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Taking the opportunity to ping the blogrolls again and remind everyone that this site has moved to the following url: http://rightonred.net/index.php. Drop by sometime, and update my link.
A Bush attorney resigns today for advising the Swifties, and helps Kerry finally find his campaign platform: Vote for me, I'll comply with all FEC regulations. Forget terrorism - the real danger to our well-being is attack ads.
If this hurts Bush, he has no one to blame but himself for not vetoing the atrocious McCain-Feingold bill.
Ok, I had to take a minute from work and blog-building to comment on the media's stunning revelation that Kerry wants Rumsfeld to resign. No shit. Next thing you know, Kerry is going to call for Bush and his entire cabinet to step down in January.
Last I heard, no prisoners at Abu Grahb had their village torched. Isn't that what Kerry admitted to doing in Vietnam? I hereby call on John Kerry to resign from the US Senate. What a jackalope. If this guy didn't have the partisan media to prop him up, he'd have been dead in the water months ago.
Hey folks, I'm still alive - my normal blogging time has been taken up for the past couple of days with other obligations. Also, I'm upgrading to Wordpress and having to learn about servers and php and stuff which I have no experience with. I hope to have the new blog live and up-to-speed in the next 24 hours or so (fingers crossed).
(By the way, if some of the dates on this blog have been odd lately, it has to do with the import function with Wordpress. Don't ask. Anyway, my point is, I haven't been blogging at 4 AM!)
Hey folks, sorry about the missing Simpsons Report and Monday Morning Memo. Blogging will also probably be light today as well. I'm experimenting with Wordpress, and this blog may be moving to a new home soon. Check back!
It's starting to sound like the Swift Boat vets did not have their ducks in a row before beginning this ad campaign; Ken Cordier, who appears in the newest ad, has resigned from his role as volunteer advisor to Bush-Cheney 04. Certainly the Swifties have legal counsel; how did this get past Quality Control? Did no one look at the 527 rules?
The media is of course dedicated to seeing John Kerry elected; thus, they have turned the issue of John Kerry's dishonesty into the issue of the Bush campaign's "illegal front groups". Of course this is ridiculous. The whole campaign finance law is ridiculous, and Kerry's 527 hypocrisy is ridiculous. No one should give a damn whether the Kerry campaign coordinates ads with MoveOn, and no one should give a damn if one of the Swifties is a Bush campaign volunteer. Government control of political speech was bound to be a Pandora's box of trouble and hypocrisy. But this is the absurdity wrought by John McCain. The man is a destructive force in American politics. He is destructive towards his party by his self-serving "maverick" posture, and he has severely damaged the First Amendment to the Constitution. When McCain-Feingold was being debated, critics rightly pointed out that it would give the media an unfair advantage, since they would be exempt from it. We're seeing yet another unforeseen mutation of that: the media is going over the Republican violations of the rules with a fine tooth comb, but ignoring the Democrats' violations of it. Thanks, Sen. McCain. The final irony of this McCain-created charade is that his own words are being used to impugn the Bush campaign in a new Kerry ad! The man has done more harm than good to the conservative cause, and the voters of Arizona should throw him out. Meanwhile, Kerry has yet to satisfactorily answer any of the questions about his service in Vietnam, or his atrocious Senate voting record, or his foreign-appeasement campaign platform. Lovely.  This is the cover of The New Soldier, a documentary photo book about the 1971 vet protest in Washington, with text by John Kerry. Long out of print, it's fetching hundreds of dollars online. Here's a recent article on it from The Weekly Standard. I post this for no reason, really; I just find it interesting, and I haven't seen it anywhere but on a rather odd anti-Kerry vet site.
There's a new graphic at Blogs For Bush you must see. At least, I think it's parody (or should I say, Kerrody? Sorry). Hat tip to My Pet Jawa.
114 undocumented "asylum-seekers" claiming to be Palestinians land on Italian island.
In other Italy news, Backcountry Conservative reports on possible terror threats there. France prepares to celebrate 60th anniversary of the liberation of Paris next week. This article is a portrait of the most badass Frenchman of all: a French woman. (I counted a whopping 4 passing references to US forces in the piece. You're welcome). On a related personal note: My Great-Uncle from the mountains of East Tennessee drove an Army supply truck in occupied France; he is still alive, but has recently lost his legs due to unrelated illness. The French may not appreciate you, L.B., but I do.
3000 right-wing extremists marched today in Wunsiedel to commemorate the death of Hitler crony Rudolph Hess; 110 are arrested, 74 of whom are identified as members of a Neo-Nazi movement, carrying banned Nazi symbols and weapons. No word yet how many were carrying Bush-Cheney '04 placards.
The UN staff union is demanding to pull out of Afghanistan, saying it has become too dangerous.
The union said UN personnel was likely to become a target in the run-up to October's elections.Once again, terrorism achieves its objective (see below). We also see Example No. 2,389 of the complete and utter uselessness of the United Nations. Nato is already beginning to shirk its commitment to the people of Afghanistan, and now the UN has again shown that they will do nothing to help secure freedom anywhere in the world.
Why are bombings by Spanish seperatists ETA still happening with regularity? Because they learned from the 3/11 Madrid bombings by Al Qaida that terrorism works. The Spanish people surrendered, the government changed hands, and the troops pulled out of Iraq - exactly what the terrorists demanded. So is it any wonder that ETA has continued its operations?
On Hannity & Colmes tonight, they aired footage of some sort of ceremony back in the nineties, where two of the Swift Boat Vets For Truth were praising Kerry's service. The Vets are also in the new ad. This doesn't look good for the Swifties' credibility, but I don't know the context. If there's anything I've learned from watching the Democratic Party, it's that context is everything.
There's a new site called BlogPulse that tracks the most popular links, people, and phrases on a daily basis. Here's yesterday's most blogged-phrases:
1. thirty years ago, official navy reports documented my service (Via HobbsOnline)
WOW. Just heard the new Swift Boat Veterans ad on Rush - it literally gave me goosebumps. Devastating. Absolutely devastating. It has no accusation of lying - just testimonials from the men Kerry accused of atrocities interspersed with clips of Kerry's Congressional testimony. Incredible. How can the liberals lie their way out of Kerry's own testimony?
The media and the Kerry campaign are in full panic mode. I smell blood in the water. The men who risked their lives in Vietnam are not afraid of the DNC smear machine, i.e., the Washington Post and New York Times. KE04 is trying to get the publisher of Unfit to recall it. What about the right to dissent, Dems? I thought that dissent was an act of patriotism? Chris Matthews shouts people down and kicks a dissenter off his show... The Times and the Post ignore the Cambodia story...until they run a hit piece discrediting the bearers of their bad news... But they're not going to get away with it. It's a good day to be an American.
That fearless defender of Islam, Al-Sadr, suddenly isn't so visible, now that his men have given up the fight (and their weapons). Remember all that stuff about defending Najaf with every last drop of his blood? Scratch that. Don't get him wrong - he's willing to be a martyr. Just not today. Let's not be hasty!
More discussion: Slant Point
Great - I oversleep this morning and the blogosphere explodes about the New York Times having shat in the punchbowl.
Quick thoughts: The Times is becoming the Newsmax of the Left: openly partisan. This election matters more to them than any since Reagan, and they're simply not going to tell the truth about John Kerry. Period. Bloggers are going to have to keep up the pressure; the story is getting out. (Glenn Reynolds should get an Edward R. Murrow prize or whatever it's called, for his work on all this). It's amazing how John Kerry lies about his war service yet the scandal portrayed in the mainstream media is how the people who exposed the lie are - gasp - Republicans. In other news, Chris Matthews seems to be heading for a meltdown lately over the Swift Boat Vets, and his rage at having to cover it. Last night he apparently was rather unfair to Michelle Malkin and kicked her off the show for something that was in a book she had nothing to do with (Unfit For Command). This coming fresh off of Matthews' shameful treatment of John O'Neil. The thing to remember about Matthews is that he joined the Peace Corps rather than go to Vietnam. He is consumed with liberal guilt over this, and John Kerry is the Redeemer for his generation - the soldier who was brave enough to go to war, and righteous enough to protest the war when he got back. This is why Matthews takes it so personally to hear Kerry's war record questioned. At least Malkin can console herself with this notion: more people probably heard about the incident from her blog than actually saw the show (that was the case with me). MSNBC is fast becoming a national cable-access channel. Just look at the level of panic and the volume of indignation from the Old Media over the Swift Boat Vets - Kerry's been hit, and they know it. Vietnam is the foundation of his whole candidacy, and if that goes, so does he. And they all deserve it for the "Bush was AWOL" garbage. Paybacks are hell.
I don't care what else you're doing, drop it now and read this post from Allah about the upcoming protests. Follow all the links.
Gore called conservative bloggers "digital Brownshirts." Well folks, there's nothing digital about the Marxists and Anarchists attempting to shut down New York City in two weeks. Civil disobedience is one thing - mobs are another. There's nothing civil about organized punks trying to harass, disrupt, and intimidate people from exercising the Constitutional right to assemble, through the implied threat of physical violence. And they're doing it in the name of "peace" and "democracy". I hate seeing black-uniformed riot police in an American city. There's something about it that's offensive to the American subconscious. But we have one group of people to thank for it, and it's not the RNC. For perspective, Allah reminds us that Lincoln lost handily in NYC in 1860. I would add, let's not forget the Draft Riots of 1863 (although I would like to forget that awful movie Scorcese made about it). 2004 will not be the first time NYC's been on the wrong side of history. Related posts: Mainstream Extremism The Rising Hysteria Other Blogging: Blogs of War
France considers banning Arabic hate-channel. From the BBC:
The move follows a complaint by French Jewish groups over a programme entitled the Criminal History of Zionism, which they say incited hatred . . .I'm surprised this network isn't subsidized by the French government. One bomb-threat and it probably will be.  Courtesy of Rusty Shackleford, filling in for the "vacationing" Commissar. Collect the whole series!
Via Wizbang. They should put him on the No-Drive List, too, while they're at it.
UPDATE 8:52 PM I just realized that I made the same "No-Drive List" joke that Wizbang did. D'oh! I didn't see it there at the bottom of their post. Oh well. My bad!
When you need the latest information on current events in the world of cats, where do you go? That's right, folks, right here at Right On Red.
Cafe opens for New York cats. Thank God the kitties won't be able to smoke inside. Then there's this disgusting and sad story (unless you're a dog person, in which case you probably think this is typical of cat people): 146 cats taken from home. And lastly, there's this really bizarre one: Slain woman takes her cats to the grave with her. Now do you see why you should Blogroll me?
Just heard on the radio that Bush has "denounced" the Swift Boat Vets ad - but mentioned that Bush has been attacked by "similar shadowy groups." Check back; I'm looking for the actual quote and a link.
UPDATE 4:24 PM Did I dream that? Over an hour after hearing the report on the radio, I have yet to see anything online, and I haven't heard the report again, either. I'm at work and don't have access to a tv. UPDATE 6:06 PM Three hours after first hearing the report on the news and I finally found it online - at Newsmax.com. The radio segment I heard played this as if Bush has conceded that the ad is dirty and has denounced it; but according to Newsmax, it was Scott McClellan fighting back at Kerry for his $62 million in soft-money ads, mentioning that Bush has denounced the practice in general. The president has condemned all of the ads by the shadowy groups. We have called on Senator Kerry to join us in calling for an end to all the unregulated soft money activity that is going on in this campaign.I hope the Bush campaign doesn't back down on this and go the way of McCain; Kerry's war record is a valid issue, and the electorate needs to hear the whole story. At first I didn't feel this way, but now that Kerry still refuses to clarify or explain, I've come around.
This is what I get for being nice - via Say Anything, the Iraqi Olympic soccer team is not happy about Bush using their flag in a campaign ad. Says team member Ahmed Manajid:
How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?Sounds to me like somebody's got some Saddam nostalgia! He's probably impatient for the Abu Graib Museum and Gift Shop to open. "Hey, Muhammad - remember all those mass graves, and the dismemberments, and the secret police? Boy, those were the good ol' days..."
Kerry is obviously listening to too much Steely Dan lately.
BOSTON - Sen. John Kerry accused President Bush on Thursday of relying on front groups to challenge his record of valor in Vietnam, asserting, "He wants them to do his dirty work."Kerry also criticized Bush for not condemning the swifties. If I were the President, I would get Cheney to go tell Kerry to f*ck himself. Kerry has the Washington Post and New York Times et al doing his dirty work, not to mention Soros and MoveOn, and not to mention Michael Moore, who, by the way, has two new books coming out before the election. Kerry has not said one critical word about F9/11, and neither has the entire Democrat caucus (which gave the movie a standing ovation.) And McCain is not helping matters, either. Let's see, you've got McCain, Max Cleland, and about half a dozen of the "band of brothers" supporting Kerry, but you've got 250 vets who've signed affidavits about Kerry's embellished service record. The press was able to dig up an old Free Republic thread to discredit one of the swifties, and now has gotten another swifty's service records through the Freedom of Information Act; meanwhile, Kerry refuses to release his! Beyond ridiculous. Now for a little comical relief to wash that Washington Post taste out of your mouth: bear drinks 36 beers, passes out at campground. FURTHER THOUGHTS If the blogosphere consists of "zealots" examining the "minutea" of Kerry's Navy record, what about the zealots in the White House press corps who threw a sh*t-fit about Bush's Guard service? And can you imagine if 250 Texas Air National Guardsmen signed affadavits saying Bush lied about his Guard stint? Do you think the media would ignore it, except to attack those Guardsman? Who does the media think they're fooling? How many times can we have our intelligence insulted by these liars? The good news is, Kerry's sweating it, or otherwise he wouldn't be speaking out about it. However, according to George Stephanapolous in a soundbite I just heard, what this means is that "John Kerry is just not gonna take it anymore." Hah!
Not a mention of the Cambodia story, no call for Kerry's records, no hit pieces on Brinkley for Soviet-style re-writing of Kerry's bio - yet this morning the Washington Post does a hit piece on one of the anti-Kerry swifties. Haven't had time to study the article, yet; I will later. More on this at Instapundit and Wizbang (the Post manages to get in a swipe at "online zealots" examing "minutiae" of Kerry's war record). No doubt this helps explain their readiness to go after a swifty; the ad is a hit.
Meanwhile, the enthusiasm of the Democrat party for actual democracy erodes even further: Dems sue to keep Nader off ballots. In related anti-democratic Democrat news, McGreevey refuses to hold special election. Ok, now I'm awake.
What the hell is going on in Najaf? First he accepted the deal, then he rejected the deal, then accepted it again (but no one actually heard him accept it so it doesn't count). . . The reports that Sadr had accepted the terms and agreed to disarm were incorrect, apprently. This is getting so absurd that it reminds me of a Bugs Bunny riff. At least we're clearing 'em out in Baghdad. Wake me when it's over.
UPDATE 8/19/4 4:30 PM Here we go again . . . this time he says he's surrendering the shrine. We'll see. UPDATE 8/19/4 4:42 PM BOOM!!!!
Allahpundit has drawn together some things from hate-artist Ted Rawls that will make you physically ill.
Rawls' intention is to bring out the worst in people, those who agree with him and those who disagree, and he succeeds. He can only upset me if I let him. Unfortunately I usually do.
If you haven't been reading Healing Iraq, you should be. Today's entry about the National Conference meeting is the best writing I've seen this week:
Here you have 1000-1300 delegates from all over Iraq, from all ethnicities, religions, sects and social backgrounds. A curious mix of people all put together in one room to try and choose 81 individuals that are supposed to represent Iraqis.Sounds kind of like America, huh? I must make an admission. After 9/11, like many Americans, I was extremely wary of Arabic culture and the Islamic world. Or to put it another way, I couldn't relate, and didn't want to. I've also never had the opportunity to get to know any Muslim people on a personal level. But since the war, and especially since I started blogging, I have become extremely sympathetic to the Iraqi people, on a personal, emotional level. I know I'm not alone on this; a lot of conservative bloggers were thrilled to see Iraq's Olympic soccer team trounce Portugal. Reading Iraqi blogs has also given me a much wider perspective on that part of the world and the people who live in it. Americans have a vested interest now in seeing the Iraqi people prosper and flourish. Reading Iraq Blog Count and following the links, hearing the arguments and jokes and everything else, it becomes clear that the people of that region are more like us than I ever would have thought before. This is new; we've never been able to have this kind of communication before in history. I'm sure it's been said better by other bloggers, but I'm very glad to be here to see this. Every day I learn something new about a people I never thought I'd want to know anything about at all.
According to NRO, that's what we'll all be saying if a President Kerry nominates even one Supreme Court Justice. It does indeed look bleak - read the whole breakdown.
RIGHT ON RED EXCLUSIVE: Anonymous sources have given RoR this mysterious excerpt of a supposedly upcoming John Kerry campaign speech:
My fellow Americans - we need a President who will make us proud to call ourselves Americans again. (DISCLAIMER: I wear horn-rims and sometimes go to Starbucks - JWR).
Via Backcountry Conservative, the NY Post's Page Six is reporting that one of the celebrities performing at the GOP Convention will be. . . are you sitting down for this? . . . ANDRE 3000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There must be some mistake. Surely the first artist to ever turn hip-hop into real music CANNOT possibly be a Republican, right? The author of "Bombs Over Baghdad"? Could it be? If so, then Andre 3000 is officially the coolest motherfucker in the United States.
UPDATE 4:39 PM Ok, seems he went to the Dems convention, too. What's up with that? The Post must have it wrong. I should've known better than to get my hopes up.
Bizarre and tragic story. They were found in a Nigerian orphanage by a minister from San Antonio, who overheard their American accents; turns out the kids were dumped by their adoptive mother, who was going to Iraq to work. They sang the "Star Spangled Banner" to prove they were American.
From Fox News: Bedouin sex slavery is a growing problem in Israel. The Russian mob is involved in this, too.
Al Sadr agrees to pull out of Najaf and disarm. If the government doesn't arrest him, we'll have to go through all this again. Story here.
According to the Guardian, Daniel Pearl's family has asked that Pearl's name not be used by the Presidential campaigns. This in response to a reference made to Pearl by Dick Cheney in a recent speech:
A sensitive war will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans. The men who beheaded Daniel Pearl and Paul Johnson will not be impressed by our sensitivity.I mean no disrespect to the Pearl family, and I am sympathetic to their wish, but Pearl's murder is a part of history now, part of the public record. This was not an ad or a bumper sticker; it was a campaign speech by the Vice President on the subject of fighting terrorism. I think it's a little unrealistic to ask the country to pretend Pearl's beheading is irrelevant to the public debate this year. But I would respect their wishes, nonetheless.
A bomb has been defused near Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's villa after a visit by Tony Blair. Leftist group Proletarian Combatant Groups (NPC) has claimed responsibility. Story here.
This blog tends to towards the critical and sarcastic, but at the moment I'd like to say something positive. Today is Wictory Wednesday, and I've decided to take a moment to write about why George W. Bush has my vote again this November.
I'm voting for President Bush because his number one priority above all others is the defense of the American people, and our way of life, from all threats, both at home and abroad. The primary responsibility of the federal government is to provide for the common defense, and George W. Bush takes this responsibility as seriously as any chief executive ever has. President Bush has my vote because he had the strength of conviction to do what he believed necessary to defend the American people, even when much of world opinion was against it. The President has shown that his only obligation is to his countrymen. He has proven that he would risk his political career and his historical legacy to protect his fellow Americans. I'm voting for President Bush because I believe he is an honest man who knows the difference between right and wrong. He is a leader, able to make the difficult choices that come with the office. When the intelligence community told him of the danger of WMDs, he erred on the side of security rather than insecurity. He understands that it is better to risk a foreign policy mistake than to risk another September 11th. I'm voting for George W. Bush because he has a clear vision of what the world can be with a free and democratic Middle East. In less than four years he has liberated 50 million people from two brutal regimes and introduced constitutional democracy to the Islamic world for the first time in history. He understands that freedom, tolerance, and prosperity are the long-term antidotes to terrorism, and he has shown the confidence to lead the country, and the world, towards that goal. I'm voting for President Bush because he is a main of faith who understands that man will never save himself. He understands that no government social program can ever replace faith and family as the great civilizers of mankind. He understands that the world will always be full of suffering and wrong, and that no ideology can ever truly repair it. He understands that it would be disastrous to try and redefine the basic building block of civilization, the family. He understands that America is special and has been blessed by God because it is the first nation on Earth to allow man to worship his maker in whatever way his conscience guides him. George W. Bush has my vote because in the face of unprecedented, unwarranted, and unrelenting spite, he has kept his sense of humor, humanity, and civility intact. I'm voting for President Bush because the tax cut helped me, and it helped America, and it was the right thing to do. I'm voting for him because he values human life, including the unborn. There has been much in President Bush's first four years that I have not supported. I have not supported the growth of government, the increase in Medicare, his reluctance to veto liberal legislation, and his abandonment of conservative spending policies. I wish that he had chosen a different fiscal path. But we don't live in an era when we can afford to let fiscal policy alone deter us from dealing with the life and death struggle to save civilization. I'm voting for President Bush because he understands that America has been called to perform a special duty at this time in history. I believe that George W. Bush, too, has been called to perform his part in this special duty. No nation but America can do it, and no man but George W. Bush can lead that nation in the right direction, right now. I am 29 years old and I have never missed an election, but I have never volunteered for or contributed to a party or candidate. I've never even put a bumper sticker on a car. But this election is different. This election is vitally important to the future of our way of life, and future of the world. Below are the other Wictory Wednesday bloggers; please stop by their sites today, and if you can, volunteer or donate what you can.
Ok, I've decided to make the Morning Memo just a Monday Morning Memo for time reasons. But that doesn't mean Preston Taylor Holmes was right.
By the way, when is Blogger.com going to add the words blog and blogger to its spell-check program?
My girlfriend just got back from a local coffee shop here in Birmingham; the shop is near the most posh restaurant in town, Bodega. She said there were no fewer than 20 bicycle cops outside the place, and around a dozen squad cars.
It was then that I realized, to my dismay, that I had forgotten that JOHN EDWARDS IS HERE IN TOWN TONIGHT! Dang, man, I would've loved to have had a word or two with him, one hillbilly to another. It's good to hear that Edwards is in Alabama, hard at work on losing the South to Bush. I'd like to take this opportunity to make a prediction: Kerry-Edwards will lose every single state in the South, including border states Missouri and Arkansas - with the possible exception of Florida. I cannot pretend to know what will happen in Florida. Neither can anyone else.
This is shameful. Absolutely shameful.
While on a State Department-sponsored tour in Memphis, Tennessee, a group of Iraqi visitors were not only barred from entering City Hall by Councilman Joe Brown, but were robbed at gunpoint the next day. Read the whole story here. Incidents like this make us East Tennesseans wish Arkansas would just go ahead and annex the city of Memphis. (Hat tip to my sis on this one).
Kerry can't even decide which band is better, the Beatles or Stones! And then there's this:
I love Dylan. He's brilliant. I mean, I can name any number of his songs that I love, but you know, 'Lay across my big brass bed' -- "Lay, Lady, Lay."He can name any number of them, so long as that number is one. At least he didn't say "Masters of War".
We've seen lately what seems to be a disturbing trend in American politics: outlaw officeholders who disregard the law and enact illegal policies by fiat. Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome, and now Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich: the state of Illinois has defied the federal ban on importing prescription drugs from Canada.
Excuse me, Governor, but just because you don't like a law doesn't mean you can disobey it, especially since you are sworn to uphold the law - ALL laws. If the administration doesn't start squashing this lawlessness, we're going to have a breakdown of order eventually. Read the whole story here.
From the Guardian: Allawi invitation stirs Labour dissent in British Parliament. National Executive Committee member Mark Seddon tells the paper
"The Labour party has been bounced," he told Guardian Unlimited. "Tony Blair seems to regard the Labour party as his personal property.Maybe the Waffle Spouse should quit the DNC and join Labour. Better yet, Kerry for Prime Minister! No, wait - Kerry for Secretary-General! A Labour anti-war group let this one slip: An email sent out to Labour party activists by Labour Against the War echoes Mr Seddon's concern about Mr Allawi's record, describing him as "one of a US-backed clique of secular Iraqis ... [who is] equally mistrusted by everyone in Iraq's multifarious population."Secular clique? What's that supposed to mean? They would prefer a fundamentalist Shiite clique? The Left virulently opposes religion and religious influence on politics in every instance, unless it's an anti-American/anti-Bush religious movement, in which case they embrace it enthusiastically. These people have cracked; I'm tempted to vote for Kerry just to stop them from throwing themselves under a train on November 3. UPDATE Allahpundit has more on this subject.
Oops...I know who I'm voting for but I don't know what day it is. Not a good argument for my mental abilities, right? Haha. I thought today was Wictory Wednesday, so I did a post to that effect. I'll leave it up and repost it, with the changed date tomorrow. D'oh!
The Left always has better propaganda artists than the Right, at least in this country. It's a shame these artists use their talents for wickedness and tomfoolery; the messages are vile but some of the images are creative.
(Hat tip to Blogs of War.)
My comments on two Daily Kos posts today.
The first reports that some news outlets have referred to Al Sadr's rebels as "anti-Iraqi" forces. This is distasteful to the Daily Kos, ostensibly because it is untrue. To Kos, the rebels are "anti-US", not "anti-Iraq", because the Iraqi government is illegitimate, having been appointed by the illegitimate Bush regime. If one follows that thinking to its logical conclusion, then one must conclude that the Daily Kos prefers a fundamentalist Islamic dictatorship in Iraq. Which of course they do - as long as Bush opposes it. Kos also objects to the phrase "anti-Iraqi" because it's propaganda. Of course it is. So what? It's also true. Would Kos object to calling the Confederacy "anti-US" forces? The second gloats that Bush almost never mentions the name Bin Laden anymore. Can you imagine Kos' reaction if Bush were using Bin Laden's image in ads right now? Imagine if we catch Bin Laden before November, and that fact just happens to get mentioned in some ads. I can hear the liberals howling now. Criticizing Bush is not just a pastime for these people; it's an industry.
The Blogger.com people put that toolbar up there; I can't seem to do anything about it (I guess they do that to people who cover up their ad). Anyone have any suggestions? How about you Movable Type people? What's the advantage of MT? I'm new at this; somebody give me some pointers at johnnywalkerred-at-bellsouth.net.
UPDATE 6:48 PM Actually, now that I've made some adjustments I think the toolbar is fine. Much classier than the normal Blogspot banner ad (which I was probably not supposed to cover up). I like the search thing, actually. A toolbar is a small price to pay for free blog hosting; I'm not moving to a pay site until I get some ads up in here!
Just heard a soundbite on the radio from Alan Keyes, saying he would support the suspension of all federal income taxation for African-Americans who could trace their ancestry back to slaves, for the next couple of generations.
I am going to reserve judgment on this proposal until I get off work. In the meantime, let's all just sit back and marvel for a while at the size of Alan Keyes' gigantic brass ones. UPDATE 9:25 PM Ok, so here's my honest take on Keyes' reparations proposal (I can't find anything online about this). I think reparations are absurd because no one currently alive has ever been a slave, and no one currently alive has ever been a slaveholder. To attempt to address the wrongs of 150+ years ago would be to experiment in social engineering in a vain search for cosmic justice. That having been said, I think Keyes' proposition is brilliant from a showbiz standpoint. First, it puts Obama on the defensive concerning reparations - if he comes out in favor of payouts, he's lost all moderate voters. If he comes out against payouts, he alienates some of his black base (he may have already done one or the other; like I said, I can't find anything online about this story). But Obama cannot come out in favor of a suspension of income taxation, because that would be anathema to the whole philosophy of the DNC. Meanwhile, Republicans, who would normally have steam coming out their ears at the mention of reparations, must at least pause, because what Keyes is proposing would reduce the revenue that feeds the big-government beast. It's not a handout - it's tax-relief for a certain segment of the population. Conservatives are viscerally open to tax-relief whenever they hear it mentioned. Conservatives who disagree with it can safely vote for Keyes anyway, knowing full well his plan will never happen. None of this matters, and probably won't effect the outcome of the election - but boy, what fun Keyes is to watch. I think it's a brilliant posture.
Former CIA director James Woolsey agrees with me (yes!) that we should not call the overall head of intelligence a "czar":
Woolsey said the creation of a national director position "may be a wise move," although objected to the title "national intelligence czar": "I think 500 years of stupidity followed by Bolshevism is not a good" idea.Booya! In related news, it seems Bush has done a 180 concerning the powers said "czar" should have. Not sure how I feel about this. Seems that if you're going to have someone presiding over all US intelligence, that person should be able to approve budgets and control hiring and firing, in order to be anything other than a figurehead. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Rudy for Intel Chief!
If Bush is as oppressive as the Left says he is, why is anyone allowed to say so?
If Bush is going to steal the election, why is he bothering to campaign? If Bush is Hitler, why aren't his political opponents dead or in prison?
Communism ain't dead, it just smells funny: Maoist rebels in Nepal order businesses to close.
In similar news, Venezuela's Leftist President Hugo Chavez has survived recall by a vote of 58%. Upon hearing of the victory, Chavez immediately appointed election monitor Jimmy Carter as Venezuela's Foreign Minister. Chavez's buddy Fidel Castro is reported to be throwing a kegger in celebration. And in this morning's most hilarious political news, the North American Anarchist Convergence met this weekend in that hotbed of radical unrest, Ohio, to announce their endorsement of ABB for President. "I will certainly vote against George Bush because he is leading the nation to further violence and eroding civil liberties," said Ehrlich, who is editor of Social Anarchism, a 3,000-circulation magazine.Hey, shouldn't these anarchists be all for violence and chaos in Iraq? And tell us again how anarchy would NOT erode civil liberties? And isn't it remarkable that the Anarchist Convention is more organized and unified than the Libertarian Party?
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Democracy will not be salvaged by men who talk fluently, debate forcefully, and quote aptly." - Lancelot Hogben
WORD OF THE DAY: coeval - of the same period or age, contemporary. SONG OF THE DAY: "The Way We Get By" by Spoon. The best band from Austin that sounds the least likely to be from Austin. PERSON(s) OF THE DAY: The entire Iraqi Olympic soccer team. BLOG OF THE DAY: Red Line Rants - a DC blog with a cool design and good writing. WEIRD NEWS OF THE DAY: German company to offer tourists a night in former Communist women's prison.
If anyone out there has some time on their hands and wants a chuckle, take a look at this post from Talking Points Memo, wherein Mr. Marshall nuances the hell out of Kerry's nuanced "position" on Iraq. Most of it is dense and convoluted, but I get his drift. This, however, is just too much:
One might well have gone into the whole drama thinking Iraq had a retooled WMD program. But inspections allowed us actually to find out. Not just to guess, but to find out, to know. Certainly inspections would not have been perfect. But they were quite good at answering the key question, which was the status of the Iraqi nuclear program. And they would have been good enough at gauging where other non-conventional weapons programs were too.Is he talking about the inspections conducted by Hans Blix? The "surprise inspections" which were no surprise at all to the facilities being inspected? The interviews with Iraqi scientists in which Saddam's Gestapo stood by with tape recorders? Inspections told us only this: that the UN's priority was not to find out conclusively whether Iraq had WMDs, but to avoid war at all cost. One meaningless UN resolution after another left us with only one way to know for sure whether the WMDs existed: to take over the place and look for ourselves. Let's have a bit of honesty here, shall we? As John Lennon once sang, "gimme some truth". I am willing to concede that it didn't really matter to me whether the WMDs were there or not. In my view, Saddam had been firing on our jets since the Gulf War, was in violation of dozens of UN sanctions, and was giving sanctuary to terrorists. That alone was enough reason to go to war in my opinion. Now that I've admitted that, will Mr. Marshall, or those who agree with him, admit that they would not have gone to war even if the UN inspectors had found WMDs?
Smart moves in the War on Terror:
Rumsfeld and (Russian) Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov met over a two-day period in St. Petersburg on a variety of security issues, including U.S. plans to reorient its forces away from its Cold War alignment and toward one aimed at fighting Islamic terrorist groups.Sounds good to me; we should have done this a long time ago, I think. Read the whole story here.
It was a good rerun tonight; Homer's mom comes back into his life after decades on the lamb (she was a sixties radical). Line of the show goes to anchorman Kent Brockman who, referring to the sixties, says, "What a shrill, pointless decade". Unless you consider that political content (I don't), tonight was an A.
Via Little Green Footballs, the French press is trying to blame the desecration of Jewish cemeteries in France on American neo-Nazis.
Yeah, that's a much more likely scenario than say, German-speaking Alsatian punks, or the millions of Islamofascists in French ghettos, or indeed France's "greatest generation", the millions of regular, run-of-the-mill Frenchmen who bent over and grabbed the ankles whenever their Vichy overlords said "Seig Heil". Nice try, froggies. UPDATE LGF now reports that a man has been apprehended for the desecrations in Lyon; the man is described as being of North African descent.
I know a lot of my news items come from the BBC; so many, in fact, that some of you may be under the impression that I am either British or trying to be. You would be mistaken (I'm from Tennessee, BIAAAAAAATCH!). I scan the British headlines because I love hearing about crazy Europeans and their endless supply of ridiculous bullshit.
Too bad you can't turn bullshit into water; according to this article, a group of concerned Swedes calling themselves the Stockholm International Water Institute (or Siwi for short), says that the planet is running out of H2O. Hey wait a minute - I thought that because of global warming, we'll all be up to our ears in water when the polar icecaps melt. Problem solved, right? Deeper into the piece, it becomes clear that this group's real goal is to scare us all into vegetarianism. The rationale is that grazing livestock require too much of the world's water supply, therefore, we must stop eating meat. The article even has a photo of a hamburger with the caption, "Meat is a treat for the rich." I'm no scientist, but I know socialist brain manure when I smell it. The socialist solution to every shortage problem is to make everyone do with less. The American solution to a shortage problem is to invest in R and D and find new ways of increasing supply, or to create an alternative source of supply, or to create more efficient ways of producing and consuming supply - and make money doing it.
According the BBC, Charlie Watts (the drummer for the Rolling Stones, for those who don't know) has throat cancer, and is undergoing treatment. He's expected to make a full recovery.
The story says Charlie quit smoking in the 60's. I find that very hard to believe! Anyway, hope he gets well soon.
Forget the Twist, the Funky Chicken, and the Macarana - there's a new dance craze sweeping the German-speaking youth of Alsace: the Brownshirt Shuffle! Part of its appeal is its simplicity; it only has one step, the goose kind. Viola! (via No Parasan).
160 Killed in UN refugee camp. My Pet Jawa shows us the value of UN peace keeping forces, and reminds us that The Waffle Spouse (TM) wants to outsource our foreign policy to them.
RoR flashbacks: Kerry Pledges Troop Reduction Nato Fails Afghanistan Weaker At Home, Weaker Abroad
In a rather angry post I wrote this morning, I made the offhand comment that, in less weakkneed times, Michael Moore would be jailed for sedition.
Thanks to reader GB who took me to school on the Sedition Act. After refreshing myself on what it actually says, I realized I had "overspoken". I would of course never advocate jailing someone for being merely critical of the government. Thanks to GB for the clarification. However, I do believe the government is within its rights to arrest and try those who aid the enemy in a time of war. Exhibit A, Ezra Pound. For those who don't know, Pound was a respected American poet in the first half of the Twentieth Century who hated capitalism; he felt it created a culture inhospitable to poetry. He moved to Italy in 1925, and eventually went the way of the wackos: In 1933 he met Mussolini, who praised his poetry. Pound became an active supporter of fascism, promoting it on radio broadcasts to England and the United States during World War II (1939-1945). In anticapitalist and anti-Semitic speeches, Pound denounced those he held responsible for the West's decline - in particular, Jewish bankers.Pound's influential friends (T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, and others) lobbied Washington for his release, and eventually got it in 1958. Now, what is treason, exactly? The US Constitution, Section 3, Clause 1 states: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.While Michael Moore has certainly done some pro bono PR work for Saddam (and aided the propaganda ministries of some of our foes, such as Hezbollah, Castro, and France), he could never be convicted of treason (there have been fewer than 40 prosecutions in US history, something I just learned). But wouldn't a lot of us enjoy seeing Michael Moore get the Ezra Pound jitters in federal court for a few months? I had planned on making some further comparisons between Pound and Moore, concerning their mutual phobia of capitalism* and their belief that war is a profiteering conspiracy. However, in doing the research, I soon tired of sifting through transcripts of Pound's vile broadcasts, and gave up. Also, I would not want comparisons between the two men to lead anyone to infer any anti-Semitism on the part of Moore (at least not until I have evidence of it). Unlike him, I have scruples about drawing connections where none exist and impugning people's humanity just to make a political point. However, if you would like to infer from these comparisons that Moore is insane, be my guest. And besides, we could never forget the one glaring difference between the two men: Pound had talent. * Except when counting book royalties or box office receipts. 
Hey liberals, guess what - there are no WMDs. Happy Friday the 13th! xoxo Colin
Iranian Olympiad quits games because of Israeli opponent, or so says the BBC. However, it is my assertion that this judo champion is actually chicken. Cluck cluck, motherfucker.
BTW: the word "motherfucker" comes up in the Blogger spell-check as "motorbike." FYI.
I hope any readers in the service will correct me if I am wrong on what I'm about to say. Any comments or corrections would be appreciated.
Why are we negotiating with Al-Sadr? It's not a rhetorical question. I understand that we can't bulldoze the holy site, but can't we obliterate everything around it? Can we not get our boys in there without getting them massacred? The rebels are refusing to disarm - then why would we do anything but keep fighting? Aren't we the ones who should be dictating the terms of surrender? We don't negotiate with terrorists - isn't that what Al-Sadr is? Shouldn't we demand they lay down arms and peaceably disband or else be destroyed? If we negotiate a truce, aren't we just giving Al-Sadr credibility as a leader? Aren't we just rewarding open rebellion by recognizing the rebels' right to negotiate like a legitimate military enemy? Some broader questions: I realize we are trying to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world, but if we say uncle every time the Arab street threatens to riot, aren't we doomed to fail in the larger war on terror, in the long run? When you have a disobedient child, do you alter your behavior to avoid enraging that child, or do you continue the behavior as you see fit and then punish the child when the child gets out of line over it? I realize we're talking about human lives here, so my analogy may not be useful. But it seems to me that we should conduct our military policy in whatever way we feel will achieve the ultimate objective. If the Arab world throws a fit about it, so be it. If we do otherwise, aren't we letting the rebels dictate our policy? The Confederacy didn't give in until Sherman burned a path to the sea. When Grant accepted Lee's surrender at Appomatox, was it one of the conditions that the rebels disarm? That war was far bloodier and bigger than this one; can't we insist on disarmament in Najaf, unconditionally?
Put in handcuffs! In VIRGINIA!!!! Because she smoked around her kids.
What kind of country are we becoming? This woman could walk into any abortion mill in the country and have her child's brains sucked out with a vacuum, but she gets thrown in jail for smoking a cigarettes in the vicinity of her own children. This came about because her ex-husband, who has joint custody - so a father can do NOTHING to stop his own child from being aborted, but he can have the mother of his children jailed for smoking around the non-aborted child. Where is the ACLU on this one? Where are the Patriot Act handwringers? Disgusting. Read the whole story at Say Anything. UPDATE Preston over at Six Meat Buffet has a good point on this story: not smoking around the kids was part of the custody agreement, which she apparently broke. While I still say the punishment was excessive (and possibly designed to make a larger political point), I do concede that the situation is a little more complex to me than when I wrote this post originally.
All right, I've been waiting-out the Holiday in Cambodia controversy, to see what happens, and hear what the Kerry camp has to say about it. But I've had it - the man is a self-serving, opportunistic, unscrupulous liar, and the major media ought to be ashamed for their glossing-over of this story. Glen Reynolds has been showing us all why he's the Blogfather with his work on this story. Read today's latest outrage.
That hateful little crybabies like Eric Alterman can whine about a "conservative media monopoly" defies belief when one actually takes a look at the coverage and the slant of the headlines. Remember the White House press briefing some time ago, where the reporters grilled the spokesman over and over about Bush's Guard service and his "missing" records? Where are these partisan hacks on this Kerry story? Here we have a proven lie, and one which keeps changing, and the major media won't touch it! It is an outrage. Yet they will repeat Michael Moore's sub-"Daily Show" hatchet-job on Porter Goss without question, despite the effect that Moore has been widely discredited as a lying propagandist who in better times would be in jail for sedition (ever heard of Ezra Pound? More on that later.) You are not well-served by your media. Vote with your remote. Put these assholes out of business.
Well, so much for having a nice, relaxing Friday. The cat woke me up just now and when I took a look at the headlines, I realized she must have been trying to let me know it was time to start blogging. Good kitty. Here's the roundup:
Protests Erupt in Five Iraqi Cities Over Najaf (Reuters) Iraqi Leaders Try to Defuse Crisis as Fighting Spreads (L.A. Times) Iraq's Sadr Spokesman Calls for Release of Briton (Reuters) Iraqi Militants Threaten to Kill British Hostage (Reuters) U.S. Forces Scale Down Najaf Assault (AP) U.S. Military Helicopter Crashes on Japan Campus (Reuters) Israelis 'could leave the Golan' (BBC) Bush Declines to Condemn Attack Ads on Kerry (Reuters) Moore embarrasses new CIA chief (BBC) Bush Tax Cuts Heavily Favor Rich, CBO Says -Reports (Reuters) Bush's job-approval rating climbs back above 50% (USATODAY.com) Kerry slams president over national sales tax (USATODAY.com) Official: No Evidence Attack Is Imminent (AP) That's just a sample of what my Yahoo News and BBC feeds have this morning. I'll blog more later. Right now, there's coffee that I must attend to. It's not gonna drink itself, for crying out loud.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of great moral crises maintain their neutrality." - Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321)
WORD OF THE DAY: trivium - a medieval university course of grammar, rhetoric, and logic SONG OF THE DAY: "Clampdown" by The Clash; from the best punk record ever made, London Calling. It is a testament to the power of The Clash that they could make political lyrics still sound like rock n roll, and they could make you love them even if you hated their politics. I've never quite figured this one out, but I like how it sounds. "What are we gonna do now..." PERSON OF THE DAY:Dick Cheney, for sticking it to the Waffle Spouse*. (* Note: I just came up with that name just this second. Feel free to use it, but I would like to say for the record that you heard it here first, Copyright 2004 Johnny Walker Red, biaaatch, all rights reserved, muthaDOOOOOOT). (Image courtesy Ward Smythe.) BLOG(ger) OF THE DAY:Rusty "Multi-Tasker" Shackleford (say that 3 times fast), for not only maintaining such high standards for My Pet Jawa, but also for ably guest-blogging for the "vacationing" Commissar. And for giving his peeps their props, yo. WEIRD NEWS OF THE DAY:Studies Find Rats Can Get Hooked on Drugs (AP)No shit. Who did this testing - a fifteen-year old behind the shop class?
Interesting report in the Guardian, from inside Najaf at the Imam Ali mosque. The reporter is with al-Sadr's men. My favorite quote:
"I am fighting to defend my leader, the Imam Ali and my religion. We will do anything to stop the Americans. They have sex and drinking and other things and we don't want this."Obviously, this man has never tried sex or drinking. BREAKING UPDATE 8/13/4 1:25 AM Al Sadr is apparently wounded (via Backcountry Conservative).
Three BBC journalists were held at gunpoint by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank today.
Israeli military sources said the journalists had walked into an undercover operation and were held so as not to expose the mission.Of course, the BBC was very understanding of the situation, right? Surely such a respected and responsible institution would never insist on jeopardizing undercover operations in the West Bank, would they? Nick Springate, the BBC's acting bureau chief in Jerusalem...said the BBC planned to lodge a formal complaint with the Israelis.Good grief.
Just got this breaking news email in my inbox from CNN:
-- New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey resigns his post, citing an extramarital homosexual affair.Now THAT'S a scandal! UPDATE 4:04 PM Wonkette has a truly ridiculous take on McGreevey's resignation: We hope that someday it won't mean much to go on national television and announce, "I am a gay American." Someday, we hope that kind of announcement comes at the beginning of someone's political career, not the end.As we say here in the South, scyoose me, but the man betrayed his wife. What about her feelings? What about his children, for crying out loud? Would Miss Wonkette be so sympathetic had the affair been heterosexual? OTHER BLOGGING Slant Point (extensive) Allahpundit Say Anything Backcountry Conservative Vodkapundit Boi From Troi INAPPROPRIATE JOKE WARNING Word has it that the Other Man for McGreevey was his Homeland Security advisor. I'm waiting for Kerry to blame this on Bush's policy of "back-door draft". FURTHER THOUGHTS Considering this news about McGreevey, as well as the gay marriage news from California today, I've come to a harrowing realization: Andrew Sullivan will never take another vacation ever again. Damn! MORE NEWS Apparently the Other Man has filed suit: Slant Point (all over this story like white on rice). FINAL THOUGHTS If Miss Wonkette should, by some chance, happen upon this post, I'd just like to say that hey, I'm just kiddin' around here, and thanks for the link a couple weeks ago. xoxo JWR
Yes, it's anecdotal, but please, go read this interview CB from My War conducted with an Iraqi. Again, if you're not reading My War daily, you're missing out. (I can just hear the liberals now - "It's all fake! It's made-up! It's propaganda!")
UPDATE 3:29 PM Say Anything also blogged this (I just realized it); read Rob's take on it, too.
Sounds like Alterman is not the only Lefty worrying about his fellow-travelers at the RNC convention: Daily Kos also offers some advice to the Wacko Nation.
Good news from the Left Coast: California Supreme Court voids Frisco gay marriages. Suprisingly, it was a unanimous decision which stated that the mayor of San Fran illegally issued the marriage licenses, overstepping his authority.
This is especially good news coming off the heels of the stunning victory of traditional families in Missouri. Now that the George Wallace of the radical gays has been put in his place, my question is this: what should my opinion be? Without Andrew Sullivan blogging this month, I don't know what to think! Please, Sulli, come back! We need you now more than ever!
I get Salon's headlines in my Bloglines feeds, but I don't subscribe to the site itself, so I can't read this whole article, but the headline alone is worth a big fat Nelson-style "HA-HAAA!"
Bush backers play the race cardWell, well, well, Salon is upset that some Republicans have played the race card. I guess Stromberg is offended someone has dared to try wooing the DNC's political property off the liberal plantation. It could've been worse, Stephen; they could've run ads claiming your candidate was a racist who delights in seeing churches burn and loves it when innocent black people get dragged to their death behind pickup trucks. Next question: when is Kerry going to claim he was poor,black, and resolute before he was white, rich, and wishy-washy?
Just read the latest column from George F. Will (or as I like to call him, G-Spot). He criticizes the Bush administration for the terror scare last week, and get this: he questions the timing. His source for this questioning is The New Republic. Since when does my man G-Spot go around quoting The New Republic as a source?
In formulating and publicizing its policies regarding homeland security, the Bush administration must take seriously a fact it deplores: Regarding the war on terror, a minority, but a sizable minority, believes that the government's words and deeds merit deep skepticism. The hard core of this minority is the Michael Moore-Howard Dean cohort of fanatics, but the minority is much larger than that and it will become even larger unless the administration worries about its sensibilities. For example, if a terrorism alert is based on intelligence some of which is years old, the government should say so immediately.Naw, dawg! G-Spot, don't you know that it don't matter when, where, what, or how the Bushies do ANYTHING, haters like M Squared are gonna howl and wail and bitch! Let's say Ridge had announced the same day he raised the alert level that the intel was old. The haters would've screamed and cried about it just the same. Look, G-Spot, these cheesedicks don't care what's true and what's not; M Squared is just a Goebbels of the Left anyway, and even if Bush suddenly became an atheist, switched parties, and pulled every troop out of the Middle East, lard-ass would still say it was a capitalist plot, whether he believed it to be true or not. It's his schtick, dawg. Bush has bent over backwards his entire first term to please and placate the Left, and all it has gotten him is an annoyed conservative base and an even MORE rabid, hysterical Left. So listen, Georges (both W and F), please, take my advice - fuck 'em, ya'll! My man G-Spot feels the need to periodically say something bad about the GOP in order to prevent being dissed in the green room at ABC.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves." - Bertrand de Jouvenel
WORD OF THE DAY: demimonde - the world of women of doubtful reputation and social standing SONG OF THE DAY: "Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine" by The White Stripes. Snake-handler rock. PERSON(s) OF THE DAY: The Israeli soldiers in this photo. BLOG OF THE DAY: LatinoPundit - very interesting, covering news that doesn't get a lot of attention in the conservative blogosphere. WEIRD NEWS OF THE DAY: Convicted rapist wins lottery while on weekend release Sorry I'm late, folks - stayed up late blogging last night, overslept this morning, showed up late for work. D'oh!
Eric Alterman, in his latest post, wisely decries the planned RNC Convention protests.
Anarchists and idiots ruined the Seattle protests and the media - loving conflict and hating context - will eat any violence and property destruction, even bad language, to smear not only the protesters but also anyone and everyone who opposes Bush. Chicago '68 unquestionably helped elect Nixon. (I've read the polling data.)(I'm not sure how one "eats" violence, but moving on...) If the extreme Left hurts the DNC's image, how come the extreme Right doesn't hurt the RNC's? Because right-wing nuts are a few lonely weirdos in the wilderness, but left-wing nuts number in the millions. After Waco, Oklahoma City, Ruby Ridge, etc., the anti-American Right was spent. There was nothing much to nourish it but the internet. Gun and knife shows cannot sustain a major political movement. Meanwhile, the anti-American Left has been busy recruiting new members unrestricted for thirty years, in government-funded academia. John Kerry's peers and fellow Nam-protesters are tenured professors now, and they've been hard at work indoctrinating American young people since before disco. Were there 250,000 Klansmen marching on Boston a couple of weeks ago, to protest the DNC's Affirmative Action platform? Did the American Nazi Party make plans to disrupt traffic and civil services around the FleetCenter? Did the John Birch Society host a clandestine play wherein audience members call John Kerry's Senate office and shout "I'm gonna kill the Senator"? Did college students from all over the country flood Cambridge, wearing Pinochet t-shirts? I'm being facetious, of course. But did anyone hear about even one right-wing protest in Boston? Surely there was a rowdy anti-abortion demonstration that got out of hand, right? Surely some anti-gay marriage activists slapped around a few Barney Frank voters. Didn't they? No, nothing of the sort happened. In fact, the protests in Boston largely consisted of Marxists protesting that the DNC isn't Marxist enough! The far-Right was unheard from. No militia-types, no "Free Eric Rudolph" placards, nothing. But you better believe the communists, socialists, anarchists, peace fanatics, enviroterrorists, Islamofascists, anti-Semites, PLO apologists, animal worshippers, Castro coddlers, partial-birth abortion pushers, transgender-transvestite-TransAm-tran-whatever types will all be in New York, doing their best to harass, embarrass, disrupt, disturb, and intimidate the convention-goers and the city as a whole. Though their creeds may differ, the object of their hate is the same for one and all: George W. Bush and the United States of America. In other words, the nuts on the Right are few in number and completely marginal. The nuts on the Left, however, are so numerous that they were able to blow it for Gore in Florida and this year almost got Howard Dean the Presidential nomination. They are violent, they are vocal, they are visible, and they are fucking crazy. And if Bush wins in November, I fear they may become the majority faction of their once-proud party. (Incidentally, the convention isn't the only thing these wackos want to disrupt; Blogs of War and Michele Malkin have interesting posts on the Black Bloc, who intend to work their magic on the Olympics, too).
Video Purportedly Shows Killing of Iraq 'CIA Agent' (Reuters)
An extra 1.3 million barrels a day, according to the BBC. The timing of this is very suspicious - right before the Saudi lapdogs convention in NYC! No doubt some jawboning has occurred. This cannot stand. We must raise fuel taxes immediately to discourage any further pre-election economic growth.
UPDATE 1:10 PM Oil prices fall from record highs
Keep an eye out during the Olympics for the women's shooting competition; apparently it is one of the few Olympic events in which Iranian women can participate while wearing traditional full hejab. Photos of this should do wonders for the image of Iran around the world.
...and collaborate with William Shakespeare for Winston Churchill's next inaugural celebration: Great Britain to allow cloning of embryos.
Allah has a pool going as to who's got the contract put out on 'em. Here's my dark horse predictions:
Rummy (he's in Afghanistan now) Condi Powell Frist & Hastert Greenspan Kofi Bono (just kidding) In other news, some of the British Gitmo Gang have lost their appeals in UK courts; that's good news. Lawyers for the 10 argued that evidence that may have obtained by the torture or ill-treatment of detainees in US military camps at Guantánamo Bay, in Cuba, and Bagram, in Afghanistan, should have been excluded.But John Bull ain't buyin' it: "Nothing has been brought to the attention of the court which would amount to such misuse of state power," (Lord Justice Pill) said.By contrast, our hearty ally in the War on Terror, Canada [*cough*] is considering legislation to permit the practice of Muslim law. So do the draconian hate-speech laws up there apply only to Christians, I wonder? Is Najaf burning? Not yet, but it might be soon. Let's hope Al-Sadr hangs from a lamppost before too long. Over nine million people registered to vote in Afghanistan: yeah, y'know, the liberals are right - democracy will never take in the Muslim world. Those people prefer to be oppressed.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "If newspapers are useful in overthrowing tyrants, it is only to establish a tyranny of their own." - James Fenimore Cooper (1789 - 1851)
WORD OF THE DAY: effendi - 1. a person of education or standing in an eastern Mediteranean or Arab country; 2. a title of respect or courtesy formerly used in Turkey SONG OF THE DAY: "Jet Airliner" by The Steve Miller Band - slipping the phrase "funky shit" past the FCC for 30 years. PERSON OF THE DAY: Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, for telling Bill O'Reilly last night "You're the most successful man I know whom no one likes." BLOG OF THE DAY: Six Meat Buffet gets high marks for insiteful commentary, and bonus points for a design which includes both hotdogs AND a pig carrying a plate of sausage. A must-read for all jihadists. WEIRD NEWS OF THE DAY: Polyphonic Spree band member has microphone detonated by robot in Dallas airport You guys on the East Coast have an hour jump on the rest of us with morning news - everybody's buzzing about this al Qaeda assassination plot. Let me wake up first, will ya? (must...have...more...coffee...)
I just learned how to make this site available on Bloglines. You can copy the site feed shortcut here. Subscribe today, motherfuckers!
Intrepid Bloggerissimo Shackleford has a different take on Rodney Alexander; I will defer to him on it and retract my earlier comments, since honestly, I don't know a damn thing about the guy but it sounds like RS does. Also thanks to RS for the Bloglines help. The John Kerry "Holiday in Cambodia" controversy rages on. Conservative consensus seems to be that Kerry lied and he's busted, which it certainly looks like, but I'm keeping my powder dry until his camp replies. Never misunderestimate super mega liberal spin power. Is anyone else out there having technical trouble viewing Drudge? Is anyone else out there relieved that the unfortunately-named Mark Hacking turned himself in, thus sparing us from a year of Greta Van Sustren coverage, a la Lacey Peterson? And does anyone else out there think it's strange that when attractive, young, Caucasian women go missing, it's national news? There are missing people all over the country, of all shapes and colors, who will all be missed just as much as these poor souls. If anyone is able to get all the way through my Wilco post, I'll send your lonesome ass a cookie. (Sorry about the cursing; I'm trying to be the male Wonkette. Which I guess would be, um, let's see...WANKETTE! No, wait...)
Finally, someone gets it right about Wilco. JB over at Fraters Libertas sums up in one sentence what it means to be a fan of the Radiohead of the Midwest:
Wilco is music for people who care more about what it means to own a Wilco CD than what is actually on the CD itself.Bingo. It didn't have to be that way. Once upon a time, Wilco was a rock and roll band. Sure, they weren't the kind of rock and roll band that does frosty rails off hookers' racks, but they were a rock and roll band nonetheless. Their first album, AM, was viewed at the time as a flagship for the mid-nineties alt-country armada (which never left port). While that element is there, AM actually borrows as much from the Stones and Neil Young as it does Uncle Tupelo (Tweedy's previous band, and the mold for all alt-country bands since). Then came the big enchilada, Being There: a double-album sophomore release, and a foreshadowing of the pretension to come. Nevertheless, at least the first half is still rock and roll, some of it great: "End of the Century", "Hotel Arizona", and "Outta Mind (Outta Site)" are bar-band tunes gone to artschool, and it works. Many of the quieter numbers are understated and pretty, even though the second disc wanders off course. However, it's the first track on the first disc of Being There, "Misunderstood", which gives the clearest indication of where Wilco were about to go. While the tune starts out nice enough, the lyrics are bitter and self-pitying, and the track ends in a wall of noise. Tweedy chose to open the album with this track for a reason; it was a signal to the critics that he, Jeff Tweedy, was an Artist with a capital A. Tweedy rightly recognized that the alt-country movement he helped to create would eventually become a straitjacket. There were only two ways out: commercial or cult. Commercial is not an option for an average-looking guy in his thirties with too much brains. That leaves cult. The money's not great, but you can make a living. However, that living is dependent upon constant critical praise. The key to getting that praise is pretension. So, goodbye tried-and-true song structures, hello jarring arrangements. Melody dissolves into noise, and guitars get traded-in for pawn-shop synthesizers. Lyrics become inscrutable, titles become meaningless. Good times are to be avoided at all times. And above all else, it must be baffling to anyone who likes Top 40 radio. To build a career on critical praise, you gotta get weird. Nowadays, Tweedy makes a decent living playing to full theatres, he's worshipped by his cult of sweater-wearing fanboys, and his records are treated like Camus novels by the kind of people who write for Slate and Salon. There's even a nauseating black and white documentary about the band's "struggle" for "creative freedom" with big bad Time Warner. Of course, the music stinks. It's boring, it's annoying, it's depressing, and it's lame. But to music critics, and to the affluent, educated, white liberals who read them, it is better to be boring and lame and underground than it is to be boring and lame and commercial. Sigh. I wish the band that made Being There would go back there.
When I stated in my Morning Memo yesterday that My War was the Blog of the Day, I had no idea that it was already a phenomenon. Oh well, I'm new to this whole blogging thing. Anyway, go read today's post - it's the best thing you'll read all day. (Thanks to Mudville Gazette for turning me on to CB's blog).
ALERT! SOMEBODY CALL JOHN MCCAIN! TOO MUCH MONEY IN POLITICS! DEMS OUTSPENDING RICH CORRUPT REPUBLICAN ATTACK DOGS! (courtesy Political Wire).
Harry Shearer, the voice of about half the characters on The Simpsons, says the show has run out of ideas.
It makes me sad. They used to have whole scenes. Season four looks very good to me now. I'd rather not be there right now. Fortunately I'm doing a lot of other things.Could it be that Shearer, a very bright man, finds The Simpsons' recent political swipes as tedious as I do?
Backcountry Conservative reports that a Pakistani man has been arrested photographing buildings across the Southeast. Let me just say this: they can do all kinds of awful things, but if they try to target the Sunshpere, they've crossed the line.
UPDATE Dr. Shackleford questions the timing, and Dean's World reminds us that Pakistan is an ally.
Wonkette reports that the Edwards family has roots in the Confederacy. GASP! So THAT'S what he means by TWO Americas!
Was this cat Muslum? HMMMM?!? I wonder. Somebody call Malkin.
Bush appoints Porter Goss as CIA Director - obviously the White House is not taking notes when they read this blog. Rudy for Intel Czar!
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit detector." - Ernest Hemingway
WORD OF THE DAY: thanatopsis - a meditation on or view of death SONG OF THE DAY: "Must You Throw Dirt In My Face" by The Louvin Brothers. Written by Bill Anderson, with textbook-perfect country lyrics: Must you keep telling me you've got a new lovePERSON OF THE DAY: Brit Hume, for having the best news show around - a class act. BLOG OF THE DAY: Slant Point - a New York City Republican blog; the posts are interesting and frequent. I like the elephant stuff, too. WEIRD NEWS OF THE DAY: Frustrated airline passengers in Ghana hold pilot hostage
Mudville Gazette has an excellent post today on a new Kerry interview with the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. An excerpt:
Kerry: I know the power of my own diplomacy and I believe, and I'm confident to say I can do a better job of bringing people to the table and reducing the burden on American troops. I know I can do it.Who exactly is Kerry going to "bring to the table"? Nato? What if they say no? Will he still reduce the troop strength in Iraq? Kerry also tells Stripes that he will increase troop strength in Afghanistan. Nato has already agreed to help in Afghanistan; if Nato is not enough to relieve us there, what indicates that they can relieve us in Iraq? And haven't we learned lately just how reliable Nato has been in Kosovo and Afghanistan? Then there's this doozy: Kerry: The very first thing I will do, as soon as I'm sworn in as president - I'll even begin the process before that, but I will not be empowered to do anything until I take office[italics mine], is to convene an international conference, with the Europeans co-chairing, and the Arab countries co-chairing. And we will bring people back to the table they used to be at, before this administration proceeded unilaterally.Before you take office, Senator? How soon? Now? And with Europeans and Arabs co-chairing? France, the most anti-Semitic and anti-American country on the continent? Spain, a country that has already surrendered to terrorism and plans to pay protection money to its Muslim minority? The Saudis? I thought we were already in bed with them. Iran? Syria? Exactly which Arab countries would you "bring to the table", Senator? Surely Kerry cannot walk this tightrope for long.
The lingua franca of hate in Europe is indeed la Francais: a group of Jewish students were verbally attacked by French gang at Auschwitz Sunday. Allahpundit is all over it.
UPDATE Sixty Jewish graves desecrated in Lyon; from No Parasan.
Memo to Muqtada: hey buddy - you've lost 360 fighers in less than a week. And now the governor of Najaf has ok'd fighting around the holy site you're hiding behind. Things are not looking up. You've said "I will keep on resisting, and I am staying in Najaf and won't leave it till the last day of my life." Well, that day could be a lot sooner than you think. As we say in our infidel Hollywood movies, see ya in hell, pal.
CNN questions whether the outing of the al Qaida operative Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan was a tactical error that damaged our ability to gather more information.
Had the government not raised the terror alert (in order to continue gathering intel from Khan), CNN would be wailing about the secretive nature of the Bush White House. But since the administration raised the alert and revealed Khan's identity, CNN faults them for ruining an important source of intel. Furthermore, I thought that the intel was irrelevant because it was so old - if Khan's info was outdated, as the liberals tried to assert, why does it matter that he's been outed? The release of Khan's ID may have indeed exhausted him as an intel resource. But CNN needs to pick a line of attack and stick to it. It is clear that they, like Kerry, will argue the opposite side of whatever side Bush is on, regardless of whether it helps or hinders the defense of the American people. UPDATE (via Say Anything) According to Reuters, the administration originally kept Khan's ID secret, but The New York Times revealed his name. Apparently the government only confirmed it once the Times leaked it. But according to CNN, unnamed US officials were the ones who leaked. Backcountry Conservative's Daily Terrorism Roundup
The BBC reports that Nato is weasling around its commitment to Afghanistan:
The criticism centres around the apparent confusion and delay that has surrounded Nato's provision of extra troops it promised to bolster security for the landmark presidential elections due on 9 October.If I were an Afghan, I would be very afraid - the command of Nato forces in the theatre is about to be handed over to France and Germany. Perhaps that explains this: Six weeks later - and just two months before polling day - there has still been no announcement of when they are coming. Meanwhile, the security situation has deteriorated, with mounting attacks on election workers registering voters.Attention Kerry voters: tell me again why we need these people's approval?
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "We are inclined to believe those we do not know, because they have never deceived us." - Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
WORD OF THE DAY: pleonasm - an expression in which a word is redundant, as in hear with one's ears. SONG OF THE DAY: "Motherless Children" by the Staple Singers. From their early 60's gospel era, this is an otherworldly version of the traditional blues standard, originally popularized by Blind Willie Johnson in the 1920's. The call and response between Pops and his children is eerie, especially when they sing: Father do the very best he can PERSON OF THE DAY: Louisiana Congressman Rodney Alexander , who followed his conscience and switched parties, even though it may lessen his chance of reelection. BLOG OF THE DAY: My War (especially this post, which is an honest, fair, and entertaining depiction of political feelings among the men and women on duty in Iraq). I like this dude's writing; one gets a sense of what it's like to be over there, replete with humor and profanity and irreverence. Forgive his reluctance to use spell-check - he's defending civilization for crying out loud! Hoorah! WEIRD NEWS OF THE DAY: Bull flees butcher, takes refuge in hospital ER ward. This morning's headline on Drudge is a CNN report saying the State Department has confirmed the US Presidential election will be watched by UN monitors. Every American should be offended by this insult.
The hysteria is slowly building to a pitch as we approach the convention: Fahrenheit 9/11, the protests planned for NYC, a pro-Kerry concert tour, anti-Bush urinal stickers, and a slew of books, including an assassination-themed novel. (Thanks to Allah and Slant Point). Here is only a partial list of what the search term "Bush" produces on Amazon:
The Bush - Haters Handbook: A Guide to the Most Appalling Presidency of the Past 100 YearsI stopped at number 200 in Amazon's search results;I would say that fewer than 20 of them were pro-Bush or neutral, and another 20 or so were unrelated (gardening, Africa, etc.) I omitted collections of Bush gaffes. Yahoo News reports on the slew of anti-Bush books slated for release before the election. This hysteria is becoming alarming; not because of how it could effect the election, but because of what it says about our country and a lot of people in it. And if Bush wins reelection, what will the Left do then? I shudder to think.
Tonight was another rerun (the new season starts after Halloween, I think), but it sure was a good 'un. No political content! No swipes at religion! Perfect score.
I voted for Bill Frist in 2000, and I was thrilled when he became Senate Majority Leader; in my mind, it was good for America and great for Tennessee. However, as Political Wire reports (in reference to this Washington Post article), Frist's political cache is not what it once was.
There is one overriding reason for this: the obstruction of Bush's judicial appointments. If Frist had forced the Democrats to filibuster, he would be the hero of every Republican in the country and a shoe-in for the Presidential nomination in 2008. Instead, he surrendered at the mere threat of a filibuster, leaving the Constitution undefended. This created a de facto Democrat majority and amounted to an abandonment of representative government. It is an outrage that with Republicans in control of all three branches of government, the President's constitutional prerogative to appoint judges is thwarted by a bluff. The blame for this rests almost solely on Frist's weakness as Majority Leader.
In his weekly radio address yesterday, John Kerry pledged the following:
Come next January, when John Edwards and I are sworn into office...we're going to lift the ban on stem cell research.There is no ban on stem cell research, jackass.
Morning, all. I've been mulling over the idea of starting out each day's blogging with some daily features, not necessarily of a political nature. Let's give it a whirl.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Civilization is a race between education and catastrophe". - H.G. Wells WORD OF THE DAY: samizdat - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR. SONG OF THE DAY: "The Rat" by The Walkmen. Three minutes of bitterness that both references and outruns Dylan's masterpiece of contempt, "Positively 4th Street". The intensity of this track never lets up. Featured in The Manchurian Candidate soundtrack, but don't let that deter you. Go listen to it for free here. PERSON OF THE DAY: Gene Simmons of Kiss, for being a much-needed contrast to the world of pacifist celebrities. BLOG OF THE DAY: Baghdad Girl - evidence that life goes on in Iraq, even for 13 year old girls. WEIRD NEWS OF THE DAY: New Dutch law bans toe-licking So what do you think? Is this worth doing every day? Let me know.  I'm so happy about this I can't even come up with a caption. (This has not been Photoshopped, by the way).
According to the Washington Prowler, Mirimax, the people who just raked in over 100 million dollars exploiting the murder of 3000 Americans, is laying off 20% of its staff.
Ironically, Mirimax fat cats Bob and Harvey Weinstein have cuddled up to the Kerry campaign recently, despite the fact that they are a part of the richest one percent whose undeserved wealth Kerry has pledged to confiscate. Perhaps if they received another Bush tax cut, they wouldn't have to throw so many of their employees out on the street. But more importanty, when can we expect Moore's next documentary, Bob And Harvey and Me, wherein he documents the plight of laid-off Mirimax staffers?
Victor Davis Hanson absolutely hits it out of Fenway and right through John Kerry's living room window. Just a sample from the first paragraph:
Did anyone think the appointment of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, promises of $15 billion in grants to combat AIDS in Africa, and lectures to the politically powerful Arab world to cease the genocide of black Sudanese would earn George Bush slurs evoking the Taliban, the old Confederacy, and fascism? Have we become children who live in a world of bedtime stories, afraid to face the cruel truth around us?And from the last: We too are reverting to our childhood and thus are in the same weird mood preferring fantasies and stories to reality. The Democrats know it. And so the unifying theme of their otherwise contradictory messages is that we can return to the infantile delusions of September 10, and not the crisis-filled adult world of post-September 11 that now confronts George W. Bush.I've been incubating some ideas about this national childishness myself, and though I plan to still write it down, no one does it like VDH. Do yourself a favor and read every word of the whole article.
Everyone has weighed-in on the Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth. It's been all you could hear on the radio today (except for the passing of Rick James a few minutes ago, RIP). Anyway, here's my take on the vets controversy.
It's irrelevant. I don't care if he did or didn't torch a village, I don't care if he did or didn't shoot a guy in the back, I don't care if he got Purple Hearts for papercuts. Whatever happened back in Vietnam, for good or ill, is between John Kerry and his maker. We'll never know for sure anyway. What is relevant is his behavior when he got back, in front of cameras, in front of the Congress. What is relevant is what he did during his twenty years in the Senate. What's relevant is what he has said during this campaign. Those things are more than enough reason not to elect John Kerry. We don't need he-said-she-said from over three decades ago in order to defeat him. The public record will do just fine. There's no need to go after him on his war record - the hero angle is a non-starter. It didn't work for Dole and it's not going to work for Kerry. It's irrelevant to his base, and to the undecided it's completely transparent. There's something untoward about these kinds of scandals that doesn't sit well with the American people in general. Conservatives are the only ones who are going to get up-in-arms about it, but we're voting for Bush anyway, no matter what comes out about Kerry's service. The liberals are never going to believe it, and I think it turns off the undecided. In other words, conservatives focusing on this issue are just preaching to the choir. So I say let's drop it. It could do us more harm than good. Let the vets tell their side, of course, and let the ads go out. But let's not make it a cornerstone of the campaign. We don't need it.
I have decided to retract my last post concerning the planned protests at the RNC convention this month. I realized after stepping away for a moment that I had lost my temper and descended into juvenile taunts and gratuitous profanity, the kind of behavior for which I often criticize the Left. My apologies to anyone who may have read it. My mama raised me better than that.
We conservatives have to stay above the fray when dealing with these people. We're on the correct side, the side of freedom, justice, decency, and opportunity for all. We don't serve that cause by lowering ourselves to the level of those who oppose it.
As of the time of this posting, here are the headlines from the major news outlets. Very illustrative. I think there's no question as to who is on what side in this election.
New York Times - U.S. Employment Growth Surprisingly Weak in July Washington Post - Payroll Growth Slows Dramatically in July CNN - Hiring Slows Dramatically MSNBC - Anemic Growth FOX - Troops Clash With Shiite Militia UPDATE 2:48 PM Thanks to Ace for the link...scoot on over there and read more debate. UPDATE 2:56 PM And thanks to Rusty!
Crackpot racist James L. Hart wins GOP primary in Tennessee's 8th District (hat tip to Southern Appeal on this one). Hart's Rebublican opponant missed the deadline to get on the ballot while on active duty in the National Guard, but started a write-in campaign.
As a native Tennessean, I cannot tell you how embarrassed I am that this nut got 7,671 votes in my home state. Read the whole story here. The only moment of humor in the whole piece is the last sentence: While campaigning, Hart sometimes wears a protective vest and carries a .40-caliber pistol, but he said he has run into no trouble.He wants black people's votes!  
Kerry tells us what he would've done on 9/11. Actually, it would've been something more along these lines:
Excuse moi, les enfants, but I must go, post haste. Our country has been attacked and I have to go call Kofi Annan at the UN and get permission to defend ourselves. Don't worry, children - help is on the way.Now that I think about it, the UN is based in NYC - why not just let them handle the defense of the city, since they're already there?
Couldn't help but laugh out loud at this Bush gaffe today (and please, Blogs for Bush people - I'm still voting for him, I just think this is hilarious):
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," Bush said. "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."The best part is, you just know it sent shivers down Alterman's spine when he heard it. I hope he has nightmares.
Being a resident of Alabama, I feel obliged to report this. It appears Richard Shelby, AL's senior Republican Senator, has leaked classified info to Fox News' Carl Cameron.
Not having lived here for very long, I don't have much to say on it at this point, except that it is my impression that Shelby owns this state, so it should be interesting. It also seems out-of-character for Shelby at first glance. We'll see how it shakes out. (Hat tip to Mr. Shackleford, Backcountry Conservative, Vodkapundit, and Outside the Beltway).
BBC: China jails fake milk sellers.
The government says 12 babies died from starvation after drinking the formula...Investigators uncovered more than 100 factories making bogus formula, consisting mostly of starch and water.Yikes.  Move over Beatles! Meet the Greatest Rock N Roll Band in the History of Mankind. (Tereza, Hillary - don't you dare pull a Yoko on us). Can someone out there help them come up with a band name? Just imagine the jam sessions at Camp David. UPDATE 8/6/4 7:18 AM Is John Kerry the John Lennon of this band? Or is he the John Fogerty? Allah shows that Kerry's a versitile artist indeed, capable of experimenting with (apparently) country music as well. (Why can I not think of a band name? I'm drawing a blank because I'm so stunned by the potential greatness of this melodic juggernaut).
What?!? Rock stars are for Kerry? You're kidding! Let's take a look at the lineup, shall we?
Springsteen: in the words of Dave Grohl, if Bruce is the Boss, I quit. REM: zzz. Dixie Chicks: yeah, they better try to crossover to a rock audience, because their country audience is gone with the wind. Bright Eyes: dull sound, dim wit. Jackson Browne: a pacifist who's not afraid to hit a woman. I dare Teresa to tell him to shove it. Dave Matthews: Cinching-up that crucial frat-hippie vote. Bonnie Raitt: stick to guitar playing, ma'am. Mellencamp: The Coug! Yeah! Suckin' on a chili dog, outside the Tastee Freeze! The Coooooooooooooug!!! Eddie Vedder: ah, the King of the Chin-Singers, who helped to elect Bush by trying to elect Nader. Wait'll Jackson Browne finds out about that; Eddie just might get slapped around a little bit himself. Death Cab for Cutie: I thought they were a PLO front. James Taylor: I'll give you 3000 guesses who he dedicates "Fire and Rain" to. Without question the worst thing about an anti-Bush rock tour is that it raises the spectre of an even more dreadful pro-Bush country tour. UPDATE 8/5/4 12:36 AM Pardon a little drunken blogging, but Allah the Wise has indeed the most succint take on Bruce's crusade. Drive your pink cadillac on over here. UPDATE 8/5/4 1:28 PM Thanks to Preston for finding evidence that Chris Isaak is not one of these blathering Leftist dumbasses.
From the BBC:
Tens of thousands of people have marched through the Sudanese capital Khartoum in protest against any foreign intervention in war-ravaged Darfur.Something tells me this is not going to have a happy ending.
Courtesy of Six Meat Buffet - check it out.
Oh yeah, before I forget: if they don't appoint Rudy to either CIA Director or the new "Intelligence Czar", I am going to give up.
Rudy will never be Pres or Veep on a Republican ticket because he's pro-choice. But he is beloved by the American people, and no one could restore the public trust in our intelligence community more than Giuliani. Just think about the symbolic significance of the man who led New York through 9/11 being the man pursuing the monsters who did it. Furthermore, HE'S THE RIGHT MAN FOR THE JOB! Why aren't more people pushing for this? Ok, off to bed. See you suckas tomorrow.
Well, I must say, my first reaction to Clinton's appearance tonight on Letterman was that the man simply towers above John Kerry when it comes to charisma and likeability. I really could not change the channel. It was good to hear him back Bush on the terror alert this weekend. However, when he blamed Bush for not providing health insurance for the families of reservists, I almost choked - this from the man who decimated the services. Under Clinton, countless military families were forced onto food stamps. It was one of those outrageous lies only Clinton can get away with. Letterman didn't let up about Sandy Berger, though, which was amusing. I imagine very few people would be so at ease around a President as was Letterman tonight.
This just in, via Rusty Shackleford, Robert Spencer, and Doug Harper: the Spanish government is making plans to make Islam a state-funded religion. Surrender is not enough; you must pay protection money too. Kerry Campaign take note - is this one of the alliances we so desperately need to repair in order to fight the War on Terror?
Too bad there's no Spanish Civil Liberties Union to make sure Church obeys State's restraining order.
Hell, I don't even like football all that much...
(PS Go Vols) UPDATE Many thanks to Wonkette for the link. The last time I got a bump like that, I wound up in an Atlanta bar at five in the morning bending spoons with my mind.
I can't thank the Commissar and Rusty enough for the generosity they've shown my fledgling little blog. (Now, Commissar, please - when will my family be released from Reeducation Camp?)
UPDATE 1:09PM Oh crap! How could I forget my good buddy Preston Taylor Holmes at Six Meat Buffet?
Dave Chapelle has re-signed with Comedy Central for $50 million! They're also making a Rick James movie. What's Mike Myers going to do now that he's lost his job as America's #1 Catch-Phrase Inventor?
Can you imagine if, God forbid, something terrible had happened in New York yesterday, and then some congressional committee found out that we had had years-old intelligence and still did nothing? Isn't the Kerry campaign wailing that Bush isn't doing enough to prevent another attack?(Michelle Malkin is all over this).
UPDATE 9:30 AM Blogs of War has developing news on this subject: Al Qaeda Source: US Attack in September CLARIFICATION 2:37PM Thanks to Craig for making me realize that this post is not very clear or well-written. What I meant to say was that the intelligence community would be faulted for not noticing for several years that terrorists had been casing NYC buildings again. I didn't mean to imply that we've had the intelligence for years. Thanks Craig.  Ok, now this has got to stop. Can we move on to baseball or basketball, now? (Courtesy of Wonkette).  Yeah - and the Democrats have ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, PBS, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times, Time, Newsweek...
Oh, now this is a shame - New York City DJs are leaving the city for Europe (by DJs, I mean the dance club kind, not the radio kind).
Richie Hawtin, who is Canadian, chose Berlin because "I really don't want to be part of what's going on in America. The lack of freedoms and the lack of privacy, it's unbelievable." He continues: "You can hardly even do parties in New York. You can't do anything in America, it's so locked down. The fact that powers that be have taken the unfortunate incidents of the last few years to further clamp down is ridiculous. For music which is based upon development and experimentation and progression, you need freedom." ...Berlin is a place where 30-year-olds have just finished college, where living off the "dole" is not frowned upon, and where people are so poor they resort to communal living...There's no smoking ban...Beer costs two euros, clubs never close, and drinking is a 24-hour sport: Here's the sleazy vibe that's been missing from New York for years.Forget Berlin and Barcelona: these guys should come on down here to 'Bama, where you can smoke in any bar (for under 3 bucks a pack), PBR's cost a dollar, and drinking as a sport is second in popularity only to football (American football, not metric football). On second thought, they might not like Southern music - it requires talent.
From Blogs of War (via Backcountry Conservative):
Fox News broadcast is announcing that an Al-Zarqawi dispatched courier, carrying a message from him to Osama bin Laden, was caught in Iraq. This story is developing.Ladies and gentlemen, the same groundbreaking investigative reporting that led me to my scoop on Saddam's poetry has given me the heads-up on the contents of this note: Dear Osama,
Haven't seen this yet in the US media, but according to the BBC, chess legend Bobby Fischer is seeking asylum in Japan:
Mr Fischer faces a possible fine or even a jail term if he is sent back to the US.I find it a little ironic that we're trying put Bobby Fischer in jail for visiting a dictatorship, yet we sent an innocent child (Elian Gonzalez) BACK to a dictatorship. UPDATE 1:04 PM And another thing...Jane Fonda is still walking around free as a bird, too! Maybe we could work out a deal with Japan where instead of extraditing Fischer, they make him appear on Extreme Elimination Challenge. Don't! Get! Eliminated!
This just in: in reaction to the Bush Administration's announcement that the government will create an Intelligence Czar, Vladimir Putin has announced that he has appointed himself Czar of Russia.
But seriously folks - can we cut it out with the czar stuff? It's SO 80's. I'm having Glasnost flashbacks...I want my MTV! Bring back Classic Coke!
For those who don't know, the Commissar over at Politburo Diktat works in one of the suspected financial targets in NYC. He will be blogging live from that location today.
Well, actually, they didn't behead this one - they shot him. Why the change in methods? The victim was Turkish; was he also Muslim? Could that be why they left his head on?
UPDATE 8/4/4 3:33PM I've changed the title of this post. The poor wording of the old title caused it to show up in certain web searches with which I do not want to be associated.  Coming to a Wendy's near you.
I think I'll make this a regular feature: a weekly report on political content in The Simpsons. Tonight's rerun was good, with no overt political remarks, but I must deduct a few points for a smartass swipe at Christianity. Tune in next week for another installment of the Simpsons Report!
One of my liberal friends who doesn't know I'm an undercover Imperialist Capitalist Voodoo Ninja was thoughtful enough to forward this MoveOn.org email to me:
I hope you will join us in signing this petition from MoveOn. It's about the new electronic voting terminals that are being installed in many states...Too many are "black box" voting machines -- computer terminals that don't produce paper ballots. Without paper ballots, there's no way to know if our votes are counted correctly... Interestingly enough, all three black box computer manufacturers are Republican-led corporations actively involved in Bush's re-election campaign... John Dill, a Stanford computer scientist says: "I think the risk of (a stolen election) is extremely high."...Read the whole article here.The email should read "Too many are "black box" voting machines - computer terminals that elderly liberals in Florida cannot figure out how to use properly." Does anyone else out there have friends who assume they agree with them, even though they've never discussed anything political? (I once got an email from a friend urging everyone to boycott turkey on Thanksgiving).  I swear I'm not trying to have a "Bash France" day, but...just saw this from the BBC: Rwanda is to investigate France's alleged role in the mass killing of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994...Rwanda has regularly accused the French of aiding and abetting the Hutu extremists who killed 800,000 people.And we're supposed to worry whether these people are our friends?
This from Maureen Dowd's amusing column today:
W. had already laid claim to the West, making the cocky cowboy sheriff his motif, the dusty gorge at his Crawford ranch his milieu, and the Louis L'Amour "smoke 'em out" language his argot...(his fans) feel reassured simply by the "High Noon" patois [italics mine].Well, Maureen, it could have been worse - he could have laid claim to the Old World, making the condescending elitist snob his motif, the snippy liberal newspaper column his milieu, and the chronic use of the French language in an American newspaper column his argot...no doubt your fans, Maureen, feel reassured simply by your "Left Bank" patois. (Note that even the cowboy novelist she references has a French name!) |
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