San Diego Chargers snubbed at LA Times

I live between Los Angeles, the only large market in the US without a football team, and San Diego, a small market with the 3rd best team in the NFL. Being relatively close to San Diego, and because LA is sorely lacking, I root for the Chargers.

The national media hardly covers West Coast sports. This phenomenon is sufficiently well known that there's a name for it: East Coast bias. I can deal with this bias. The media HQ of the United States is New York City, and people back East can't see this far west. See here, here, here, or here for examples.

My opinion is that East Coast bias is a natural phenomenon: Europeans first arrived on the East coast, and so it was civilized first. The West was civilized last (c. 1975). The East coast is still more densely populated than the West, and with only a handful of exceptions, has a higher proportion of industry.

I don't mind the sports bias at all, at the national level. If we in Southern California get too much press, eventually even East Coast morons will come to understand that living in good weather is far better than constantly messing around with ice, snow, rain, and cold temperatures. Bottom line: we don't want those dumbasses out here. We have enough of them as it is. Every time I watch a Pacific sunset and some loud, obnoxious bastard with a Brooklyn accent spoils my solitude, I want California to rebel and become independent of those East Coast clowns.

And after all that long-winded bluster, here's what I really wanted to say: Nationally, there may be an excuse to ignore the San Diego Chargers, but there's no excuse for the LA Times to ignore a football team that is less than two hours away. What, exactly, is wrong with LA (or at least the Times?). Are they jealous that no NFL team can survive in a metro area of nearly 20 million people, yet thrive in one with a mere 3 million? What gives? Why the snub?

Maybe it's because the Charges got their start in LA, then quickly got away, like all other football teams. Resentment, LA? Jealousy? Suffering football envy, are we?

Get with the program, LA, the Chargers' circle of influence encompasses the sprawling, crime-ridden cesspool you call home. Start covering the Chargers in your newspaper.

Everyone thinks Obama's Nobel Prize a 'cruel hoax'

Our Little President™ just accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for doing absolutely nothing. An LA Times piece looks at the reaction on the Arab street:

The Nobel Peace Prize that President Obama receives in Oslo on Thursday seems to many in the Middle East like a cruel hoax.

Yeah, I know how they feel. To Americans it feels like a cruel hoax, too.

Another scumbag at Copenhagan Climate Swindle

Missing Virginia men are terrorists

What is wrong with people? Five Muslim men vanish, then turn up in Pakistan, detained after trying to make contact with terrorist groups. And the press and families are confused about how this could happen. From the LA Times:

Members of the mosque struggled Friday to understand how and why five well-liked members of its youth group went to Pakistan and were arrested on suspicion of seeking to join terrorist groups.

The same kind of "confusion" is being seen in Minneapolis, where young Muslim men have been vanishing, only to turn up in Somalia wearing bomb vests.

It's interesting, even befuddling for some, that none of these men are Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Mormon, Scientologist, or atheist. Wonder what the pattern could be, then? Hmmph. I'm stumped. Maybe these Virginians and Minnesotans are suffering "vicarious trauma"?

It'll be fun to watch the liberal media, once again, carefully dance all around the problem without addressing it. Perhaps they'll use the same strange reporting used after Fort Hood: vehemently deny it's terrorism while grasping at any other possible reason, then only grudgingly admit it may be terrorism, but it's still our fault. The names "Bush" and "Cheney" can be invoked if all else fails.

Train madness in Los Angeles

The following headlines, which appeared close together at latimes.com, show the disconnect between socialist dreams and everyday reality.

Metrolink may cut some trains amid budget shortfall

MTA approves $1.7-billion rail line along Crenshaw Boulevard

The usual suspects at Copenhagan climate conference

How old is Sy Rosen?

Mr. Rosen has written an excellent article on getting old. I laughed out loud, but I wondered if he was serious:

Are they saying that age is an obstacle we have to overcome, and therefore it's newsworthy if we're able to do anything? But being old is not an obstacle. I can do anything I was able to do when I was younger (except maybe find my car in the parking lot).

Sy knows this isn't true. Did he never have sex for four hours? Never lifted weights or jogged? Never skipped a night's sleep and still managed to perform well the next day? Never played hockey or football.

Lately I've noticed a lot of news stories that seem to focus on someone's age, and I'm not sure I like it: A 90-year-old woman votes, a couple with a combined age of 181 get married, two men in their 80s get in a fistfight on a tennis court, a 92-year-old goes to the World Series and a 101-year-old man buys a new Camaro (I wonder if he got the extended warranty).

Mr. Rosen is a good writer, and he's funny. Still, he's in denial if he doesn't know why stories like the ones he cited are of interest. I know a lot of people (both of my loyal readers) will be unhappy that I'm about to state some general facts about old people. So be it. Truth is a gigantic cocksucker.

1. People over 60 will be dead soon.

2. People over 55 should not drive unless they prove a basic level of competence -- DMV tests are inadequate, and everyone knows it.

3. People over 70 fall down dead all the time.

4. An average life expectancy of 80 doesn't mean we're fit, mentally or physically, until that age. Usually we're all but useless long before.

I am always amused by media stories that say, "Tom Smith, age 94, gets a college degree." These stories are always filled with "you're never too old" and suchlike. Sometimes we are too old. What's a 94-year-old going to do with a college degree? Enter the job market and compete against 23-year-olds? Perhaps it was done for the sense of accomplishment. Would it not have been better to accomplish another round of bingo, or sip tea while watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean? Gimme a break.

These stories remind me of what we tell small children: "You can do anything." This is a bald-faced lie, and can be harmful. No kid can honestly say he can be president, or an astronaut. Reality says, "You can do a lot, but you'll waste a lot of precious time if you try to reach too far."

I believe the real point of these stories is to make folks who are under a certain age feel better. "We won't necessarily be completely useless when we're too old." But we will almost certainly be completely useless after a certain age, and that age will come WAY, WAY, WAY before these old folks who are getting degrees and buying Camaros.

I'm not going to like getting old. Hell, I don't like getting older, but I won't deny reality. When bingo night is the highlight of my week, and I'm a menace on the highway, and teeth are a memory, I won't be enrolling in any dumbass college.

The best thing an old person could tell a young person is this: Don't wait. If there's something you want to do, get going, because you're running out of time.

War coverage

The media is shameless in war coverage. When Bush was president, the media jumped at every chance to compare Iraq to Vietnam. The word "quagmire" was used more frequently than "the".

Now, a few people are comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam, and what do we get? The LA Times, in all its liberal glory:

Obama is expanding the war in Afghanistan, but that doesn't mean it will become another Vietnam War.

There is a perennial danger in imagining that one war will replicate the history of another. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney sent troops to Iraq and foresaw that they would be greeted as liberators, in a happy reenactment of American soldiers entering Paris beneath fluttering rose petals; six years and more than 4,300 American fatalities later, their promises have been bitterly repudiated and America still struggles to extricate itself from that reckless act of adventurism.

No. 1: The media is rushing to say that Obama is not leading us into another Vietnam -- surprise, surprise. Way to support your man!

No. 2: US troops were greeted as liberators in Iraq. Big Media (liberals) were busy discussing civilian deaths, and had very little time to show countless, country-wide celebrations. There were parties in the streets, weddings on street corners, and people crying with joy. I guess the LA Times forgot about that. The same thing happened in Afghanistan, where they even played music.

Italian justice -- denied?

An NYT opinion piece makes one question the Italian justice system. Some of the things going on in the Italian courts made my eyes pop out of my head. I knew it was Old Europe, I guess I didn't realize how old.

White House blocks testimony

The New York Liberal Times is reporting that Hussein has "invoked the separation of powers" to keep the White House "social secretary" from testifying about the party crashers.

Why?

It could be a legitimate national security threat. Enemies could learn something from testimony, and try something similar in the future. More likely Our Little President™ is only trying to conceal another of his amateurish blunders.

There must be some sort of mathematical expression for this sort of thing:

(electing an inexperienced radical) + (liberal arrogance) = (continual string of embarrassments)

Worst headline of the day

"Manhunt ends with cops slayings' suspect's death" by the AP. WTF? The copyeditor should resign in shame.

Washington Redskins and a liberal trick

Liberals like to change names when they perceive the current name is being used in a negative way. I've written about this many times (here, for example). An LA Times editorial complaining about the name "Washington Redskins" shows how warped this whole name thing has become:

An etymological study determined that the term "red skin" was first used in the early 19th century by Native Americans themselves, as a way to distinguish their people from the "white skins." But over the years, the term has taken on ugly connotations. A football team called the Crackers or the Darkies probably wouldn't be tolerated for long, yet the Washington Redskins have been using their offensive moniker since moving from Boston in 1937, and current owner Daniel Snyder has ignored calls to change it.

As I've said countless times before, many of these names are just fine until some liberal "empowers" the allegedly oppressed group, and then -- suddenly -- the names are deemed offensive. It's hard to keep up. I do make an effort, out of respect (and fear), but it's hard sometimes, especially when some folks get angry about "colored", when "of color" is fine.

From this point foreward, I want to be called "of European descent", not "white", and anyone who doesn't immediately go along will be labeled a racist and a vile oppressor.

A chink in Tiger Woods' armor

From the AP:

The mystery over Tiger Woods' car crash intensified Saturday when his agent called state troopers on their way to Woods' house and asked them to wait another day before speaking to him.

My money is on prescription painkillers. Will he do what all celebrities do when they get out of hand, and announce he has a "disease" and go to an exclusive resort a rehab clinic for 30 days?

Nice try, Rodriguez

Gregory Rodriguez is one of those people who believe everything is racial, even the Fort Hood Jihad. In a strange opinion piece at the LA Times, Rodriguez mixes together several liberal touchstones, including political correctness and hypertolerance.

For good or ill, political correctness was a response to the rapid diversification of the U.S. population and the perceived need to induce the majority population -- whites, or often more precisely white males -- to take into account the sensitivities and self-definitions of minorities of all kinds. That means the Americans who are considered to be victims of political correctness are members of the white majority. And the revolt against everything PC is driven by a sense that whites have bent over backward for -- and even sold out mainstream culture to -- minorities.

Since we're being good liberals here (hypersensitive to a delusional level), I'd like to point out that we're no longer calling it "political correctness". We now call it what it really is: liberalism.

Rodriguez claims: "political correctness was a response to the rapid diversification of the U.S. population and the perceived need to induce the majority population to take into account the sensitivities and self-definitions of minorities of all kinds."

No, it's wasn't, Rodriguez. The NAACP proves that there was a time, not long ago, when African Americans didn't mind being called "colored", and the United Negro College Fund proves the same for "negro". These terms weren't changed because blacks wanted to "induce the majority population to take into account the sensitives..." etc, etc. They were changed because blacks didn't like the negative tone racist whites were using with these words, and they also wanted to flex newfound power. "We'll be called something new, even though we were happy with the old, and woe unto anybody who doesn't change when we tell them to change." A similar mentality is used by pedestrians when they walk slowly in front of cars, knowing they have power over drivers.

As a sidebar, I'm okay with that in theory, although the pedestrian analogy is imperfect because walking out in front of a 3500 lb. chunk of steel is stupid, fighting for equal rights is not. Few people have freedom handed to them (except Germany, Japan, Iraq, and Afghanistan -- you're welcome), most have to fight for it, and if changes in nomenclature are part of the black struggle for true freedom and equality, then so be it. I'll call them whatever they wish, as a sign of respect.

That's about it, Rodriguez. There's nothing deep and meaningful going on here. The future should be interesting, though, because as soon as those whites who are racist begin using "black" with derision, we'll have to learn a new name, or else.

This next bit, from our friend Rodriguez, is a window into liberal thinking:

To be sure, the hazards of political correctness are not merely a figment of the right's imagination. In the case of Hasan, it may be that his problems and proclivities were ignored because his superiors feared they'd be accused of discrimination against a Muslim. And it's possible that his dangerous actions and behaviors were shrugged off as a matter of cultural sensitivity, or to provide the military with more strategic diversity.

If you followed the liberal coverage of the Fort Hood Jihad, you know that liberals were doing everything they could to avoid the T-word. Just an ordinary guy snapped, it happens all the time, they told us. Then, when this absurdity was rejected by the American public, they grudgingly admitted it may have been terrorism. The third step in the liberal journey was to actually use the words "terrorism" and "jihad", but only when followed by some lecturing on how it's still our fault because of American foreign policy in the Middle East. And few liberals could resist the temptation to raise the "intolerance" flag.

Our buddy Rodriguez, in the paragraph above, made it all the way to step three, the grudging acknowledgement of reality, but with a healthy dose of self-loathing. Maybe someday he'll have the guts to skip all the nonsense and just write the truth, even if it seems "intolerant."

"A Muslim committed mass murder in the name of Islam, on American soil. He is a terrorist. The person who committed this act of terrorism is at fault, and I am not." It's not that hard, Rodriguez. Type it out once, then you can click Delete on your keyboard if you need to. At least do it once, man, just to say you did.

Liberal utopian smokes crack

Mike Lux at the Huffington Post is the only man in America still on the "hope and change" bandwagon (check this, for instance). Even liberal pundits have conceded that the Oblama bubble has burst. Maybe it had something to do with bankrupting the country. I don't know for sure.

Lux:

When Barack Obama ran a campaign with a slogan he borrowed from Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers, Yes We Can, and preached his gospel of hope, he was tapping into a long progressive tradition dating back to our very founding as a country.

He's partly right, I think. Chavez, an enemy of America, did use that slogan. The other people who became infamous using the parrot-like "Yes we can" socialist slogan were the illegal aliens who chanted it while marching in our streets while waving Mexican flags at us. Adopting this ill-considered slogan may have been an agreement Hussein made with the racist Mexican organization La Raza when he pandered to them.

More:

While righteous anger and cynical humor are an important part of our work, progressivism that is at its core cynical and pessimistic doesn't work over the long run. For one thing, it will burn itself out. When I was a young organizer being trained, I was told that you can't organize people if you are too depressed to be hopeful, that if you were feeling burnt out, you should take a vacation or even get into a different line of work. I still believe that to be true. Righteous anger is a great thing, and can feed you for a while, but if it's not leavened with hope, it won't sustain you over the long good fight. But it also doesn't work because the internal contradiction is too great. Telling people that we can change things for the better while being cynical about any hope for change is a self-defeating philosophy.

It's 10:1 Lux was stoned when he wrote that. Smoking marijuana, according to about.com, brings on "hallucinations, delusions, impaired memory, and disorientation." Yep, that's him.

Uninvited guests at the White House

The wrong man, at the wrong time,
for the wrong reasons

No doubt you've heard about the couple who crashed Obama's state dinner with Hodip Singe or whatever his name is. I think the press may be missing the point about the story. It's newsworthy, but not really because of the security problem -- the Secret Service can find out what went wrong and fix things. I believe the real story is that it's another item on a growing list of incompetence surrounding this president.

Obama is unqualified to be president, and this was well known before he was elected. A lot of people became too emotional about making history (or paying reparations), and didn't pay enough attention to the resume.

A community organizer with no experience running anything should never have been made president. Not only does he blunder continuously, even on the smallest things, he's spending money like nobody else in history. He is the official record holder for deficit spending now. Foreign policy? Listen to what the liberals at the New York Times say:

Peacemaking takes strategic skill. But we see no sign that President Obama and Mr. Mitchell were thinking more than one move down the board. The president went public with his demand for a full freeze on settlements before securing Israel’s commitment. And he and his aides apparently had no plan for what they would do if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said no.

Are the people who voted for him still happy about their decision?

Thanksgiving

I'd like to know which one of you internet clowns celebrated Thanksgiving by rubbing a tofurkey all over your genitals.

Climategate bigger than we thought

RealClearPolitics has a great article on Climategate:

Not content to block out all dissent from scientific journals, the CRU scientists also conspired to secure friendly reviewers who could be counted on to rubber-stamp their own work. Phil Jones suggests such a list to Kevin Trenberth, with the assurance that "All of them know the sorts of things to say...without any prompting."

Huffington Post has a great article

William Easterly at HuffPo has done a fantastic job with this article: African Leaders Advise Bono On Reform Of U2. For a long time I've wondered why Bono feels qualified to advise countries on social issues, and why they don't tell him to fuck off. The thing is, Bono doesn't know anything, and he doesn't even care. It's part of a business strategy to sell music to young people.

Facebook changes stock structure

Facebook says they aren't going public, according to AFP. They're waiting for Microsoft, Yahoo, or Google to buy them. Making public the news about stock changes may even be a signal that they're ready for an offer.

Philadelphia terror support plot busted

AP headline: Phila. plot to buy weapons for Hezbollah

I wondered whether AP would use "broad strata" or "tiny minority" or possibly "vicarious trauma" to explain away who and why this crime occurred. I had to chuckle at the way AP handled it. They declined to name the perpetrators.

Fortunately the FBI website isn't bound by the liberal rules of subterfuge:

According to the indictment, Hassan Hodroj and Dib Hani Harb attempted to provide material support to Hizballah in the form of approximately 1,200 Colt M4 Carbines (machine guns). Harb and other defendants—including Moussa Ali Hamdan and Hasan Antar Karak—were also charged with conspiring to provide material support to Hizballah in the form of proceeds from the sale of fraudulent passports, counterfeit money and stolen (genuine) money. In addition, Hamdan and several other defendants (listed below) were charged with several counts of transporting stolen goods, trafficking in counterfeit goods, and making false statements to government officials.

Instead of naming the criminals, the AP used these terms: four men, two suspects, the plotters, indictment charges eight others. It's reminiscent of the Paris "youths" who rioted a few years ago.

Did the AP have an editor's roundtable to figure out the new strategy? "How can we shift the focus away from Muslims while avoiding criticism?" Brilliant, AP, just brilliant.

UN states the obvious

AP headline: UNAIDS: Sex main cause for HIV spreading in China. Really? How many millions of dollars did the UN spend on that report? It reminds me of Kofi Assmunch's constant warnings, and no action.

Iraq: what have we done?

The Iraqis are using what amounts to "explosives divining rods" to find bombs.

NY Times:

The Iraqis, however, believe passionately in them. “Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,” said Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives.

Dale Murray, head of the National Explosive Engineering Sciences Security Center at Sandia Labs, which does testing for the Department of Defense, said the center had “tested several devices in this category, and none have ever performed better than random chance.”

A culture that rejects science is stupid and dangerous. How much money have we spent over there, and how many lives?

Luddites and libraries

I read a good story in the LA Times -- and I do love this paper for its non-political stories. It's written by Diana Wagman, a novelist and professor. It's about a a Luddite -- who's not really a Luddite -- who went to the library to research Luddites.

I spent three hours at the library and did not learn much about Luddites, but what I did find actually gave me chills. This is what I discovered: If you have a specific destination, the Web is the place to go. If you just need to search, there is no place like the library.

I enjoyed the article because I've been going to libraries regularly over the last two years, and I'm enjoying it. I cancelled my home internet two years ago, so I'm a quasi-Luddite just like the author. Now that I'm hooked on libraries, but still enjoy the web a few times a week, I can look back and see that I was wrong about some things:

1. All information is on the web

2. All good information is on the web

3. Enough information is on the web to make libraries unnecessary

4. I don't have time to visit libraries

5. I can't read books that might have been rubbed on somebody's unwashed genitalia just hours before.

Now I view the web as a good starting place for information (or TV shows or newspaper articles), then I'll go to the library to find a good, peer-reviewed book to learn more. It's a better way than all web, all the time. For me, anyway.

New York Times spins climate even as house of cards collapses

The climate scandal the whole world's covering -- hacked emails reveal true nature of climate change debate -- gets interesting treatment in the New York Times. I'm glad I read the NYT story first because I knew it would downplay the damage done to the doomsday crowd.

Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.

Rather than read the information themselves, and then making an assessment, the Times hides behind the "skeptics."

Here's a sample of what is contained in the emails, via Air Vent:

K and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !

More:

Yeah, it wasn’t so much 1998 and all that that I was concerned about, used to dealing with that, but the possibility that we might be going through a
longer – 10 year – period of relatively stable temperatures beyond what you
might expect from La Nina etc.

Speculation, but if I see this as a possibility then others might also.
Anyway, I’ll maybe cut the last few points off the filtered curve before I
give the talk again as that’s trending down as a result of the end effects
and the recent cold-ish years.

Here's an email posted at Climate Audit:

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998. Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Hide the decline. These emails show that blaming "climate change" on human activity instead of natural cycles is a socialist ploy to halt industrialization. I understood the nature of this left-wing swindle when Miles O'Brien of CNN said that the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" was realistic and would likely occur in 15 years if we didn't take drastic action. (And newspaper reporters think CNN is centrist.)

As for the New York Times calling "skeptics," I'd like to point out that this label is offensive. It's too serious. If somebody came to me and explained, in seriousness, that the Easter Bunny is real, and I replied that I don't believe it, I would be put off if I was derisively called a skeptic. One can't be a skeptic of something absurd, though the word may be technically accurate.

Terrorism in the liberal mind

The opening of a recent New York Times opinion piece about Fort Hood was alluring, I must admit, but it didn't take long to discover what the writer, Robert Wright, is really trying to say. After admitting that two conservative columnists were right in saying the root cause was Islamic terrorism, Wright makes his coup de grace:

The good news for Mr. Krauthammer and Mr. Goldberg is that there is truth in their indictment. The bad news is that their case against the left-wing news media is the case against right-wing foreign policy. Seeing the Fort Hood shooting as an act of Islamist terrorism is the first step toward seeing how misguided a hawkish approach to fighting terrorism has been.

This denial of reality is as tired as "broad strata" and "tiny minority". I mentioned this strange liberal notion as far back as February 2007, when I wrote:

According to liberals, U.S. foreign policy assumed human form and piloted airliners into the World Trade Center. It's not clear why the ghostlike apparitions spoke Arabic.

Why O why do liberals want to blame themselves (us) when other people misbehave? Everything is our fault, they believe. This truly is psychotic. Wright is saying, essentially, "Fine, maybe it was an act of terrorism, but it's still our fault." Think about that.

More wrong from Wright:

The American right and left reacted to 9/11 differently. Their respective responses were, to oversimplify a bit: “kill the terrorists” and “kill the terrorism meme.”

That's incorrect. The right got angry and wanted to fight back, while the left became sad and tried to blame almost everyone other than the perpetrators.

Wright put even more distance between the Fort Hood terrorist and his motives by saying "Major Hasan got more radicalized by two American wars."

But why stop there? Why not drum up sympathy for all Muslims:

Any religious or ethnic group includes people like that, and the post-9/11 environment hasn’t made it easier for American Muslims to keep their balance.

Keep their balance? Compare how they're keeping their balance to the way German Americans kept their balance during World War II. When the Bund, a pro-Nazi group of German Americans, were marching in the streets in U.S. cities with picket signs and cheers supporting Adolf Hitler, the rest of the German Americans held counter marches putting down the Bund, Nazis, and Hitler. The message was crystal clear: "We are the majority of Germans living in the U.S., and we do not agree with what these radicals are doing. Shame on them."

What did we get from these "embattled" American Muslims after 9/11? Carefully worded statements on anemic websites, giving us their official view that terrorism is not supported. There's one word to describe this kind of behavior: unconvincing.

Liberals are good at reaching for answers in the clouds, so I'll give one of my own: liberal hypertolerance murdered the people at Fort Hood. We knew very well that Hasan was a radical Muslim filled with hatred, yet he was allowed to continue serving in the military. Why? Probably because people were afraid to point the finger at a Muslim because the liberal media would have a field day with it, bringing out labels like "xenophobia" and "racism" and "bigotry".

Remember what happened with the case of the flying imams? The Muslims making a trial run received a settlement two weeks ago. See what happens when you speak out? You hand a purse of gold to scumbags.

Liberals like Mr. Wright only need to open their eyes and look around to see what's actually happening. Here's a USA Today headline: "Another Minn. man faces terror charges in Somali case." The liberal press has been baffled by this for months on end. How could lovable immigrants from Minneapolis ("broad strata") simply disappear, only to reappear in a Muslim land and commit mass murder in the name of Islam? A real headscratcher, that.

From the story:

Omer Abdi Mohamed, 24, was arraigned today on charges of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, of providing material support to terrorists and of conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim or injure. His lawyer said he had been under investigation for several months.

Little Omer wasn't a psychiatrist, so I guess the liberals can't try "vicarious trauma" with him. Something else, perhaps, to avoid facing the truth?

Here's from Minnesota Public Radio:

Wold [defendant's attorney] was referring to the climate in late 2007 in Somali communities around the globe, including the Twin Cities, during the Ethiopian occupation of Somalia. Friends of the missing American fighters have said that the young men wanted to defend their homeland. But the hard-line Islamic group they allegedly joined, al-Shabaab, has continued down a violent path even after the Ethiopian soldiers pulled out of the country this year.

Ah, the Ethiopian occupation of Somalia. It will be difficult for liberals to blame American foreign policy for this one. Libbies could put their ideas into a rock polisher and still not have enough spin to affix the blame to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Sarah Palin, all conservatives, or those dreaded Christians.

And that brings us right up to the Guantanamo detainees going on trial in New York -- a colossal blunder for Obama. First, a few facts: the folks at Gitmo are enemy combatants, captured during a war. Therefore they are not entitled to our civilian court system. Also, they were not in uniform as part of an army representing a nation state, so they're not entitled to the rights of a POW. President Bush gave them POW rights, though he wasn't required to. Ordinarily, one of two things happen to people in this strange category: military trial and/or hanging.

With all of the above information in mind, listen to what Anthony Romero, head of the ACLU, thinks, from his opinion piece at USA Today:

Attorney General Eric Holder's decision last week to prosecute five 9/11 defendants in federal court is the only option for delivering trustworthy and legitimate outcomes consistent with our values. Any other path would mean abandoning our commitment to the Constitution and bending our principles for the sake of expediency.

Straight off, it wasn't Holder's decision, and everyone knows it. And it's tough to believe the head of the ACLU thinks the detainees belong in court.

More from Romero:

It is time to get serious about upholding the law. If our government has evidence against detainees, it should do what it has always done before — go into a courtroom and prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. America is certainly up to that task.

No, this is never done when we're at war. Remember Lincoln and FDR? Apparently Romero has never heard of them. Or what's more likely, Romero denies we're at war, even after 9/11 and having hundreds of thousands of soldiers fighting, in two different theaters of war, for many years now. Romero is astonishing.

This is not an act of war, according to liberals like Romero:

When Islamic terrorists flew jets into skyscrapers, liberals blamed conservative foreign policy. Robert Wright from the New York Times said it himself:

The good news for Mr. Krauthammer and Mr. Goldberg is that there is truth in their indictment. The bad news is that their case against the left-wing news media is the case against right-wing foreign policy. Seeing the Fort Hood shooting as an act of Islamist terrorism is the first step toward seeing how misguided a hawkish approach to fighting terrorism has been.

So what did Muslims think of liberal foreign policy? One that's dovish, inclusive, and tolerant?

CNN no centrist news outlet

Regarding Lou Dobbs walking away from CNN, I've read yet another media story about how CNN is the moderate view on cable news, with Fox on the right and MSNBC on the left. What have these writers been smoking? CNN is far-left.

Does nobody remember CNN rushing to defend the despicable Hamas mouse? That was a disgusting, hyper-left display.

Does nobody remember Soledad Obrien wetting her pants for Obama? "He's a rock star," she said 500 times during the first half of last year. It was nauseating. I permanently turned off CNN when I saw how lopsided their election coverage was.

Does nobody remember that Ted Turner is so far left only Mao himself was further off the deep end? Anyone remember Ted? He's the guy who admires Fidel Castro and denies that he's a murderer, and admits that the Khmer Rouge genocide didn't get much news coverage (it would make communists look bad!), and that the KGB was honorable, and Iraqi insurgents are patriots, and North Korea isn't despotic. Go here for the full collection of Turnerisms. The founder of CNN is a nutjob communist.

Here's the latest in the left wing media smokescreen -- LA Times:

With MSNBC chasing top dog Fox News up the ratings-and-ideological-purity ladder, we are offered seeming proof that the down-the-middle philosophy of old cannot win. Poor, stodgy CNN is bound to wither away, or so the argument goes.

Yet I'd like to suggest that CNN, in parting ways this week with its most opinionated host, Lou Dobbs, may be planting the seeds of its resurrection and holding out the possibility that around-the-clock broadcasting doesn't have to mean around-the-clock spin.

This Times writer has been fooled by CNN's style, which is similar to what we find at NPR: a calm, steady delivery, so it must be neutral and objective. Never mind the actual content. People seem to believe that if no emotion is shown, it's objective. What nonsense! Obama, as he increases the strength of the federal government 100-fold, uses the same trick.

More from the Times:

To be sure, the trend in recent times has been in the opposite direction. I've written before about how Fox News serves up heaping portions of conservative opinion even on what it claims are straight news programs.

And this is exactly what CNN is doing, as is Public Radio. Just the other day Public Radio had on a "legal expert", an attorney specializing in California's three strikes law. This "expert" said, "There is a guy in prison for stealing a pizza." This is false. Not only did the reporter not challenge him, but they didn't bring in a legal expert who supports 3-strikes. The man is in prison for committing two felonies, and then a pizza theft, which gave a cumulative sentence enhancement. The striker, as they're called, was told what would happen if he has another strike, and he went out and committed a crime anyway. One doesn't need to be a legal expert to understand this. Public Radio wasn't trying to present a balanced, objective view. They, being liberals, are against California's 3-strikes law, so they're trying to sway public opinion to get it overturned. There's no question about it. Ditto CNN.

If CNN adjusts itself to actually be neutral or objective, or anything other than far-left, I'd be happy to revisit this issue.

Another problem is that liberals believe their views are centrist, and people who, for instance, don't like terrorists, and don't like socialism, and don't like the federal government usurping states' rights, must be far-right radicals. The arrogance and stupidity on the left is incredible.

Nutjob liberals at USA Today

There was idiocy in a column in yesterday's USA Today. As typical university-based liberals, the writers tried to turn the Ft. Hood terrorist into a victim:

But calling the Fort Hood ambush an act of terrorism would only compound the tragedy by reinforcing the kind of intolerance toward American Muslims that appears to have contributed to Hasan's despair. Unfortunately, according to FBI figures, there has been a precipitous increase in hate crimes against Arab Americans since the 9/11 attacks.

This is yet another example of tolerance so extreme it's delusional. A liberal wouldn't get up from the sofa if a group of minorities broke into his house, doused it with gas, and lit the place on fire. "It would seem intolerant," they'd say, as they burned to a crisp.

When will liberals understand that when folks really are out to get you, it's not paranoia (or xenophobia or bigotry or hatred) to stand up and mention it?

Liberal Roundup

After a long absence, Liberal Roundup has returned. The writings of the communists liberals are as strange as ever. Most of the thinking on these blogs falls into one of a few categories: the health care bill made history except that it ignored reproductive rights, Joe Lieberman should be hanged for wanting to know why mass murder occurred in Texas, and the obligatory rhetoric on climate change and gay marriage.

Daily Kos

Meteor Blades at the Daily Kos is upset that climate change is being under reported in relation to agriculture. When an investigation into the combined use of "climate change" and "agriculture" in media stories was complete, the writer says "only 109 of the articles included even a brief mention of one of the phrases, and only 20 of them took as its primary topic the relationship of food or agriculture to climate change." It never enters the writer's mind that this could mean the relationship is small, or nonexistent. He uses the United Nations as a source to try to prove the "relationship is huge." The UN has no credibility whatsoever. Nice try, Libbie.

And Laura Clawson is monitoring "marriage equality" happenings in the Northeast:

There are two ways equality could be overturned in New Hampshire. One is legislation overturning June's equality bill. Defending Democratic majorities in New Hampshire's House and Senate must therefore be a priority for 2010.

I'm sure "marriage equality" is important to more than just a few people, but I'm not one of them, because I can think of 10,000 issues that are more important. Maybe I'm exaggerating -- it's only 9,999.

And Steve Singiser is teaching his small children about same-sex marriage. How many mommies does Heather have? Or Bruce, or Brad, or Biff? Pat, anyone?

This comes, to say the least, as a shock. I am pretty well to the left-of-center politically, and my wife, if anything, is to my left. So, hearing my elementary school-aged son coming out as a proponent of marriage discrimination was a bit of an eye-opener.

I'm waiting for the day the libbies teach their children it's okay for humans and monkeys, and dogs, and hamsters to join in holy matrimony because, gosh darn it, the furry creatures of the world have rights too! I remember a British organization trying to claim monkeys have a right to an attorney, so my bemusement of these weirdos has some basis.

For the record, I don't care if gays and lesbians can marry. In fact, I don't see any reason they shouldn't. I'm just tired of hearing about it every time I turn on a TV or get on the web. And why would anyone fight for the right to get married? As a happily divorced man, I can tell ya that marriage should be illegal for everybody.

In a short post called "History Made", mcjoan is quite the little activist. This spunky lefty has a self-important tone, similar to a chihuahua barking at a real dog:

This is the first time a chamber of Congress has passed healthcare reform since Medicare was enacted. There's a lot of work left to do on this, and a lot of ugly to be undone, but we made it this far against long odds. Now the really hard work: the Senate.

You can almost hear the kettle drums giving us a dramatic base beat, cantcha? Keep on tracking the "history", toots. I'm sure you've got lots of regular readers -- women with hairy underarms, deballed men, and the like.

Mother Jones

High drama at Mother Jones. I've just read my first "investigation" piece over there, and the opening cannot be missed by anyone who considers himself normal. Ever see Conan the Barbarian, the movie? The opening narration in the film is similar to this:

Sooner or later, you have to draw a line. We've spent the last 20 years in the opening scenes of what historians will one day call the Global Warming Era—the preamble to the biggest drama that humans have ever staged, the overture that hints at the themes that will follow for centuries to come. But none of the notes have resolved, none of the story lines yet come into clear view. And that's largely because until recently we didn't know quite where we were. From the moment in 1988 when a nasa scientist named James Hansen told Congress that burning coal and gas and oil was warming the earth, we've struggled to absorb this one truth: The central fact of our economic lives (the ubiquitous fossil fuel that developed the developed world) is wrecking the central fact of our physical lives (the stable climate and sea level on which civilization rests).

I think the Conan flick used slightly different words, something like "This is a tale of high adventure." The author of the high adventure at Mother Jones is Bill McKibben, and I think we can conclude that the only way to inject that kind of tone is to smoke a bit of weed beforehand. Happy smoking, Bill.

Firedog Lake

Some clever fellow calling himself Attaturk is standing up for Muslims by bashing a man who is second only to Dick Cheney for his pure evilness, Joe Lieberman:

So we now hear that Joe Lieberman wants some hearings on the Committee he for some reason is going to be allowed to Chair in order to single out Muslim-Americans as being dangerous America-haters. All together now, A-W-E-S-O-M-E. Good job Harry Reid, he’s with you on everything except constant douchebaggery.

Speaking of the Ft. Hood massacre, I wonder what could have possibly motivated that good American to just snap like that. Any ideas, Attaturk? Perhaps he suffered "vicarious trauma"? A complete mystery! Oh, I know, Attaturk -- he had information that could prove the moon landing was faked, and so he was set up by Reich-Wingers!

Another Ft. Hood post, by a Jim White, was titled "Lieberman to Whip Up Anti-Muslim Hysteria With Homeland Security Hearing on Fort Hood Shooting".

How dare anyone say anything intolerant, even if it's true and sensible! Let's bash Lieberman for even thinking something intolerant about somebody who isn't white and male.

Democratic Underground

Somebody called Angry Mouse has an angry vagina, and we can assume it has been dry for quite some time, too:

Something clicked for me last night, as I watched the scum of the Democratic party vote against me. We've been having the wrong fight. Because it's not about abortion. It's not about religious beliefs. It's not about whether it's okay in certain circumstances, but wrong in others. "Partial birth" abortion, parental notification, waiting periods, mandated lectures from doctors about what characteristics your fetus might have had -- it's not about that.

It's about something much more simple. Either women are full and equal citizens of this country, with the exact same rights that men have -- including autonomy of our bodies -- or we are not.

Please note that nearly every sentence from above was posted as a seperate paragraph -- I put them together in a way that eluded Angry Mouse.

The writer concludes with: "Tell me how you feel about my rights. Tell me whether you believe I am a full and equal citizen. Tell me whether you really believe the Democratic party stands for women."

I've always supported equal rights for everyone, and I have been pro-choice all of my adult life. But I do have to wonder how many Einsteins and Mozarts and Goddards and Cricks have been denied humanity because a woman couldn't be troubled to think about birth control. But why all this anger, anyway? I thought all liberals were going to marry somebody of the same sex (making abortions irrelevant)? After all, for a liberal, making a political statement is more important than doing the right thing (see: Obama).

You can easily surmise that Angry Mouse doesn't have to worry about getting pregnant. What self-respecting man would bed down somebody so bitchy? It's always the woman who can't get laid who is most concerned about "reproductive rights".

Another interesting title caught my eye at Firedog Lake: "Books, Not Bombs: How Military Spending Hurts the Economy and Education Spending Helps"

You not only have to be a liberal to believe something like that, you have to be a fucking moron.

Huffington Post

Donna Schaper laments reality:

This week was a big week, politically, with gay marriage being defeated in Maine and the biggest spender winning in New York, in the mayoral election and on the baseball field, shifts in Jersey and Virginia, and round one on the health care bill. The Stupak Amendment, banning federal funding for abortions, also passed. The Roman Catholic Bishops are responsible for the Stupak amendment, throwing into grand relief the issues cited by the Gallup Poll. The Catholic Bishops also kept immigration OUT of the bill and did quite a few other things that are good for women.

Perhaps Donna should wake from her liberalism and recognize that her views don't represent the one correct way, and that people who feel otherwise aren't necessarily uneducated fools who have fallen prey to right-wing propaganda and Catholic Bishops.

Case in point: I'm a pro-choice atheist. No bishop has ever influenced me or my politics, and never will, yet I don't want my tax dollars funding abortions, and I don't want illegal aliens to get healthcare or any other "free" service that is funded by people who are here legitimately. I guess Donna doesn't know that people like me exist -- independent thinkers who have concluded that collectivism is a net negative for me and society. Hello, Donna!

TPM Cafe

Front and center at the TPM Cafe is writer M.J. Rosenberg, another person offended that Joe Lieberman wants to find out why the Ft. Hood jihad occurred:

Of course, as a self-proclaimed "man of faith", he won't say that the problem is not Islam but fanatics of all faiths. I mean, just because the history of the world has been scarred by one religious massacre or assassination after another by people of all faiths is no reason not to single out Muslims. Well, not for Joe, anyway.

If Joe said "the problem is not Islam but fanatics of all faiths," Joe would be a delusional liar.

After that reality-denying opening, Rosenberg drones on, citing the few instances of Jews shooting people. Does this guy not understand that the ratio of Muslims who commit mass murder in the name of their ideology to all others combined is about ten million to one? Seriously, is Rosenberg lying, or is he stupid?

Liberals have turned their desire for "tolerance" into a delusion. How did they get like that?

I found another jaw-dropper from Rosenberg, this time writing in support of Iran's nuclear ambitions. This guy is really out there:

Even the strongest opponents of the regime believe Iran has the same right to nuclear development as any other country in the world. As for nuclear weapons, there is little evidence that Iran is pursuing them but, even if there was, the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to which Iran is a signatory spells out its rights and obligations.

Riiiiight. Iran violated that little NPT, which Rosenberg is citing in Iran's favor! WTF? It was precisely the violation(s) that got the entire world concerned about Iranian nukes in the first place. Why would Iran enrich uranium in secret for years, violating the NPT, if their efforts were for peaceful purposes? The NPT allows for the acquisition of enriched uranium without the need to accomplish it covertly.

I highly recommend that everyone read TPM Cafe regularly. So what if it generates revenue for them? This is where the real weirdos hang out.

Hullabaloo

Didn't take long to find a gem on Hullabaloo. From a writer called digby:

There is some deeply creepy, psychosexual stuff happening in fundamentalist religion. The Christian moralists in our culture seem to be addicted to torture.

I've noticed the term "ruling elite" on many of these liberal blogs. From another Hullabaloo post:

I knew that after all the sturm and drang over the past few months over the public option, the number one liberal priority in the health care debate, there would be a price for its success. The ruling elite could never allow an unambiguous liberal victory. It would endanger their narrative that says fealty to business, religion, military and other authoritarian structures is democratically inspired. They have to maintain the fiction that the people prefer to be subjects. If politicians aren't convinced that there will be a price for being liberals, they might get the idea that they can actually govern liberally.

Does the writer get a point for using "ruling elite"? Is there a lefty point system? Let's give him a point.

Crooks and Liars

Here's one that made me laugh. Nicole Belle used a blog post to make fun of herself and her kind. She is commenting on Virginia's Republican governor supposedly being considered for VP next time around:

The famous Fox News "some people say" followed by a statement that nobody who really wants to keep the Republican Party vital would actually want? And who is on the "short list" for President? Palin? Wow. Between the two of them, they'd have..what? three years governance experience between them? Brilliant!

Let's see if Nicole can figure out her big screw-up. (Here it is, but don't tell her: she and her libby pals just elected a community organizer with no governance experience at all. None!)

Ah, and a good one from Heather Sunday:

In what world do all Americans have health care coverage? Oh yeah, the emergency rooms. That's the GOP's idea of health care coverage and "freedom".

Truth be told, Heather, honey, only illegal aliens get free health care in emergency rooms -- on the backs of citizens. For Americans to get free health care, we have to leave our driver's license at home and say our name is Juan Rodriguez.

NPR coverage of Ft. Hood: 'broad strata' or 'tiny minority'?

I was waiting for liberal media's response to Ft. Hood, and I didn't have to wait long. I was expecting the usual subterfuge: "broad strata" or "tiny minority". NPR chose the former.

The first NPR report I heard this afternoon discussed the sadness of the victims' relatives. The second talked about "vicarious trauma", where psychologists sometimes take on trauma experienced by their patients.

Hmmm. I guess when a Muslim puts on a bedsheet, grabs a Koran and a pair of handguns, and commits mass murder while yelling, "God is great!" in Arabic, it must be some sort of psychological trauma that could affect any mental health professional. Broad strata.

NPR is absurd.

Don't they feel dirty putting out misleading information for political purposes?

Press a tool of demotard Obama

Surveys show that members of the TV and print press are 85% Democrat (based on political contributions), but this Politico story shows what we're really dealing with. For instance, Obama waited almost a year to visit New Orleans to discuss Katrina matters, stayed only four hours, then continued on to a $3 million fundraiser. The press yawned.

Bullet video