. This post, on successful government reform in New Zealand, is remarkable and inspiring. If nothing else, it gives one hope that perhaps there will be at least some last bastion of liberty in the world if the libs have their way here in the U.S. Certainly, I'll have to put NZ on my list of places to visit soon.

A powerful indictment of CO2 restrictions as a means to combat "climate change": It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena...

Continue reading →

Almost 4 full months to earn enough to pay your taxes...too much:

In answer to a request from a Democrat in western Pennsylvania to "stop these abortions," Obama reportedly said : "Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old," he said. "I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at age 16, so it doesn't make sense to not give them information." "punished with a baby?" Could it be, perhaps, that part of the reason folks like Obama and...

Continue reading →

Who would have predicted this : Compact fluorescent light bulbs, long touted by environmentalists as a more efficient and longer-lasting alternative to the incandescent bulbs that have lighted homes for more than a century, are running into resistance from waste industry officials and some environmental scientists, who warn that the bulbs’ poisonous innards pose a bigger threat to health and the environment than previously thought. Oh yeah, that's right... I did , almost a year ago: So it seems to...

Continue reading →

There appears to be some enthusiasm for the idea of John McCain choosing Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal as his running mate, to reach out to the GOP conservative base: Even as the Democratic presidential contest seems to be morphing into Dr. Doolittle's mythical beast with a head at each end, the pushmi-pullyu, John McCain has the chance to make a leisurely choice of potential running mates. But he had better not wait too long. The spectacle of a third of voters in the Republican primaries in Texas...

Continue reading →

So the Pentagon released a report that says, among other things: One question remains regarding Iraq’s terrorism capability: Is there anything in the captured archives to indicate that Saddam had the will to use his terrorist capabilities directly against United States? Judging from examples of Saddam’s statements (Extract 34) before the 1991 Gulf War with the United tates, the answer is yes . In the years between the two Gulf Wars, UN sanctions reduced Saddam’s ability to shape regional and world...

Continue reading →

I love this campaign spot, by Kerry's Republican opponent. He doesn't have a chance, but ya gotta like the guy's style:

If only this were true...certainly the least we could do to welcome him: Only Scrappleface, Alas   [ Kathryn Jean Lopez ] Report: Ahmadinejad Tasered at Columbia University by Scott Ott (2007-09-24) — Columbia University promised a full investigation into charges of police brutality after today’s reported Tasering of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had come to the Ivy League school to give the annual Adolph Hitler Memorial Peace and Tolerance Lecture. Like a similar...

Continue reading →

OK, it was bad enough when the threat was lead paint in kids' toys ...now this : BEIJING (Reuters) - A Beijing factory recycled used chopsticks and sold up to 100,000 pairs a day without any form of disinfection, a newspaper said on Wednesday, the latest is a string of food and product safety scares. Counterfeit, shoddy and dangerous products are widespread in China , whose exports have been rocked in recent months by a spate of safety scandals, ranging from pet food to medicine, tires, toothpaste...

Continue reading →

James Hansen, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has been a major critic of the Bush administration's response to global warming. Hansen has repeatedly claimed that he's being silenced for his outspoken views on the subject. Given that he's not an official spokesman for the government on climate change, it's not surprising that his public assertions that climate change is man-made and heading towards a point of no return would be viewed by the administration as unacceptable freelancing...

Continue reading →

OK, so perhaps I'm not as funny as the Dell Dude (assuming he was ever funny), but this one strikes me as an idea that only he could love. I was browsing around Dell's website today, checking out the cost of some new desktop hardware, just for curiosity, more than anything else, when I came upon what I can only describe as the enviro-nut section of the build process. In the services section of the website (see the image below), you now have the ability to have Dell (for a fee, of course) plant a...

Continue reading →

There's an funny line that goes something to the effect of "Gravity: It's not just a good idea...it's the law." While there's nothing funny about the story below, it does illustrate the fact that unintended consequences are as hard to escape as gravity : TWO decades ago, in an effort to curb domestic violence, states began passing “mandatory arrest” laws. Police officers responding to a call for help would no longer need to determine whether one person was truly violent or out of control; every time...

Continue reading →

OK, so when you've failed to convince Rolling Stone that a favorite liberal solution is a good thing, you've got a real problem (WARNING: article contains some strong language): The great danger of confronting peak oil and global warming isn't that we will sit on our collective asses and do nothing while civilization collapses, but that we will plunge after "solutions" that will make our problems even worse. Like believing we can replace gasoline with ethanol, the much-hyped biofuel that we make...

Continue reading →

Apparently Barak Obama has figured out how to win the war on terrorism: WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday that he would possibly send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists, an attempt to show strength when his chief rival has described his foreign policy skills as naive. ADVERTISEMENT The Illinois senator warned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters...

Continue reading →

Saudis attempting to silence critics who claim they're funding terrorism in the name of charity? Sounds like it: Here’s a story with huge implications for freedom of speech (all negative), and it’s apparently gone almost entirely unreported in the mainstream press. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required), under threat of a law suit, Cambridge University Press has just agreed to pulp all unsold copies of the 2006 book, Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic...

Continue reading →

So The New Republic 's anonymous correspondent from Iraq is no longer anonymous : My Diarist, "Shock Troops," and the two other pieces I wrote for the New Republic have stirred more controversy than I could ever have anticipated. They were written under a pseudonym, because I wanted to write honestly about my experiences, without fear of reprisal. Unfortunately, my pseudonym has caused confusion. And there seems to be one major way in which I can clarify the debate over my pieces: I'm willing to...

Continue reading →

So how hard was this to predict: ALBANY, July 23 — Gov. Eliot Spitzer ’s aides, including one of his closest advisers, improperly used the State Police to gather information about the governor’s chief rival, Joseph L. Bruno , the State Senate majority leader, in an effort to plant a negative story about Mr. Bruno and damage him politically, according to a report on Monday by the attorney general’s office. Spitzer aides, chiefly his communications director, Darren Dopp, concocted a false story for...

Continue reading →

Apparently, the U.N.'s idea of punishment for sex abuse by its peacekeepers is to send them home: ABIDJAN, Cote d'Ivoire (Reuters) -- The United Nations said on Saturday it had suspended a Moroccan military contingent from its peacekeeping mission in Cote d'Ivoire while it investigated allegations of widespread sexual abuse. "It means they don't participate in our operations," said Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for the U.N. mission in Cote d'Ivoire (ONUCI). "Those who are found guilty will be sent back...

Continue reading →

Or so says Barak Obama, while fishing for support from a group whose name translates as "The Race". But of course, they're not racist...no: MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Sen. Barack Obama told the nation's largest Hispanic advocacy group yesterday that he earned their support for his presidential campaign by marching in last year's May 1 immigrant rallies and challenged them to learn whether others met that standard. "Find out how many senators appeared before an immigration rally last year. Who was talking...

Continue reading →

If you haven't been keeping up with it, the New Republic is under fire for some stories that they published by "Scott Thomas," who's supposedly a soldier serving in Baghdad. Thomas recently wrote a piece called "Shock Troops" that described soldiers engaging in a variety of abhorrent behavior, from mocking a woman disfigured by an IED, to running down dogs with a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb has kept an impressive roll call of the soldiers and bloggers calling...

Continue reading →

Andy McCarthy on the Iraq war and the surge : That's why I get so disheartened when I hear the president talk this nonsense about the universality of freedom. If the surge is just about Iraqi freedom, we shouldn't be doing it. The American people don't care what form of government Iraq has — not enough to fight a war over it. They care about defeating enemies who threaten the United States, and the president has never made the case — nor do I think he could — that American national security is materially...

Continue reading →

What is it with Al Gore...I mean, I've come to expect that he does not live by the conservationist message he preaches to the rest of us peons, but you'd think he would be at least a tiny bit embarrassed by all the attention : ONLY one week after Live Earth, Al Gore's green credentials slipped while hosting his daughter's wedding in Beverly Hills. Gore and his guests at the weekend ceremony dined on Chilean sea bass - arguably one of the world's most threatened fish species. Also known as Patagonian...

Continue reading →

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty on the decision to appeal the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling overturning the D.C. handgun ban: "We have made the determination that this law can and should be defended and we are willing to take our case to the highest court in the land to protect the city's residents," Fenty said in a press release. "Our handgun law has saved countless lives -- keeping guns out of the hands of those who would hurt others or themselves." Someone should remind Mayor Fenty of a couple of things...

Continue reading →

Bob Novak : I never spoke to Armitage again about Wilson. But he acknowledged to me nearly three months later through his political adviser, lobbyist Ken Duberstein, that he was indeed the primary source for my information about Wilson's wife. Shortly thereafter, he secretly revealed his role to federal authorities investigating the leak of Mrs. Wilson's name but did not inform White House officials, apparently including the president. After Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago named...

Continue reading →

This , sent by a friend, is just a hoot: Officials at Live Earth Johannesburg have blamed the effects of climate change for poor audience attendance at Saturday's (07Jul07) South African event. Organiser John Langford believes extremely cold weather in the region - it snowed last week (ends06Jul07) for the first time in a quarter of a century - kept people away from the concert, which starred Joss Stone , UB40, Angelique Kidjo and Baaba Maal. Speaking before the event, Langford said, "We're expecting...

Continue reading →

Gore goes on a tear in the usual vein at the DC Live Earth show: "Some who don't understand what is now at stake tried to stop this event on the Mall," the former Democratic presidential candidate said in a thinly veiled hit on members of President George W. Bush's Republican party. "But here we are," he said as an image of a bright Earth shined behind him. "And it wasn't the cavalry who came to our rescue, it was the American Indian ." Um...no, it wasn't. It was a bunch of libs at one of the Smithsonian...

Continue reading →

Once again, anti-poverty-crusader John Edwards is in the news for his largesse on his locks...this time having spent as much as $1,250 for a single cut: For four decades, Joseph Torrenueva has cut the hair of Hollywood celebrities, from Marlon Brando to Bob Barker, so when a friend told him in 2003 that a presidential candidate needed grooming advice, he agreed to help. The Beverly Hills hairstylist, a Democrat, said he hit it off with then-Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina at a meeting in Los...

Continue reading →

You gotta figure Al's not thrilled with this , three days before the Live Earth carbon orgy: LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The 24-year-old son of former Vice President Al Gore was arrested for drug possession on Wednesday after he was stopped for speeding in his hybrid Toyota Prius, a sheriff's official said. Al Gore III -- whose father is a leading advocate of policies to fight global warming -- was driving his environmentally friendly car at about 100 miles per hour on a freeway south of Los Angeles...

Continue reading →

The Times editorializes on the President's commutation of Libby's jail sentence: Mr. Libby was convicted of lying to federal agents investigating the leak of the name of a covert C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson. Mrs. Wilson's husband, Joseph Wilson, was asked to investigate a central claim in Mr. Bush's drive to war with Iraq whether Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Africa. Mr. Wilson concluded that Iraq had not done that and had the temerity to share those conclusions with the American public...

Continue reading →

John Fund : Last week a federal district judge found direct evidence that the political machine in Noxubee County, Miss., had discriminated against voters with the intent to infringe their rights and that "these abuses have been racially motivated." Among the abuses catalogued by Judge Tom Lee were the paying of notaries public to visit voters and illegally mark their absentee ballots, manipulation of the registration rolls, importation of illegal candidates to run for county office, and publication...

Continue reading →

James M. Taylor : In his new book, The Assault on Reason, Al Gore pleads, "We must stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo-studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth." Gore repeatedly asks that science and reason displace cynical political posturing as the central focus of public discourse. If Gore really means what he writes, he has an opportunity to make a difference...

Continue reading →

Iain Murray observes , regarding the foiled London car bomb: James Forsyth of The Spectator has an important comment : One of the great delusions of our time is that once Blair, in the UK case, and Bush, in the American one, stepped down from office the terrorist threat would disappear. The news that a car bomb attack was foiled in London last night illustrates just how wrong this belief was. Although, the fact that the vast bulk of planning for the 9/11 attacks was done during the Clinton presidency...

Continue reading →

I'm pretty sure this is supposed to evoke sympathy: Mexican illegal immigrant Jose Madrid, 28, said he has been unable to find a construction job over the past six weeks because of the crackdown, and hasn't been able to send money to his parents and his 7-year-old son back home. "We immigrants, we are leaving Panama City. People are afraid they will be deported," he said. "The companies don't want to hire illegal people. Now they're only hiring those with papers." But while I'm sorry to see anyone...

Continue reading →

Read that last line twice...and the next time someone tells you how ethanol is necessary to combat global warming and save the world's poor from its ill effects, ask them what they're planning to do about the poor who rely on corn as a food staple, who can no longer afford it. MORE ON WHY ETHANOL FUEL is probably a bad idea: Congress evidently believes that American energy independence depends, in part, on turning massive quantities of food into fuel. The energy bill being debated in the Senate would...

Continue reading →

As an American of Scots descent who was married in a kilt, this makes me both angry and sad. How far one of the cradles of western civilization and freedom has fallen: Kilt wearers could face prosecution if they do not have a licence for their sporran under new legislation which has been introduced in Scotland. The laws are designed to protect endangered species like badgers and otters, whose fur used to be favoured by sporran makers. What's really disturbing is the government officials who think...

Continue reading →

This covers it about as well as I've seen: Regarding immigration like a crime problem is the succinct answer to the comprehensive-reform crowd's best rhetorical device: The searing question, What are you going to do about 12 million people? The answer is: The same thing I do about the millions of drug felonies that happen yearly . I don't expect to deal with every one, much as I might like to. I don't have the resources and the public would not support such a sweeping program. So, I am going to go...

Continue reading →

OK, so perhaps that isn't an exact quote, but he certainly seems to be a fan, and views them as having won a "democratic mandate" to lead. This should come as no surprise for Carter, who's never met an anti-American thug he didn't like, but what's remarkable is Carter being so open about supporting a terrorist organization supported by Iran: The United States, Israel and the European Union must end their policy of favoring Fatah over Hamas , or they will doom the Palestinian people to deepening conflict...

Continue reading →

I'm not quite sure what to make of this : NEW YORK (AP) - Poor residents will be rewarded for good behavior - like $300 for doing well on school tests, $150 for holding a job and $200 for visiting the doctor - under an experimental anti-poverty program that city officials detailed Monday. The rewards have been used in other countries, including Brazil and Mexico, and have drawn widespread praise for changing behavior among the poor. Mayor Michael Bloomberg traveled to Mexico this spring to study...

Continue reading →

I put the "spoof" in quotes deliberately...someone should tell Hill that spoofs are supposed to be funny. Watch at your own risk...bad acting ahead: http://www.breitbart.tv/html/1902.html Unfunny. Tacky. Just plain bad. As a couple of folks commented on the link above, it almost looks as though Bill and Hill may have been filmed separately...would be utterly appropriate somehow for this couple. via Breitbart.tv...

Continue reading →

The only surprise here is that a report commissioned by the Beeb came to this conclusion: The BBC has failed to promote proper debate on major political issues because of the inherent liberal culture of its staff, a report commissioned by the corporation has concluded. The report claims that coverage of single-issue political causes, such as climate change and poverty, can be biased - and is particularly critical of Live 8 coverage, which it says amounted to endorsement. I wonder if any of the U...

Continue reading →

This one, with the Hoover Institution's Peter Robinson, is a little more substantive than his appearance on Leno: The more I hear, the more I like. As an aside, I should mention that in last week's GOP debate, Rudy Giuliani impressed the heck out of me with his answer on health insurance, namely, that a major part of the problem is the disconnect between the individual and the costs of their health care, thanks to government and employers being intermediaries in how most of us pay for health insurance...

Continue reading →

More disturbing news about the wanna-be superpower in the east: China arming terrorists New intelligence reveals China is covertly supplying large quantities of small arms and weapons to insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, through Iran. U.S. government appeals to China to check some of the arms shipments in advance were met with stonewalling by Beijing, which insisted it knew nothing about the shipments and asked for additional intelligence on the transfers. The ploy has been...

Continue reading →

Does the death penalty act as a deterrent? That's a hotly debated question, but a number of studies suggest that the answer is "yes" : Among the conclusions: Each execution deters an average of 18 murders, according to a 2003 nationwide study by professors at Emory University. (Other studies have estimated the deterred murders per execution at three, five and 14). Of course, opponents of the death penalty are bound and determined to discredit the findings, but what's so surprising about this? It...

Continue reading →

It's the simple ideas that no one cares about...at least no one who's more interested in pontificating about how we need to sacrifice our lifestyles to "save the planet": SAVING THE PLANET -- or at least some energy -- with white roofs. It's worth a try! Megan McArdle has thoughts, and so does Mark Kleiman, who says that the idea is too simple and obvious to interest the political/policy community. "Just as a child is unlikely to be impressed with a highly efficient engine, because it fails to make...

Continue reading →

Instapundit asks an important question: WILL ETHANOL LEAD TO FOOD SHORTAGES? Ethanol is a renewable, homegrown fuel that can help lower U.S. dependence on foreign oil. But as more and more ethanol is made from corn, less and less corn is available for food production, and that’s causing some unforeseen problems. Corn is a mainstay of American agriculture— it’s an important ingredient in cereals and baked goods, and corn syrup is used to make processed foods like candy, chips and soft drinks. But...

Continue reading →

Want to protect yourself when the cops can't? Here's what the mayor of New Haven, CT thinks of the idea : "In response to proposed armed civilian patrols, I believe that individuals who carry weapons with the intent of enforcing their view of appropriate behavior in the neighborhood is a recipe for disaster." This, in response to a local Rabbi organizing a neighborhood watch including members who will carry registered, concealed weapons. The arrogance of city officials in response is breathtaking...

Continue reading →

A Thompson run is sounding more and more likely...run, Fred, run! Fred Thompson sat at the end of a long table in The Monocle restaurant on Capitol Hill Tuesday night for dinner with some 20 fellow conservatives, mostly journalists. He sent two signals. First, he sounded like a man who has decided to run for president. Second, his candidacy will be something different from other Republicans, in both substance and style. Source: Why Fred Thompson? by Robert Novak - HUMAN EVENTS...

Continue reading →

Interesting story in today's Washington Times , noting that the RNC has fired its entire telephone fundraising staff. According to some of the staffers, at least part of the motivation is a major drop-off in contributions from small donors (I'm certainly one of those who are refusing to donate another penny until the RNC and the President stop spitting in our faces and insulting us on immigration). This statement, by an RNC spokeswoman, just smacks of denial: "Any assertion that overall donations...

Continue reading →

In an otherwise fairly balanced Time piece on Fred Thompson , Mark Halperin had this to say: Thompson is most often compared to Ronald Reagan, and the comparison is apt. Neither would be mistaken for an intellectual , but both got plenty of mileage out of regularly concealing their smarts. Both placed an emphasis on grand, classic American themes, and both offered a folksy way of describing the holy trinity of conservative dogma (lower taxes, less government and a strong national defense). But unlike...

Continue reading →

Does anyone actually believe this conversation actually took place: "I was at a funeral Saturday, and when the monsignor greeted me, he said, 'My God, Bart, you have to do something about these gas prices!' " said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chief sponsor of the anti-gouging bill. So the Democrat-controlled House (with help from moronic Republicans) have passed a bill, which if enacted into law, would have the perverse effect of discouraging investment in the petroleum industry (why would anyone...

Continue reading →

Think environmentalists care about the world's poor? Think again: H/T: Planet Gore...

Continue reading →

The Associated Press demonstrates once again the serious bias on the part of the mainstream media when it comes to abortion, in a story that suggests the existence of a rift among pro-life groups on whether the ban on partial-birth abortion was a victory for pro-life advocates: Anti-abortion leaders are accusing one of their own, Focus on Family founder James Dobson, of misrepresenting a Supreme Court decision that upheld a ban on late-term abortions. In a full-page ad in Wednesday's editions of...

Continue reading →

That's the only thing I can think of to explain his statement that he "wasn't personally involved" in his recently-reported $400 haircut. Apparently other people arrange these things, and then somehow his hair gets cut without his personal involvement. You just can't make this stuff up. I have no problem whatsoever with Edwards paying whatever he chooses for a haircut. But it's fascinating watching him blame others for the cost of his haircut, since it highlights how utterly inconsistent his lifestyle...

Continue reading →

This time, from corn-based ethanol.

via Instapundit

A while back, I posted the reasons why I cannot and will not support John McCain for the GOP presidential nomination. One of the first reasons I mentioned was that he is "terrible on immigration" from a conservative's viewpoint, and this week's immigration "deal" with Democrats only proves my point. And McCain's contempt for conservative objections to this deal became all the more obvious after his blast at fellow Republican John Cornyn , following the latter's attempt to improve the enforcement...

Continue reading →

In the absence of an announcement by Fred Thompson that he's running, the candidate I've been most interested in for the GOP presidential nomination is Mitt Romney. Alas, he's not been doing so hot in most polls, and this statement, in response to a question from Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes, isn't going to help: I must admit, I can't image anything more awful than polygamy. While I get that he feels the need to distance himself from the former Mormon practice of polygamy (mostly because the media...

Continue reading →

...as if any more were necessary. Behold... Cooking with Bubba ! And as a side note, has there ever been another former elected official who was more of an attention junkie than Bubba? Really, I think he was always more interesed in being the Celebrity in Chief (thus the "boxers vs. briefs moment, playing sax on Arsenio, etc.) than in actually running the country. If only that were the case with Hillary...then we could just get her Rosie's slot on The View, and not have to worry about the disastrous...

Continue reading →

Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker is the latest example of the asinine arguments put forth by those who wish to use the horrific murders at Virginia Tech to argue for more gun control. After starting his piece by tugging at our heartstrings with the picture of cell phones ringing in the pockets of dead students, Gopnik proceeds then, in typical fashion, to blame the guns. Not the mentally unhinged attacker. Not the mental health system that allowed him to remain free and enrolled at VT, despite ample...

Continue reading →

Is it the elite New Yorker, with the clipped, shrill phrasing, or the down-home Southern girl on display here ? Well, I guess since her husband has been lauded as the first black president, perhaps she feels entitled to insult a black audience with a little put-on drawl. Don't hold your breath for statements of outrage from Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson on this one. Hill will get a pass on this, thanks to her impeccable liberal credentials....

Continue reading →

Laurie David and Sheryl Crow demonstrate that they've got it in spades . Just imagine the temerity of Karl Rove in responding to someone deliberately attempting to pick a fight by, well, fighting. And what a shock for him to declare that he doesn't work for a couple of lefty celebrities. According to The Daily Gut , David claimed that she's "never had anyone be so rude." Are you kidding me, lady? You take advantage of the White House Correspondent's Dinner to lecture someone you don't know about...

Continue reading →

In this Corner post , Andy McCarthy points out, based on things we either know to be true, or cannot rule out, the absurdity of the immediate dismissal of any connection between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and 9/11. The gist is that there is abundant evidence of significant, ongoing, and operational ties between al Qaeda and Iraq, going back at least to the 1990s, and there's plenty of reason to believe that part of the animus for bin Laden's fatwa against Americans involved sympathy for Iraq (see this...

Continue reading →

Jeez, I'm not sure which of these guys is more irritating, but the specter of Imus apologizing on Sharpton's radio show was bad enough...now Imus is chiding Sharpton for not apologizing to the Duke Lacross players . While I'd certainly agree (and pointed out earlier this week) that Sharpton is hardly a model of racial probity, for Imus to be the one pointing this out after having attempted to use Sharpton to mitigate the effects of his foot-in-mouth disease is kinda pathetic. In fairness, Imus is...

Continue reading →

I haven't settled on who to support among the GOP contenders yet. Unfortunately, for someone like myself who identifies as a conservative first, and a Republican a distant second, the current field is largely disappointing. Giuliani, as I've noted in previous posts, probably won't stick with the race, as his negatives will weigh down his candidacy, and I don't think he'll want to stay in if he sees he won't win. Even if he does stay in, I don't see him winning, and I'd have trouble voting for him...

Continue reading →

So I have a prediction to make...one that I've been thinking about for a while. I believe that before the end of the GOP primary season, Rudy Giuliani will drop out of the race. Why do I think this? In his last major political campaign, for U.S. Senate, he dropped out. Granted, his health played a major role, but the public scrutiny and criticism of his private life didn't help then, either. If Giuliani faced public scrutiny in his Senate bid, it will be much worse this time around. Already, he's...

Continue reading →

...and you're a Democrat, you can be pretty sure that you've put your foot in it, big time. If you're Nancy Pelosi, and you've made a damn fool out of yourself by going to terrorist-sponsoring Syria and proclaiming yourself a broker of peace between Syria and Israel, only to have one side you're claiming to represent (Israeli PM Olmert) immediately repudiate what you've claimed, and even the Washington Post feels it necessary to criticize you (link requires registration), well you can feel certain...

Continue reading →

So says Michael Crichton in an interview with Scott Burgess . Crichton has a remarkable facility for breaking things down to their essence, and this interview is no exception. I doubt he's the first to say it, but the notion merits repeating, often and loudly...science is not, nor should it be, a matter of consensus. We don't vote on science, we form hypotheses, and test them to weigh their merits. The global warming bullies don't want anyone to upset their apple cart, so they attempt to browbeat...

Continue reading →

As Amy Ridenour (via Iain Murray of NRO's Planet Gore blog) points out , you call it a "free concert." Think about this a minute...according to Gore, et. al., Global Warming is the most critical issue to our collective survival. But it would appear that there's not a lot of demand for political rallies on the issue. So let's get a bunch of lefty musicians and celebs together, and draw people that way. Then we can claim that the thousands who attend these concerts are showing their concern about GW...

Continue reading →

This story is pretty nasty. You have to wonder (or perhaps the answer is obvious) whether the cloak of anonymity (or even semi-anonymity), combined with a level of remove from the impact of one's actions, leads people who normally wouldn't think of threatening or attempting to intimidate others into doing so online. Regardless of the cause, it's foul, and I hope those responsible end up prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. As with the now-infamous Deb Frisch, who inadvertently made herself...

Continue reading →

Although I wasn't able to make it, my mother and brother attended the Gathering of Eagles counter-protest to the usual moonbattery organized by International ANSWER and funded in part by George Soros. Although many of the MSM stories would lead one to believe that there were either only a few hundred counter-protestors, or that the anti-war folks outnumbered those who rallied in support of our troops, the folks who were actually there say differently...and their story is bolstered by unofficial park...

Continue reading →

If you live in Loudoun County, VA, you should be aware of the activites of a group calling themselves "Mainstream" Loudoun. This is a group that fought against internet filters in Libraries (because we all know that the Constitution protects our right to download porn in public places), and is currently fighting tooth and nail to prevent abstinence from being a part of the sex ed curriculum in Loudoun County public schools. Barbara Curtis, who writes a monthly column for the Loudoun Times-Mirror...

Continue reading →

Ramesh Ponnuru writes: Rod Dreher suggests (seconded by Mark Shea ) that conservatives who think Libby should go free because there was no "underlying crime" are guilty of inconsistency, since they accepted no such excuse in the case of Bill Clinton. I think Dreher is right. But plenty of conservatives have argued for a pardon for Libby without claiming that perjury is no big deal. They argue either that the jury got it wrong, or that it was not allowed to consider all the factors that militated...

Continue reading →

So let me get this straight: Wilson lies about who sent him to Niger...hint, it wasn't the veep, it was at his wife's recommendation...which is the reason her name comes up in any of this at all. Wilson also lies in his op-ed piece regarding what he found...nevermind whether publishing an op-ed piece in an internationally read paper is wise for someone who purportedly wants to protect his wife's identity. Richard Armitage, not exactly a supporter of the administration's policies, leaks Valerie Plame...

Continue reading →

Victor Davis Hanson has some choice words for John Edwards' attempt to co-op Jesus in the service of his "two Americas" class warfare rhetoric. My favorite graf: Still, at the very least when Edwards says the following: "I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. "I think he would be appalled, actually," he could at least offer the homeless shelter for a few cold nights in his sports and...

Continue reading →

Ann Coulter is at it again. I should state up front that I am a sometime fan of some of Ann's antics, and that I think she is very smart and possessed of a biting wit. She is also, alas, prone to descending into sophomoric stunts designed to outrage and grab attention, the most famous being her post 9/11 column in which she claimed: we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. Her most recent attack/stunt, being used as a fundraising tool by its target ,...

Continue reading →

I'm a big fan of Aussie Prime Minister John Howard, who is as stalwart an ally as the United States could hope for in a world where too often those whose freedoms came at the price of American blood view the U.S. as an enemy. So it's disappointing to see his administration jump on the greenhouse gasbag bandwagon, deciding to ban incandescent light bulbs in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. When the government can decide for you what kinds of light bulbs you may or may not purchase, that's...

Continue reading →

Melanie Phillips reports on a disturbing statement by the IPCC which seems to indicate an intent to modify the findings of their own climate scientists to bring them in line with the "summary for policymakers" released last week: The content of the authored chapters is the responsibility of the Lead Authors, subject to Working Group or Panel acceptance. Changes (other than grammatical or minor editorial changes) made after acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those necessary to ensure...

Continue reading →

Following the contentious Iraq debate was an enjoyable panel entitled "Trumping the Race Card" with Ward Connerly, Michael Steele, and Abigail Thernstrom. The success of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative spearheaded by Connerly this past election cycle is definitely cause for hope on the part of those who wish to see a race-blind society in their lifetimes. Michael Steele was inspirational, both in his description of his recent Senate campaign (which, alas, came up a bit short) against long odds...

Continue reading →

Saturday morning began with a breakfast speech by Newt Gingrich. Newt talked about his vision for the future of the conservative movement, some advice for the GOP (don't start with politics, start with the personal perspective, then place discussions in a historical perspective, and only then move to the politics), and his new foundation. Newt Gingrich You can view video of Newt's address here . Next up was a panel discussion entitled "Is 'Small Government' a Big Joke?" (seems the answer to that...

Continue reading →

OK, so it's been a long blog hiatus (bliatus?), but it's time to post again, since this past weekend I went to a fantastic event that bears discussion, the Nationa Review Institute Conservative Summit, in Washington, DC. I'm a little late in posting this, but wanted to share some pictures, and my impressions of the event. Friday evening kicked off with a cocktail reception for the U.S. Ambassodor to the United Nations (not, as someone pointed out, the other way around, as most libs seem to think...

Continue reading →

Not to be confused with "Rolling Thunder" which is a different matter entirely, a group of Hollywood anti-war protestors, including Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon (among the usual suspects), are planning their latest anti-war stunt. This time, they're planning a "rolling fast". Apparently, for those who aren't willing to risk the downsides of a real hunger strike, a "rolling fast" allows you to get the political and social credit for your protest, without any of that nasty risk of weight loss, malnutrition...

Continue reading →

This op-ed reaches new heights (or perhaps depths would be more appropriate) in the art of refusing to take personal responsibility. The short version...a 42 year-old lawyer, "in a sudden rush of passion," fails to use contraception during some "rare couple time" with her husband and becomes pregnant. She attempts unsuccessfully to obtain the Plan B morning-after pill. She and her husband subsequently choose to abort their baby. Who does the Virginia lawyer blame? Not herself, certainly. Among the...

Continue reading →

That's what it looks like, according to this story . Of course, the DHS has issued a non-denial denial (effectively, yes, we're doing it, but we're required to by international conventions). But no matter how you slice it, this is outrageous. Our own government is colluding with the government of Mexico to effectively make it easier to illegals to slip across the border, and simultaneously endangering volunteer groups like the Minutemen. Whether or not you agree with what the Minutemen are doing...

Continue reading →

It's long been clear that there are major, systemic problems in the academy. But the University of Texas professor described in this article truly takes the cake. Austin is no doubt one of the most liberal cities in America, and doubtless has more than it's fair share of both students and teachers who think that Bush is responsible for genocide against Muslims for going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. So you'd probably expect that they'd be a little concerned when one of their own advocates killing...

Continue reading →

In a post on the ever-obnoxious Ted Kennedy , I shared the Media Research Center's Quote of the year from 2003, which featured Boston Globe columnist Charles Pierce opining on Kennedy's career and Mary Jo Kopechne: “If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age.” Pierce's response , in the American Prospect, makes a pretty convincing case that he was taken out of context in a fashion...

Continue reading →

But clearly this doctor/plaintiff is aware of it: "My patients should not have to shop around." Good thing she has her priorities straight. We wouldn't want anyone to have time to think about the decision before using a chemical substance to induce abortion, now would we? And we should remember this story the next time abortion supporters claim to be "pro-choice". Apparently the only choice they're for is the choice to abort. The choice of a store owner (whether that be an individual or a corporation...

Continue reading →

In just the latest example of astonishingly bad taste and lack of decorum, the Democrats and Bush-haters (but I repeat myself) managed to turn the funeral of Coretta Scott King into a political rally, with Joseph Lowery of the Southern Christian Leadership Council inveighing against the Iraq war (what this had to do with honoring a pillar of the civil rights movement was left to the imagination), Jimmy Carter attacking President Bush for his handling of the Katrina aftermath, and Bill Clinton "passing...

Continue reading →

Question...why is it that it was imperative that we find out who in the White House "leaked" the identity of Valerie Plame to the media (I use the quotes because left unresolved has been the question of whether Plame actually had covert status at the time, and because of the fact that no crime has been alleged in the case relating to illegally leaking classified information), and yet attempting to discover who at the CIA leaked uncontestably classified information regarding the NSA wiretapping program...

Continue reading →

Julian Bond is a disgrace, and has an ugly soul. He should resign as chairman of the NAACP. If he won't do it voluntarily, honest people should demand it. Why do I say this? Because of the latest in a series of tirades Bond has aimed at conservatives and the GOP. I have no problem with critics who attack on the issues, and who disagree vehemently. But for Bond to assert that "The Republican Party would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side" is simply disgusting, defamatory,...

Continue reading →

Here we go again. The New York Times (motto: All the Bush-bashing fit to print), published a silly global warming hit piece today featuring a NASA climate scientist whining about being warned not to make policy speeches or discuss policy with the media. The scientist, one James Hansen, has called "for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming," according to the article. Well, color me shocked. Hansen's supervisors have asked him to desist from making such calls publicly...

Continue reading →

This article , in the Financial Times, illustrates to devastating effect the extent to which the current debate on global warming and what, if anything, we should be doing about it, rests on a foundation of ignorance. While adherents of the Kyoto protocol insist that current computer models of global warming are accurate and predict a dire future, apparently these models have missed a few things. For one, apparently climate scientists missed the fact that trees and other plants may be producing as...

Continue reading →

Many of you (OK, given my readership, perhaps many is the wrong word) have probably heard about the recent robbery of former D.C. mayor (and current D.C. Council member) Marion Barry, and his subsequent outrageous comments . In a nutshell, Barry was reportedly approached by two young men as he return home from the grocery store, who asked if they could help him with his groceries. According to Barry, this is not uncommon. He allowed them to carry his bags into his home, gave them a few bucks, and...

Continue reading →

A reminder of who was really responsible for dirty tricks in the 2004 presidential campaign (hint: it wasn't the GOP). You know if there were people who worked for the Bush-Cheney campaign on trial for vandalizing vehicles used to get people to the polls, the Democrats and the mainstream media would be screaming at the top of their lungs about how this was all a part of the conspiracy to steal the election and deprive people of their vote. I'm betting that the silence from the mainstream media on...

Continue reading →

Very funny, and not too bitterly partisan, either:

http://sean.gleeson.us/2006/01/07/deans-song

In a remarkable, if not surprising, revelation of the arrogance of the management of the New York Times, Times public editor (i.e. - the guy who's job it is to keep the NYT honest in the wake of things like the Jayson Blair scandal) Byron Calame writes that he has been completely stonewalled by management in his attempts to get more information on the questionable timing of their story on the NSA domestic eavesdropping story. The timing is important for a couple of reasons, not the least of which...

Continue reading →

Very interesting speech from Michael Crichton (author of State of Fear , among others) on the way that our response to the fear industry (the touting by the media of the latest thing or things that will kill us) and our arrogant belief that we understand (and thus the government can successfully manage) natural systems such as national parks. He uses compelling examples such as the Chernobyl nuclear accident (claims of anywhere from 2,000-15,000 dead...in fact, only 56 died in the accident itself...

Continue reading →

You just can't make this stuff up. Apparently there's a " feminist-based environmental group " that is asserting that men are the primary culprits in global warming, and that women are bearing the brunt of its purported effects. No, I'm not joking. One might hope that it's an elaborate hoax, but I think one would be disappointed in hoping that. An example of this idiocy is the statement of Ulrike Rohr, the director of the group: "To give you an example from Germany, it is mostly men who are going...

Continue reading →

So apparently Arlen Specter has come to his senses somewhat. The GOP Senator from Pennsylvania, a notorious RINO, threatened earlier to have the United States Senate investigate whether the Philadelphia Eagles were in violation of antitrust laws because they sat down Terrell Owens, whose refusal to apologize to his teammates for his ugly remarks about them got him suspended (and should have gotten him fired, and tossed out of the NFL, if you ask me). Now, given that Congress took it upon itself to...

Continue reading →

Yet another case of moral idiocy on the part of the mainstream media. This time it's Katie Couric and Matt Lauer on NBC's Today show who, despite some discomfort, promoted an exhibition that includes 22 human corpses, some of whom had had their skin or other body parts removed. Despite on-air musings about the propriety of the exhibition, Couric and Lauer were shown on-set with one of the corpses, which had been posed to resemble Rodin's "The Thinker", only without any skin. Apart from the repugnant...

Continue reading →

Via The Corner , as this Newsweek article discusses, apparently hollywood is at it again. Specifically, several notables have teamed up to produce a special entitled "Earth to America!", in which. [sic] Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks and Will Ferrell and other Hollywood A-listers urge people to join the Stop Global Warming Virtual March on Washington (StopGlobalWarming.org), an online petition. Get that? It's not just an online petition. Any idiot can create an online petition (and any idiot can sign...

Continue reading →

If you're a Republican, you can expect every word out of your mouth to be parsed carefully for any hidden racist meanings, and even innocuous birthday greetings can result in a fall from power (witness Trent Lott). If you're a Democrat, you can be the dean of the Senate, and a leader in your party, despite having been a member of the KKK (Robert Byrd). If you're a Republican, you can reach out to the NAACP, favor policies which would greatly benefit black Americans (social security privatization...

Continue reading →

From The Corner on NRO, this nasty little bit from an editorial in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: In losing a woman, the court with Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America. Could someone please explain to be why liberals get away with insinuating that Clarence Thomas (and other prominent black Republicans and/or conservatives) are somehow less black because they do...

Continue reading →

Buried deep within a Times UK story on the grossly corrupt Iraq 'oil-for-food' program , amid revelations that yet more 'oil-for-food' money has been traced to the estranged wife of British anti-war zealot George Galloway, is the following interesting tidbit: The report found that Marc Rich & Co financed oil purchases from Iraq and the associated kickbacks for the son of a French MP shortly after the company’s founder received a controversial pardon from President Clinton. One assumes that this...

Continue reading →

Why, oh why are we continuing to fund this joke of an organization, the corrupt author of the largest scam in human history, the Iraq 'oil-for-food' program, whose latest absurdity is a speech by none other than Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, who had the collosal stones to call Tony Blair and George W. Bush "unholy men" and "international terrorists". This, from the man whose policies have taken productive land from its rightful owners because of the color of their skin, and plunged his country into famine...

Continue reading →

Reading this story in the Toledo Blade about rioting in the wake of a planned (but not actually completed) rally by a neo-nazi group in Toledo, the question that comes to mind (apart from why idiot neo-nazi groups continue to pursue their warped agenda, for which there is probably no coherent answer) is why we, as a society, continue to excuse inexcusable behavior. The rioters didn't attack the few (apparently around 15) actual neo-nazi rallygoers who showed up. No, instead, they went on a rampage...

Continue reading →

...just traveling for more than a week, then recovering from same. In the "news of the weird" vein, apparently UNICEF thinks that bombing Smurfs is an excellent fundraising tool. You can't make this stuff up. Apparently reality isn't "real" enough, so the folks responsible thought it would be more disturbing to show Smurfs being bombed to smithereens. All this in an effort to prevent "let[ing] war affect the lives of children." Which I suppose I'd find less absurdly hypocritical if it wasn't coming...

Continue reading →

OK, this ad campaign manages to combine breathtaking moral ignorance with appalling poor taste. To even remotely link a murderous thug like Che Guevara with the Prince of Peace strikes me as the height of blithering idiocy. I don't have any issues with someone promoting the notion that Jesus was a revolutionary in some sense, but the poster at the above site either reflects a profound lack of insight on the part of its creators, or an attempt at being "edgy" or "hip" that is grossly inappropriate...

Continue reading →

Really important article for anyone considering supporting calls for "anti-gouging" legislation or policies: http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,04816.cfm This is a really good explanation of the role that prices play in times of scarcity, and why rising prices actually help, not harm, consumers. One really critical bit: When the product becomes scarce, however, additional information is added in the form of increased price that represents notice from the producer to the consumer that he may not be able...

Continue reading →

Several media outlets, both here and overseas, have taken the occasion of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to assert that "global warming" is causing more severe hurricanes like these, and that this is proof that they were right all along. Give me a break. The historical satellite data that we have on hurricanes dates back to the 1970s, less than 40 years worth. If you include measurements from aircraft, you get back to the mid 1940s, which is still only about 60 years worth of data. From this, those...

Continue reading →

Clearly some folks haven't mastered the concept of irony . Apparently, according to this story in Las Vegas Weekly , the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union doesn't grasp that there's something a little weird about hiring temp workers at $6 an hour, with no benefits, to stand out in 104 degree heat and protest the poor working conditions (and lack of union representation) at Wal-Mart. It apparently didn't occur to UCFW organizer Bill Hornbrook that there's some inconsistency here. In...

Continue reading →

OK, so perhaps that headline bears some explanation. There's abundant evidence, including this Washington Post article , that demonstrates that one of the best indicators of the survivability of any given natural disaster is the wealth of the society in which the disaster occurred. And it's important to note, despite the constant drumbeat from the mainstream media, that this benefit of societal wealth accrues to both rich and poor in a wealthy society. That's not to say that poor blacks in New Orleans...

Continue reading →

It's not clear how yet, but it must be President Bush's fault that a Democrat Congressman from Louisiana used National Guard resources , including troops, trucks, and a helicopter, "to check on his property and rescue his personal belongings" at the height of the crisis caused by Hurricane Katrina. I mean, everything else about Katrina (including it's purported origins in "global warming") is Bush's fault, so why not the appalling behavior of a congressman from the opposition party? Kudos to ABC...

Continue reading →

I want the government (the feds in particular, but in this, probably the states as well) to get out of the business of subsidizing risky behavior. I'm not going to hold my breath, however, given the way that the U.S. Congress is collectively falling all over itself to send as many taxpayer dollars to the gulf region for "rebuilding" (never mind how much of what's committed will actually be used for that purpose). So here's my prediction, though it pains me to say it: We're going to see more Katrinas...

Continue reading →

Here's the response I sent to an email I received last Friday, which requested that everyone (a list of many emails, all in the To: field) receiving it sign onto a "PETITION TO LOWER GAS and Diesel PRICES IN THE UNITED STATES": OK, let’s stop this right here, please. First of all, I’m putting all of the addresses on BCC, so we don’t continue to run the risk of some spammer picking up this email and putting every person on the TO: line in their SPAM database. Second, please *don’t* forward this email...

Continue reading →

Apparently Fred Phelps is still at it . This unbelievably disgusting excuse for a human being is apparently showing up at and disrupting military funerals to insist that God is punishing the U.S. for harboring homosexuals. This man and his followers are hateful and foul, and I think it should be fair to say that if there's anything that both Right and Left should be able to agree upon, it's that jerks like this should be shamed, shunned, and probably (though one wouldn't want to encourage law-breaking...

Continue reading →

One of the reasons I was motivated to get the blog back online was the recent contretemps involving DC station WMAL host Michael Graham, and his moderately over-the-top remarks about Islam and terrorism. I won't re-hash the entire thing, since other bloggers and writers have covered the topic well ( here , here , here , here , here , and here ), but in it's essence, the troubling statement (which is really only troubling when taken out of context) was Graham's assertion that "Islam has, sadly, become...

Continue reading →

...there's the news that the Sheehan 24x7 media blitz is being funded by a group called True Majority, funded by B&J's Ben Cohen. Also of note in the article is the fact that when the "Cindy you don't speak for me" tour of military wives and moms who support the Iraq war arrives in Crawford, Sheehan won't meet with them with reporters present: The "You don't speak for me" group is expected to be in Crawford on Saturday. Sheehan said today she'll welcome to meet with her without reporters present...

Continue reading →

The money quote:

I think that calling for "more troops" is a way to criticize while not sounding weak, and that it thus has an appeal that overcomes its uncertain factual foundation.

Pretty much what I've been thinking. Read the whole thing, which also includes some on-target quotes from Kevin Drum.

UN Peacekeepers sexually abusing young girls in the Congo, some as young as 13.

Between this and the oil-for-food scandal, I'm wondering why no one other than Norm Coleman is calling for Kofi Annan to resign. He's been singularly ineffective in preventing suffering around the world, and has clearly presided over myriad abuses by UN functionaries and peacekeepers. Time to go, Kofi...

Well, at least we don't go around poisoning our opponents. The rhetoric may be poisonous at times, but clearly someone in the Ukraine takes that type of thing too literally. Scary stuff, and I hope they find the perpetrator(s) and bring them to justice.

[via The Corner]

If you have any doubts about whether the media is being misleading in its reporting on a Marine in Fallujah who killed a wounded (and, according to the embedded reporter, unarmed), you should read the letter from a Marine that was posted on Powerline blog. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know all the facts of what went on. But if it's true that these terrorists are in the habit of feigning surrender or death, only to blow themselves to bits in an attempt to take out those who fall for their...

Continue reading →

Take a look at all of the obnoxious cartoons linked from The Democracy Project , and tell me that there isn't something terribly wrong with the American left today. The President of the United States nominates as Secretary of State an enormously qualified woman, someone who rose up from poverty, who became one of the youngest university provosts ever, at Stanford University, who in addition to her foreign policy expertise is an accomplished classical pianist, and who happens to be both female and...

Continue reading →

The Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds) has the some comments about a post by NRO's Jonah Goldberg on the topic of TV and abortion, in which Jonah makes the observation that Hollywood seems to portray the decision to keep or abort a baby as having the power to make the difference between whether the child is, in fact, a child, worthy of caring for and reading to in utero, etc., or merely a clump of cells to be discarded. In response to Jonah's points, Instupundit makes the following analogy: I realize I...

Continue reading →

That's the conclusion of a study by Harvard professor of Public Policy Alberto Abadie, of the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Some interesting points in the article: Before analyzing the data, Abadie believed it was a reasonable assumption that terrorism has its roots in poverty, especially since studies have linked civil war to economic factors. However, once the data was corrected for the influence of other factors studied, Abadie said he found no significant relationship between a nation...

Continue reading →

Words I never imagined saying. But I am grateful to the Senator from Massachusetts for not cynically and selfishly prolonging this process in the hope of unearthing (or inventing) enough votes to overcome the President's 100,000+ vote lead in Ohio. Kerry has done the nation a favor by sparing us from another divisive post-election struggle. Unfortunately, while I'm grateful to Kerry for conceding, I found his running mate's introduction to be in rather poor taste, full of more of the same rhetoric...

Continue reading →

despite the fact that CNN, et. al. refuse to call Ohio, which isn't close enough for their to be any likelihood of a Kerry/Edwards pickup. I suspect that if Kedwards put us through an attempted repeat of Florida 2000 when the winning margin for the President is more than a hundred thousand votes, they're going to end up looking remarkably petty and classless, not to mention doing worse damage to the Democrat party overall. With 100% of precincts reporting, according to CNN , the President is currently...

Continue reading →

...and polls will be closing soon in some areas. Already, the early exit polls are causing some to panic. I must admit that I'd feel better if every indicator pointed to a Bush victory, but I also know that in 2000 the early exit polls were way off, and not in Bush's favor. I'll be peeking in on The Corner periodically, and watching the returns on Fox News . Still hoping for a relatively early night, but that's looking less and less likely. We'll see......

Continue reading →

...(and you know who you are)...I have a question: Which Kerry are you voting for? The pro-war Kerry who voted for the Iraq war, and said at the time that he supported our disarming of Saddam Hussein, or The anti-war Kerry who now says it was the “wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time,“ yet claims that he'll pursue it to victory nonetheless. The pro-Bush Kerry who supported our tactics in Afghanistan, saying at the time that it was “the best way to protect our troops“...

Continue reading →

In a result that will shock virtually no one, the staff of Slate has posted their presidential preferences , and the result is a landslide for Kerry. Nearly 87% of Slate's staff have declared that they're voting for Kerry. Out of 52 listed, 45 are for Kerry, while 4 are for Bush (two of the remaining three are for third-party candidates, while one is Canadian, and hence ineligible to vote), a grand total of 8%, including rounding up. As the ever-defensive Michael Kinsley was quick to point out after...

Continue reading →

That's the title of a CD due in stores today, according to a story in the Washington Post Style section (link may require registration). I'm sure that the timing of the article is coincidental and has nothing to do with the election (yes, that was sarcasm), but what's particularly striking about the article, and indeed the CD itself, is what it illustrates about the worldview of those who oppose President Bush. The basics of the story are that a Norwegian music producer heard Bush's “Axis of...

Continue reading →

At least not according to Teresa Heinz Kerry : Q: You'd be different from Laura Bush? A: Well, you know, I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don't know that she's ever had a real job — I mean, since she's been grown up. So her experience and her validation comes from important things, but different things. And I'm older, and my validation of what I do and what I believe and my experience is a little bit bigger — because...

Continue reading →

If the statement quoted here is accurate, then Jimmy Carter has demonstrated himself to be completely and totally blinkered, out-to-lunch, and a few cups shy of a tea set. Apparently, in an appearance on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Carter made the extraordinary statement that the American Revolution was “unnecessary” and could've been avoided if only the Brits had been more “sensitive” to the demands of the colonials. Well, duh! And as one of the commenters at LGF noted...

Continue reading →

...that makes them willing to say or do anything to get elected? I don't claim to know the answer, but the last couple of weeks has shown an astonishing array of behavior that should be disqualifying, but which of course is mostly ignored by the mainstream media: John Edwards, in a response on same-sex marriage in the veep debate, said the following, marking the first attempt by the Kerry/Edwards campaign to exploit the sexual preference of the Vice-President's daughter to score a cheap political...

Continue reading →

...at least more forcefully: Kerry and Edwards have a demonstrated track record of treating foreign policy as a popularity contest. Cheney hit on this somewhat in his discussion of their Iraq policy in the face of the anti-war views of Howard Dean, but he did not adequately make the connection with Kerry's current statements on Iraq and the “global test” and Edward's insistence on defending this silliness. Despite both Kerry and Edwards' claims that they would not provide another country...

Continue reading →

Via Drudge , in today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram , Bill Burkett is quoted as follows: During a single phone conversation with Lockhart, Burkett said he suggested a "couple of concepts on what I thought [Kerry] had to do" to beat Bush. In return, he said, Lockhart tried to "convince me as to why I should give them the documents." Now, I'll be the first to say that Burkett's credibility is on par with CBS', which is to say, not good. But if, in fact, Lockhart and Burkett did in fact discuss the documents...

Continue reading →

A must-read commentary on Captain's Quarters details the knee-slappers that Burkett is now peddling, including the fact that he only has photocopies of the fake memos because he burned the originals at the behest of his source, the mysterious Lucy Ramirez. I predict that the more reporting is done on Burkett, the more people will realize that he is a world-class nutcase, and the more credibility CBS will lose (assuming there's any left to lose) as people wonder why on earth CBS took him seriously...

Continue reading →

The Associated Press is reporting that Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart spoke with CBS fake document source Bill Burkett shortly before the airing of the CBS report, at the behest of CBS producer Mary Mapes . Lockhart denied any connection between the Kerry campaign and the memos, but how stupid does he think we are? We already knew that CBS thinks it can get away with insulting our intelligence. Now the Kerry campaign obviously thinks the same thing. What's hysterical is that Lockhart employs the same...

Continue reading →

Looks like CBS will attempt to lay the blame for the fake memo scandal on Bill Burkett, who's been widely reported to be the source of the documents. According to the New York Times (link via Drudge ), CBS is preparing to announce that they were misled on the memos, and that the story was too flawed to have aired. Apparently, they're still sticking by the 'fake, but accurate' story line, though, despite every major source and living figure other than Ben Barnes (a major Kerry fundraiser) having denied...

Continue reading →

...allies don't set you up with faked documents (something that Dan Rather should be thinking about these days). From Ed Morrissey over at Captain's Quarters , a report from the London Telegraph on the source of the fake Niger documents that were initially part of the case for war with Iraq: The Italian businessman at the centre of a furious row between France and Italy over whose intelligence service was to blame for bogus documents suggesting Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy material for nuclear...

Continue reading →

As noted by Power Line , CBS is once again flipping the proverbial bird to its viewers and, for that matter, to anyone who cares about journalistic integrity (or is that an oxymoron today?). The latest comes in the wake of ABC's interview with General Staudt, the officer who (according to the now-discredited memos offered by CBS) purportedly pressured Lt. Colonel Jerry Killian to “sugarcoat” then-Lt. Bush's service record. Never mind that Staudt had been retired for over a year and a...

Continue reading →

[via The Corner ] UPDATE : I posted a link to the photo above with a request for captions, over at LGF. The first candidate is from urthshu : AP- BETHESDA- Presidential Candidate John Kerry [news - photos] reports to the Naval Hospital in Maryland to have enormous tumor removed. Terry MacAuliffe of the DNC was quoted as saying, "This is Rove's doing. With almost a month left until November, I simply must question the timing." Theresa Heinz-Kerry, the Senator's wife vowed to "take over the Campaign...

Continue reading →

Captain's Quarters is skeptical of the father's version of this event . While I think that skepticism is warranted, given his history of being attacked (and getting press about it) at opposition events, I think his dismissing of the union's apology is too easy. It's certainly possible that the union just decided to issue an apology, regardless of whether it really was their guy that was responsible, but that doesn't make much sense. We're talking about an assault here, and while IANAL, it's conceivable...

Continue reading →

This is simply disgusting. According to AP, the photo below shows a 3-year old child who is crying because Kerry supporters tore up her Bush/Cheney sign. I don't care what the circumstances were. I simply cannot conceive of a circumstance that would make it excusable for grown people to treat a child this way. You can certainly question the father's judgement in bringing her along to such an event, but who in their right mind would expect people, no matter who they're supporting, to behave this way...

Continue reading →

Well, that seems to be what's indicated by the following site, apparently a message board for Borders' employees ( this is the Google cache, since the original site appears to have been disabled): Now, we should be skeptical of this information until someone is able to confirm that the discussions are from actual Borders employees. But if this information is accurate, this is a very big story, and has the potential to cause Borders a lot of embarrassment. If indeed it's true, I would certainly hope...

Continue reading →

The Captain, over at Captain's Quarters, reports on an analysis by Jim VanderHei in The Washington Post, in which VanderHei discusses Kerry's habit of making gaffes when lamely attempting to discuss sports like a “regular guy.” Of particular note was Kerry's goof up in Wisconsin, where he called the Packer's Lambeau Field “Lambert Field”. Apparently, the cheeseheads weren't amused, and the Bush/Cheney campaign has spent some time pounding Kerry over the incident. Does this...

Continue reading →

Via Hugh Hewitt , an interesting article from the Dallas Morning News describes the views of Marian Carr Knox, who was the secretary for the late Lt. Col Jerry Killian, of the CBS memo fame, on the subject of the memos. What's very interesting is that she describes herself as a clear anti-Bush partisan, and says that she's sure that the memos are fake, but that they represent the true feelings of Killian at the time: Marian Carr Knox, who worked from 1956 to 1979 at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston...

Continue reading →

CBS and Dan Rather's continued denials that their story on the Bush National Guard memos is hopelessly flawed reminded me of something, so I decided to spend a little time in Photoshop to represent it graphically: UPDATE : Heh. Looks like I'm not the only blogger inspired to artistic interpretation of Rather's dilemma. Here's another . And another . UPDATE II: More funnies here ....

Continue reading →

This story in today's Washington Post is devastating to CBS (and those on the web who are still insisting that the CBS documents are authentic). This should really end any further question of whether the documents are authentic, particularly given that the WaPo is hardly a part of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. The money paragraphs: The lead expert retained by CBS News to examine disputed memos from President Bush's former squadron commander in the National Guard said yesterday that he examined...

Continue reading →

I'm practically speechless. Moments ago, I watched former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright claim (with a straight face, no less) that the Bush administration was responsible for North Korea getting nuclear weapons. The claim came in response to a question from Meet the Press host Tim Russert. Albright claimed that the responsiblity lies with the Bush administration because, according to her, they failed to continue the negotiations that the Clinton administration had been conducting with the...

Continue reading →

So apparently, as a part of the story by Dan Rather about ‘new’ questions about Bush’s National Guard service (which I noted here ), CBS News released several documents purporting to be memos from Bush’s commanding officer, Jerry Killian (now deceased). Unfortunately for CBS and its credibility, it is looking increasingly likely that some or all of the 4 documents may be forgeries . Prompted by a post at Little Green Footballs , in which the author described the results of...

Continue reading →

…but not because of any new information. Instead, the Boston Globe uses some additional documents (apparently located in February, but not of interest until September for some reason) to attempt to revive the “AWOL” story as Kerry’s poll numbers drop faster than the candidate himself getting knocked down by a “son of a bitch” Secret Service agent. But as this story from the Chicago Sun-Times suggests, the mainstream media may have been deliberately misreading the...

Continue reading →

Is it just me, or would we not be hearing howls of indignation from the mainstream media if the following statement was made by a Republican candidate: In West Virginia, Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, gave Kerry a rifle as a gift. Kerry, a self-described gun owner and hunter, quipped: ''I thank you for the gift, but I can't take it to the debate with me.'' Perhaps Kerry thinks that Zell was onto something when he regretted not being able to challenge Chris Matthews...

Continue reading →

Apparently, AP ran a story claiming that attendees at a Bush rally booed Bush’s well-wishes for former President Clinton’s recovery from heart surgery, and that Bush didn’t try to stop the booing. Only problem is that it appears that it never happened. I’ve listened to the audio clip , and it’s pretty clear there’s no booing. Is there any explanation for this, other than an obvious attempt to make Bush look bad? The MSM is doing their level best to destroy their...

Continue reading →

Nice acceptance speech tonight by the President. A little long, perhaps, and I could’ve done without the promise of more federal meddling in my child’s education, but also made a clear case for why he should be re-elected, and drew clear distinctions between himself and John F. Kerry. Some good humor and humility thrown in, to boot. Don’t know how many minds this speech will change, but it’s a reminder to those who are yet undecided what the stakes are in this election. The...

Continue reading →

Wow! Words can hardly describe the fire shown by Zell Miller tonight at the RNC. One gets the sense that he doesn’t have a lot of respect for John Kerry: Listing all the weapon systems that Senator Kerry tried his best to shut down sounds like an auctioneer selling off our national security but Americans need to know the facts. The B-1 bomber, that Senator Kerry opposed, dropped 40 percent of the bombs in the first six months of Operation Enduring Freedom. The B-2 bomber, that Senator Kerry...

Continue reading →

Neal Boortz describes the view from his hotel (link includes a photo): Perhaps the best rooms in NYC during the next four days are the west-facing rooms of this hotel. All we need to do is to walk over to the window to see why what will take place in this city this week is so important. Almost three thousand people died right across the street, victims of hate-filled Muslims with a driving desire to kill. Someone standing in this very window on a Tuesday morning a little more than 1000 days ago would...

Continue reading →

This is sad for the French, and these journalists will be in our prayers, but it needs to be said: the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq makes it eminently clear that no one is immune from these fanatics, not even those who opposed the Iraq war, and who refuse to participate in the post-war military efforts. All it takes is to do something that does not fit with their worldview. In the case of France, this was banning Muslim headscarves in schools. So the next time someone tells you that...

Continue reading →

In a recent column , William Raspberry muses about whether or not being “not Bush” is sufficient for Kerry to achieve victory in November, ultimately concluding that it may not be. But along the way, he makes some misleading statements, along with some that are simply false. For example, his criticisms of President Bush include the following: He has tilted the economy toward the rich and away from the middle class. He is heavily influenced by "neocons" whose foreign-policy ideas are well...

Continue reading →

…from a famous former Olympic athlete . In an article (link above) in the UK Guardian, Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis makes the following asinine assertion regarding President Bush’s ads noting that Afghanistan and Iraq are now competing in the Olympic games as free countries: “I felt that was disingenuous. It is funny that we boycotted the 1980 Games [in Moscow] in support of Afghanistan, and now we're bombing Afghanistan…” Once again, celebrity trumps good judgement...

Continue reading →

Here are some observations: The SwiftVets charges against Kerry are very well documented. So far, the majority of coverage in the media has been on the charges related in the SwiftVets ads, with the mainstream media largely portraying these as “he said, he said” arguments, frequently giving Kerry the benefit of the doubt. This despite the fact that Kerry has already retracted his “Christmas in Cambodia” claim that was “seared…seared” into his memory, and...

Continue reading →

http://www.archive-news.net/Kerry/JK_timeline.html [via Instapundit ]...

Continue reading →

…but apparently not with Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0895260174/qid=1092086700/ Note, in particular, the “editorial review” by none other than Sen. John McCain: Editorial Reviews Senator John McCain "Dishonest and dishonorable... none of these individuals served on the boat (Kerry) commanded." Never mind that the quote in question is not, in fact, related to the book, but rather is cribbed from McCain’s reaction to the advertisement being run...

Continue reading →

July 4 th , also known here in the USA as Independence Day, is rapidly approaching. My wife and I, having recently bought a new house with a nice deck, wanted to put out some bunting for the holiday (for those of you not familiar with bunting, it’s the red, white, and blue (though other colors are certainly possible) half-circle gathered fabric that is draped on railings for holidays and celebrations, in particular, Independence Day. Unfortunately, when we went to a local Michaels store, which...

Continue reading →

…why it is that the Right is always being characterized as being the origin of hateful speech? I always have to ask myself that question when I see columns like this one from Jimmy Breslin: Reagan should be on a $3 bill Not only is the column chock-full of rather vicious slanders of President Reagan, such as asserting that “Reagan hated children” and was “callous”. But for it to appear on the very day that Reagan was laid to rest speaks to a degree of contempt and viciousness...

Continue reading →

The funeral ceremonies for President Reagan today (Friday) at Washington National Cathedral, and at the Reagan Library were both moving and beautiful. I doubt that I shall see the like again in my lifetime, which is appropriate since I doubt that we’ll see another president like Reagan again (though I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong on that one). The eulogies this morning from former Canadian PM Brian Mulroney and Lady Thatcher were both moving tributes to the man they called their ally...

Continue reading →

In the latest eruption of foolishness from a pop star, UK “music legend” Morrissey, former lead singer of the Smiths, received cheers from the crowd at a conference concert in Ireland when he announced that Ronald Reagan had died. As if this lack of class, tact, and moral sense from the audience wasn’t bad enough, Morrissey then informed the audience that he wished it had been George W. Bush that died. Apparently, this drew even greater cheers from the crowd. I’m puzzled here…isn’t...

Continue reading →

According to a story reported by AFP , there are doubts being raised about building a case against Saddam Hussein, in part because witnesses may still be afraid to testify against him for fear that they and their families might be targeted for revenge. Now, I suspect that this report is overblown, and that Saddam will be tried, found guilty, and punished (and if justice is to be done, probably executed). But if you want to understand the major difference between the foreign policies of Bush and Kerry...

Continue reading →

...and this from a theatre review by a Michael Feingold. The first paragraph reads: No U.S. president, I expect, will ever appoint a Secretary of the Imagination. But if such a cabinet post ever were created, and Richard Foreman weren't immediately appointed to it, you'd know that the Republicans were in power. Republicans don't believe in the imagination, partly because so few of them have one, but mostly because it gets in the way of their chosen work, which is to destroy the human race and the...

Continue reading →

…between al Qaeda and Iraq? Think again . (It’s a long article, but worth the read)...

Continue reading →

Assuming this story is being reported accurately, there are some people in San Francisco who need to find better ways to deal with their anger, or face some jail time. The story discusses a San Fran gallery owner who was threatened and assaulted after displaying a painting that seems to be a critical study of the prisoner abuse at Abu Graib. Having not seen the painting, I can’t comment on its contents, but apparently many people objected, including one who spit in the gallery owner’s...

Continue reading →

As if the “oil for food” program, and its massive corruption and payoffs weren’t enough, the following story: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=524674 provides yet another reason why the United States, and any other nation that cares about human rights, freedom, etc., should leave the UN, and call for the investigation and prosecution of its leadership, and perhaps even for the disbanding of the UN. When UN peacekeepers are taking advantage of the desperation...

Continue reading →

…and it’s obvious that it’s in part because they don’t really listen to him. A prime example is a recent article on Salon.com (requires either registration, or watching a brief ad to view the full article), in which the writer reveals that the discovery that her therapist is a Rush fan created huge problems for her. While I can sympathize with her concerns about sharing very personal discussions with someone who’s worldview is different from one’s own, I think...

Continue reading →

…that Planned Parenthood thinks that protecting unborn lives is fodder for April Fool’s humor: http://www.saveroe.com/whitehouse/ I’m sure that they think their humor is very cutting, but I can’t say as I find it very funny. Of course, Planned Parenthood would probably respond that I’m just a humorless right-winger who’s against women’s rights, so what do I know. Never mind the rights of the unborn. Find another subject to spoof, Planned Parenthood. Abortion...

Continue reading →

An article in National Review on Kerry’s stance on terrorism provides some interesting food for thought. For example, the article recalls Kerry’s claim some weeks ago that President Bush had “exaggerated” the threat of terrorism. Now, however, in the wake of Richard Clarke’s testimony before the 9-11 commission, Kerry is jumping on Clarke’s testimony to claim that the Bush administration didn’t take terrorism seriously enough, and hasn’t done enough...

Continue reading →

BrainWash , the online magazine of America’s Future Foundation , an organization focused on freedom and liberty, has been kind enough to publish a piece I wrote for them on the recent movement towards government mandates for open source software. The article examines the claims that have been put forth by governments in either mandating, or giving elevated consideration to, open source software, and whether these claims are being borne out by the available evidence. My thanks to Jerry Brito...

Continue reading →

French lawyer 'to defend Saddam' That’s just too rich…first, the French accept bribes from the U.N. oil-for-food program, and threaten vetos in the Security Council to keep their sugar daddy Saddam in power, and now this. Do the French know no shame where this monster is concerned? Yes, I know it’s unfair to tar all the French with the brush of a single loathsome lawyer willing to defend a mass murderer, but doesn’t it sort of figure he’d be French? via Drudge...

Continue reading →

It was often said during the Clinton years (and is still sometimes argued today) that the best way to get China to reform their human rights practices was to normalize trade relations with them and rely on market forces to gradually improve the situation. Now, I’m a big believer in free markets, but I think that’s a tall order, particularly for markets that are anything but free, if the descriptions of the Chinese practices in this article on Laogai (slave labor camps) are accurate. I...

Continue reading →

Claudia Rosette reports in National Review Online that the U.N. is finally acceding to demands for an independent investigation of the wholly corrupt oil-for-food program in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. No, it’s not shocking that there could be corruption at the U.N., nor is the extent of the corruption, or the fact that there were clearly some members of the Security Council allowing their votes to be bought for the price of some juicy oil contracts (“no blood for oil”? Guess that...

Continue reading →

Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol completely destroy the argument that the fact that we have not found stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq proves that the war was not justified, or was fought on the basis of a lie, in an article in the Weekly Standard . It’s a long article, but well worth the read, for anyone who needs to be reminded that the threat wasn’t just the WMDs, that the threat posed by Iraq was recognized by the Clinton administration, that it has been U.S. policy to work for regime change...

Continue reading →

In what should be (but of course won’t be) an embarrassment to the Democrats and media outlets hounding the President about “questions remaining” about his service in the National Guard, the Boston Globe is now reporting that the man who started it all by making accusations that Bush’s service record had been “sanitize[d]”, may have been lying. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett, who has been pressing his charges in the national news media this week, says...

Continue reading →

According to a story in the New York Daily News , it looks like some on the Left won’t be satisfied with accusing the right of trying to illegally suppress Democratic votes, or with Michael Moore’s obnoxious and insulting (not to mention untrue) assertion that the President was a “deserter”. No, now we have Moby, a Kerry supporter (and modestly musically talented pop musician) who suggests ways that the Left can “keep the other side home on Election Day.” No, he’s...

Continue reading →

In a full-page ad in today’s Washington Post A section, MoveOn.org and Win Without War assert that “He Knew”. That is, they assert that President Bush knew that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and that he nonetheless took us to war…a war, the ad asserts, that was decided on before the attacks on September 11 th , 2001 ever took place. To support their assertions, they repeat an oft-repeated lie of the left. Let’s take these one at a time: · “Bush...

Continue reading →

So hot are they to impugn the Bush administration’s actions in going to war in Iraq, Congressional Democrats (as reported uncritically by the Associated Press in today’s Washington Post) are asserting that because of inaction by the U.S., “Iraqi women are in danger of losing rights,” according to the headline on page A2 of the Post. The most ridiculous assertion of the brief article is as follows: Although former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has been criticized on many grounds...

Continue reading →

President Bush has announced that he will push for a 15% boost in the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts, which would be the largest funding boost the agency has received in two decades. It appears to be yet another attempt by the Bush administration to appease his critics on the left, while apparently ignoring the impact on his base. Conservatives like myself object to the NEA for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the NEA has a checkered history at best in...

Continue reading →

John Stossel’s got a new book out called Give Me a Break that looks pretty promising as an antidote to the pervasive Nanny State, or at least as a sound argument against same. Given the new book, Stossel is making the rounds of radio, etc., and I happened to catch him on the Laura Ingraham show this morning. As I understand it, Stossel’s political leanings can best be described as libertarian, and since I’m a libertarian-leaning conservative, I don’t think there’s much...

Continue reading →

4,435 Americans died in the Revolutionary War [1] . 116,516 Americans died in WW I. 405,399 Americans died in WW II. 36,576 Americans died in the Korean War. 58,200 Americans died in the Vietnam War. 382 Americans died in the Persian Gulf War. 500 + Americans have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The total number of casualties for these and other major US conflicts is approximately 639,997 . May they rest in peace. But now, given the unhappy anniversary we mark today, consider another statistic:...

Continue reading →

Earlier this month, I wrote about flip-flops by politicians , to the effect that expecting consistency from politicians was a fairly unrealistic expectation, and that changing views on issues are not intrinsically bad, assuming they’re motivated by principle, or by changing facts. One thing I didn’t say (since it seemed obvious) is that one clearly bad type of flip-flop is the one that insults our intelligence. Wesley Clark’s position on the war in Iraq is precisely this sort of...

Continue reading →

In a thoughtful column on Townhall.com , Jay Bryant wonders why it is that Democrats can credibly claim the mantle of protector of the rights of blacks in this country. He’s not the first to ask the question, nor to observe that, among other things: The filibusterers of the Civil Rights bills in the 1960's were Democrats. The liberals whose welfare-state policies destroyed families in post- Great Society inner cities were Democrats. But Bryant also brings up something very important. Democrats...

Continue reading →

In an interview with People magazine, Howard Dean and his wife, both doctors, both of whom worked closely with Planned Parenthood (the candidate reportedly even served on New England Planned Parenthood’s executive board) defensively deny that they ever performed abortions (they volunteered this information to the interviewer without being asked), yet loudly proclaim their support for making it available. This strikes me as wanting to have it both ways. If you believe (as I do not) that there...

Continue reading →

…on what is expected to be the coldest day in New York City in a decade! And possibly the coldest in New England since the late 50s. Naturally the speech is sponsored by MoveOn.org and Environment2004, who are clearly as out of touch with both the weather (and the populace) as Gore is. You just can’t make this stuff up. [via Drudge via The Corner ]...

Continue reading →

In his latest bid for the coveted “hypocrite of the year” award, Ted Kennedy launched yet another attack on the Bush Administration, this time for allegedly going to war in Iraq for “political” reasons, and making “a war of choice, not of necessity”. According to the CNN report, the attacks were made in an address to “the Center for American Progress, a liberal advocacy group” at which “[h]e was flanked by Brian and Alma Hart, whose son John was...

Continue reading →

In the latest knee-slapping news on the planned all-Liberal, all the time, radio network, as reported in today’s Washington Post, Al Franken has been signed (as expected) as the flagship talking head. And what timeslot are Progress Media’s honchos planning to put Franken’s liberal radio genius in? Why noon to 3pm, of course, the same timeslot that Rush Limbaugh occupies. I guess the author of the hard-hitting journalistic tome “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot” thinks...

Continue reading →

…for voting Democrat in 2004: WARNING: Link contains profanity and is probably not appropriate for viewing at work. http://www.liberaloasis.com/bushin41point2.htm This stuff just defies parodying. Is this really the best that they can do? [via The Corner ]...

Continue reading →

The op-ed section of Saturday’s Washington Post contained an opinion piece by Ellen Goodman, entitled “Oops! Help for Same-Sex Unions” in which Goodman argues that the shameful antics of one Britney Spears in getting married and having her marriage annulled in only 55 hours provides an argument for supporting gay marriage. This is an awfully slender reed on which to hang her argument, IMO. The argument, which I’ve heard from a number of media outlets, goes something like this...

Continue reading →

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do - Ralph Waldo Emerson Let me start this off by saying that it’s not what you think. This is not a Dean-bashing blog post. In fact, it’s almost (but not quite) a defense. Which may seem a little odd because I’m perfectly happy to admit that I don’t like Dean, and I think he’d be a disaster as President...

Continue reading →

Iain Murray, of TechCentralStation , body-slams the recent Nature study whose lead author has been claiming more than a million species could be irrevocably headed for extinction by 2050. He also highlights the fact that while most news organizations say nothing about the limitations of the study, a New York Times reporter, of all things, was the one to note that the actual study only claims that 15 to 37% of the 1,103 species that were studied could be headed for extinction. In other words, the...

Continue reading →

You be the judge… Page A2 of today’s Washington Post carries an article on Secretary of State Colin Powell’s statement that “What we need is, I believe, more responsible action on the part of the Palestinian Authority in order to bring terrorism under control, make sure that violence is being brought to an end,” a fairly reasonable statement given the facts on the ground. But the Post is apparently dissatisfied because Powell failed to engage in moral equivalence by...

Continue reading →

Howard Dean makes his debut as a theologian on the front page of today’s Washington Post, with an article that describes his newest claim: that his decision to sign civil unions for homosexuals into law was “influenced by his Christian views.” The article quotes dean as saying the following: The overwhelming evidence is that there is very significant, substantial genetic component to it. From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have...

Continue reading →

…and the usual suspects whine and complain. According to a story in the Metro section of The Washington Post, the Virginia legislature responded to the fact that several of the al Qaeda terrorists responsible for the attacks of 9-11 illegally obtained Virginia driver’s licenses (which they used as proof of ID at airports and flight schools) by passing a law that forces the Virginia DMV to require applicants to prove they are in the country legally. Contrast this with the attempt by Gray...

Continue reading →

According to this opinion piece by someone named Neal Starkman in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (perhaps less-than-aptly-named, in this case), the reason that George W. Bush enjoys the “astonishingly high” popularity “given the state of people's lives now as opposed to four years ago” is, to put it bluntly…that “[s]ome people -- sometimes through no fault of their own -- are just not very bright.” Now, to call this arrogance would be to insult the arrogant...

Continue reading →