Michael Savage honored for bashing Bush

Michael Savage won the Freedom of Speech Award from Talkers magazine. Yesterday Savage interviewed the executive editor for the publication. What Savage missed was that he was given the award for the same reason Michael Moore, Al Gore, and countless others have won awards -- he criticized Bush.

I expected Savage to be smarter than to gush at the "honor". Hell, people are winning Nobel prizes for bashing Bush and America. It's nothing to celebrate.

He should have refused the award and ridiculed it.

UK sailors on Iranian TV

Today I saw a video clip of one of the seized British sailors. The Iranian nutjobs put a bedsheet on her head. If this was a U.S. sailor wearing this symbol of oppression, I'd be demanding war with a letter and email campaign.

There's no excuse for taking hostages -- even if the ship strayed into Iranian waters. Accidents happen. They should be released at once.

I would have thought the Muslim fanatics had learned their lesson on hostage taking after Israel womped the illegitimate Shia armies hiding like dogs in Lebanon.

Unfortunately weak world leaders, like Jimmy Carter, have taught the turd-world that there are few, if any, ramifications for this kind of pathetic behavior. Bush tried to restore some of the West's backbone. Now we'll see if it rubbed off on Tony Blair.

Great Britain should give the mullahs 48 hours to release all hostages unharmed. If they refuse, they should be bombed back to the stone age (oops, they are in the stone age -- okay, bomb them into the 21st century).

Iran's prez seizes Brit soldiers, wants to lose country

Mahmoud "Black Beard" Ahmadinejad has captured 15 British soldiers on the high seas. Apparently he wants war with Britain.

Tony Snow's cancer returns

Fox News reporter turned White House press secretary announced that his cancer has returned, and it has spread to his liver. This is sad news.

LA Times:

The colon cancer that White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was treated for in 2005 has spread to his liver, his principal deputy, Dana Perino, said today.

Snow, who underwent abdominal surgery on Monday, will begin chemotherapy treatments, Perino said.

Perino, pausing to regain her composure, told reporters that Snow said he was "going to be going after it as aggressively as he can."

Loving Barack Hussein Obama

Tish Durkin, writing for The Huffington Post, has swallowed the Obama happy pill. The guy is a far-left liberal with two years of senatorial experience -- wholly lacking credentials for the presidency. So how does Tish feel about him? He may turn out to be a "Washington-Lincoln-FDR triple combo". Durkin has the cerebral equivalence of a turd.

He's so bright and fresh and new. So young, so idealistic, so untainted by the dirty dealings of Washington. He may or may not get bogged down in all that policy crap, but he sure will inspire us.

But wait - isn't that just what everyone loves about Obama?

Exactly. So it's not actually Obama himself that bothers me; I cheerfully concede that he may turn out to be a fantastic candidate and, for that matter, a Washington-Lincoln-FDR triple combo as president.

Latest Democrat scandal: Jim Webb's gungate

Senator Jim Webb, a connoisseur of incest porn, is involved in a handgun scandal. Story at Fox News.

Canadian separatist-frogs defeated

There's more going on than the BBC's headline suggests:

Quebec's opposition nationalists have suffered a heavy defeat in elections in the French-speaking province, putting paid to plans for an independence vote.

But the ruling Liberal Party also fared badly, losing its majority amid a surge by the right-of-centre Action Democratic party (ADQ).

Canada's slow move to the right is continuing. Hmmmm. I wonder if it could have anything to do with learning that not all cultures are equal?

Gitmo scumbag pleads guilty

Australia's turncoat, David Hicks, pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism. Off with his head! BBC:

Australian detainee David Hicks has pleaded guilty at a military court at Guantanamo Bay to a charge of providing material support for terrorism.

The 31-year-old Muslim convert was accused of attending al-Qaeda training camps and fighting with the Taleban.

Missing boy scout found...

...with a few other people.


Lindberg baby, Hoffa, D.B. Cooper, boy scout, Nataleeeee Holloway

Unauthorized Hussein video

Via Drudge.

New template being applied

I'm messing with a new design. It may be a few days before I get back to smashing liberal ideology regular postings.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

This one is making the rounds via email again...

Why did the chicken cross the road?

John Kerry:
Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now and will remain against it.

Pat Buchanan:
To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American!

Martha Stewart:
No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

Dr. Suess:
Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.

Grandpa:
In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road and that was good enough.

Barbara Walters:
Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its lifelong dream of crossing the road.

Bill Gates:
I have just released eChicken2006, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken. This new platform is much more stable and will never cra...#@&&;>(C/...Reboot.

Albert Einstein:
Did the chicken cross the road or did the road move beneath the chicken?

Bill Clinton:
I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

Al Gore:
I invented the chicken.

Colonel Sanders:
Did I miss one?

Ted Kennedy:
I need another drink.

MSM liberal bias (still, again)

Right on cue, a liberal newsman working for a liberal news company tells us why Bubba Clinton firing 93 federal prosecutors is normal and accepted, but when Bush fires eight, it's a sign that he's Adolf Hitler reincarnated. CBS:

To compare these two episodes is to say that when a dog bites a man it is as newsworthy as when a man bites a dog. The comparison simply doesn’t work. As I have mentioned here before, every incoming president seeks to install into office his crop of federal prosecutors. Republican presidents have done this and so have Democrats and it is such routine that it barely makes any news. Existing federal prosecutors know that, when the president who appointed them leaves office, they had better start updating the resume. Like it or not, this practice is not controversial. It is a rule that has governed the game for decades.

So, please, let’s all stop trying to compare the “Reno 93” with the “Gonzales 8.” Even Republican lawmakers are growing uneasy with that inapt comparison. One legal scholar after another, and one veteran Justice Department watcher after another, has come forward to say that it is extraordinary for a White House to fire a federal prosecutor mid-term, or even mid-presidency, absent some extraordinary misfeasance or malfeasance on the part of the U.S. Attorney. Here is just the latest to do so.

Why doesn't Bush be a man and refuse to cooperate? It's legal for him to fire federal prosecutors, end of story.

CAIR promoting burqa stunt

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is promoting a stunt conducted by a high school student. A girl who wore a burqa to school for a day reported feeling "way too much prejudice". From CAIR's website:

The 15-year-old freshman volunteered with a few other students to wear traditional Muslim clothing to school for an entire day in February after a Middle Eastern Studies teacher at Bacon Academy announced that she was looking for students to promote her class by wearing the garb. Caitlin covered her slender frame and short brown hair with a periwinkle burqa, which concealed her face.

The hateful and abusive comments she endured that day horrified teachers, the teen and many of her classmates. The remarks underscored a persistent animosity toward American Muslims that is driven largely by the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But they also opened up an important dialogue that could help teenagers in Colchester and across the state view the Muslim culture differently.

Of particular note is this:

The lack of understanding of Islam and of the many of the cultures that contribute to a worldwide population of more than 1 billion Muslims is something Rabia Chaudry, a spokeswoman for CAIR, planned to raise with the state Department of Education when she meets with officials in a few weeks.

People scoff at the burqa and other ridiculous coverings because they understand why women are forced to hide behind them. It has nothing to do with "lack of understanding." See the new and improved Shaved Ape Guide to Islamic Headgear™ for additional information.

The freshman girl CAIR is championing was a burqa imposter. I've listed below some other burqa imposters. I wonder if they, too, felt "way too much prejudice"?

Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the snuffed former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq; Time:

During the three-year hunt for him, al-Zarqawi was a maddeningly elusive target--a master of disguise who could pass as a woman in a burqa one day, an Iraqi policeman the next.

London bombing suspect Yassin Omar; Telegraph:

An alleged suicide bomber was caught on CCTV dressed in a burqa and carrying a handbag as he allegedly tried to escape London.

London robbery; BBC:

Two robbers disguised in Afghan-style robes stole 200,000 worth of jewellery from an exclusive London store.

The pair entered Ramot, in Sloane Street, Knightsbridge, disguised in burqas and full length robes which covered their bodies and faces.

However, once inside they flung open their gowns to reveal guns before locking staff in a back room and making off with the gems in a getaway car.

Thieves in Bangladesh; Daily Times:

Bangladeshi police used tear gas and batons to disperse angry students and teachers who rampaged on Saturday on a university campus after men disguised as women were discovered in a female dormitory, police and witnesses said.

Three men dressed in burqas - a robe and veil covering the whole body - were found on Friday inside the compound of a women’s dormitory at Rajshahi University in northern Bangladesh. The intruders fled over a wall when female students noticed they were men and screamed for help, police officer Abdul Wahab said.

Mullah Mahmood, captured Taliban commander; Al Jazeera:

A senior Taliban commander has been captured by Afghan troops in the southern province of Kandahar as he tried to escape a Nato manhunt disguised as a woman in a burqa.

Jewelers in India are fed up; BBC:

Head of the Association, Fatehchand Rankha told the BBC they had footage of women stealing jewellery but neither they nor the police could do anything about it because they could not identify their faces.

"The loss was almost one million rupees ($22,650) yet the police could not make any arrests. We could only see their eyes because the veil covered the rest of their faces," he said.

Toronto, Canada jewelry stores robbed; Robert Spencer has the story from the Toronto Star:

Abdul Rasheed Khalid was alone in his Brampton jewellery store filling the display cases with yellow gold rings and necklaces when two people, one wearing a head-to-toe black burqa, appeared outside his locked door.

"Salamu alaikum," the 58-year-old store owner said after pushing the entry buzzer, believing them to be a Muslim couple. There was no reply, and seconds later the pair — both males — forced him at gunpoint to the back office where he was bound with duct tape and hit several times. Then his store was cleaned out.

The Netherlands is on the verge of banning the symbols of oppressions; USA Today:

"The Cabinet finds it undesirable that face-covering clothing — including the burqa — is worn in public places for reasons of public order, security and protection of citizens," Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk said in a statement.

Darpa continues to innovate

For the last few years I've been telling people that Lexus has surpassed Darpa as the world's No. 1 technological innovator. With swiveling headlights, adaptive cruise control, and a hands-free parking system, it seemed warranted. But not so fast.

Darpa stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and prior to 1972 was just Arpa. Darpa has given us some great technology over the years, such as the internet (September 1969, to be precise). I've been following the agency's annual Grand Challenge, but I've fallen behind on the weird, black-ops stuff.

Wired magazine recently did a piece on some of Darpa's work on human performance enhancement. One of their projects will be really interesting for workout buffs, which I was right up until I decided watching TV and surfing the web were more entertaining. When hard-worked muscles give out, they've burned up all the sugar, right? Nope. They're overheating.

The lab is climate-controlled to 104 degrees Fahrenheit and 66 percent humidity. Sitting inside the cramped room, even for a few minutes, is an unpleasantly moist experience. I’ve spent the last 40 minutes on a treadmill angled at a 9 percent grade. My face is chili-red, my shirt soaked with sweat. My breath is coming in short, unsatisfactory gasps. The sushi and sake I had last night are in full revolt. The tiny speakers on the shelf blasting “Living on a Prayer” are definitely not helping.

Then Dennis Grahn, a lumpy Stanford University biologist and former minor-league hockey player, walks into the room. He nods in my direction and smiles at a technician. “Looks like he’s ready,” Grahn says.

Grahn takes my hand and slips it into a clear, coffeepot-looking contraption he calls the Glove. Inside is a hemisphere of metal, cool to the touch. He tightens a seal around my wrist; a vacuum begins pulling blood to the surface of my hand, and the cold metal chills my blood before it travels through my veins back to my core. After five minutes, I feel rejuvenated. Never mind the hangover. Never mind Bon Jovi. I keep going for another half hour.

[...]

In trying to figure out why the Glove worked so well, its inventors ended up challenging conventional scientific wisdom on fatigue. Muscles don’t wear out because they use up stored sugars, the researchers said. Instead, muscles tire because they get too hot, and sweating is just a backup cooling system for the lattices of blood vessels in the hands and feet. The Glove, in other words, overclocks the heat exchange system. “It’s like giving a Honda the radiator of a Mack truck,” Heller says. After four months of using it himself, Heller did 1,000 push-ups on his 60th birthday in April 2003. Soon after, troops from Special Operations Command were trying out the Glove, too.

Here's an interesting bit about "de-animizing" humans, which essentially would cause a human to hibernate like a rodent in winter. That would give a trauma victim extra time to make it to the hospital. Darpa's black-ops roots come to light:

But before the program could start, DSO’s performance-enhancement push ran into trouble in Washington. The President’s Council on Bioethics was publishing reports decrying body hacks. Some in Congress worried about being accused of funding a Frankenstein army.

In response to those critics, the agency already predisposed to clandestine research — decided to go underground. Program names were changed to dull their mad-scientist edge. Metabolic Dominance became Peak Soldier Performance. Augmented Cognition became Improving Warfighter Information Intake Under Stress. Researchers were told to keep their mouths shut; many current and former program managers still won’t talk on the record, requesting anonymity for this story. The Surviving Blood Loss program, meant to fund Roth’s work, was itself put into suspended animation.

Links
Wired: Be More Than You Can Be
Darpa
Darpa Grand Challenge

"300" history debated

Some people are getting excited about inaccuracies in the movie "300". Does everyone know the movie is based on a comic book graphic novel? This is like debating Superman or Spiderman. It's laughable.

Iran's ISNA news agency boldly calls the movie "a historical lie". The Fars news agency in Tehran ratcheted up the rhetoric to Kimmy Jong-il proportions:

Iranian Government Spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham described the Warner Brothers film '300' an intrusion of the Iranian culture and fabrication of history, stressing that the movie is considered a hostile move against the Iranian nation.

"Cultural intrusion is among the tactics always used by the aliens. Such a fabrication of culture and insult to people is not acceptable by any nation or government and we consider this attitude as hostile," Elham said while speaking to reporters during his weekly press briefing here in Tehran on Tuesday.

No. 1: It's a comic book movie.

No. 2: Since the 1960s Hollywood has consistently bashed the United States and sitting presidents. That's what socialists do. To have one deviation in a thirty-year history of self-loathing doesn't constitute some kind of international provocation.

The Iranians and the Borats Khazaks need to sit down together, smoke a peace pipe, abuse some women, and relax. Hollywood drivel shouldn't cause entire nations to get high blood pressure.

Links
Variety
Victor Davis Hanson
Los Angeles Times

An indoor micro heli

It's hard to believe $60 gets you an indoor, RC helicopter that actually flies. I should have bought one years ago. It's an Air Hog Reflex, which I picked up locally for $60. Amazon sells it for $90.

Lefty filmmakers 'disappointed and disillusioned' with Michael Moore

Liberal filmmakers learned the truth about Michael Moore while trying to film a flattering documentary about him. AP:

As documentary filmmakers, Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine looked up to Michael Moore.

Then they tried to do a documentary of their own about him — and ran into the same sort of resistance Moore himself famously faces in his own films.

The result is "Manufacturing Dissent," which turns the camera on the confrontational documentarian and examines some of his methods. Among their revelations in the movie, which had its world premiere Saturday night at the South by Southwest film festival: That Moore actually did speak with then-General Motors chairman Roger Smith, the evasive subject of his 1989 debut "Roger & Me," but chose to withhold that footage from the final cut.

[...]

"We're a bit disappointed and disillusioned with Michael," Melnyk said, "but we are still very grateful to him for putting documentaries out there in a major way that people can go to a DVD store and they're right up there alongside dramatic features."

I remember sitting at coffee shops -- havens for hard-left fools -- when "Fahrenheit 9/11" was in theaters. I heard things like, "I can't believe that Bush," and "Bush is Hitler. We must stop him." I also remember sitting in the theater, waiting for Moore's "9/11" to begin. All the socialist stereotypes were there -- Che Guevara t-shirts, unkempt beards, body odor, piercings.

While I was suspicious of Moore, every lefty I knew viewed his biased smearjob as absolute fact. I wonder what they think after seeing "Fahrenhype 9/11" and "Manufacturing Dissent"? The next time around, will these lefties exhibit that quality they find so lacking in Bush -- intellectual curiosity?

IMDB:
Manufacturing Dissent
Fahrenhype 9/11
Fahrenheit 9/11

Israeli ambassador: 'found drunk and naked apart from bondage gear'

Can't make this stuff up. BBC:

Israel has recalled its ambassador to El Salvador after he was found drunk and naked apart from bondage gear.

Reports say he was able to identify himself to police only after a rubber ball had been removed from his mouth.

A foreign ministry official described Ambassador Tzuriel Refael's behaviour as an unprecedented embarrassment.

The incident, which happened two weeks ago, has renewed calls for a radical overhaul of the way Israel appoints and promotes its diplomats.

San Salvador was Mr Refael's first post as ambassador. He was promoted in 2006 from a technical position in the ministry which had involved several foreign postings.

Is the Iraq surge working?

WaPo's Kagan writes:

Leading journalists have been reporting for some time that the war was hopeless, a fiasco that could not be salvaged by more troops and a new counterinsurgency strategy [Wrong, asshole. It was leading liberal journalists. -Ed.]. The conventional wisdom in December held that sending more troops was politically impossible after the antiwar tenor of the midterm elections. It was practically impossible because the extra troops didn't exist. Even if the troops did exist, they could not make a difference.

Four months later, the once insurmountable political opposition has been surmounted. The nonexistent troops are flowing into Iraq. And though it is still early and horrible acts of violence continue, there is substantial evidence that the new counterinsurgency strategy, backed by the infusion of new forces, is having a significant effect.

Some observers are reporting the shift. Iraqi bloggers Mohammed and Omar Fadhil, widely respected for their straight talk, say that "early signs are encouraging." The first impact of the "surge," they write, was psychological. Both friends and foes in Iraq had been convinced, in no small part by the American media, that the United States was preparing to pull out. When the opposite occurred, this alone shifted the dynamic.

As the Fadhils report, "Commanders and lieutenants of various militant groups abandoned their positions in Baghdad and in some cases fled the country." The most prominent leader to go into hiding has been Moqtada al-Sadr. His Mahdi Army has been instructed to avoid clashes with American and Iraqi forces, even as coalition forces begin to establish themselves in the once off-limits Sadr City.

Terrorist trial run: Imams to sue

The six Imams who tested the counterterrorism capability of US Airways, or were interrupted at the beginning of a terrorist operation, are moving forward with plans to sue the airline. NBC Twin Cities ; actually, this TV station could be from anywhere, as they do what most of them do -- neglect to tell the national audience their location on the front page:

Six Islamic leaders who were removed from a U-S Airways flight say they'll sue the airline for discrimination.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations says it will provide details on the lawsuit tomorrow at a Washington news conference.

If US Airways caves in to terror by settling with these thugs, I'll be true to my word and never fly with them again. If they're purchased by Delta or anyone else, I'll never fly on the conglomerate.

Happy 50th birthday, asshole

Liberal gun wheenies defeated in D.C.

Fox News:

A federal appeals court on Friday overturned the District of Columbia's longstanding handgun ban, issuing a decision that will allow the city's citizens to have working firearms in their homes.

In the ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected city officials' arguments that the Second Amendment right to bear arms only applied to state militias.

When will liberals learn that banning guns not only violates the Constitution, but it leaves guns in the hands of criminals while the general population of law-abiding citizens are left helpless?

I realize that guns make loud noises and scare liberals, but that's no excuse to try to take them away from people who want them.

Bill Gates can buy lots of cool stuff

The Forbes billionaire list just came out. Bill Gates is the richest man in the world for the 13th year in a row, with a net worth of $56 billion. That's $56,000,000,000

Bill can buy any of the following:

+ 200,000 Lamborghinis

+ 4,516 shiny new Learjets

+ 33 Space Shuttles

+ 203 Airbus A380s

+ 47 Sears Towers

+ 42% of the International Space Station

+ 1.6 million kilos of cocaine

+ Bill can buy the most expensive home in America 448 times over ($125 million, Palm Beach, owned by Donald Trump)

+ 12 Nimitz class aircraft carriers

+ 193 of the world's fastest supercomputer (IBM Blue Gene/L)

+ 378,000 heart transplants, or 622,000 kidney transplants, or 1.3 million triple bypasses

+ 195 movie productions (Bill could have produced Cleopatra, the most expensive movie ever made, 195 times; when adjusted for inflation, Cleo cost $286.4 million; Titanic was $247 million)

+ Tuition for 1.5 million college students (at George Washington University, the most expensive college in the U.S.)

+ Bill can afford to attend every NASCAR Nextel Cup race for the next 31,000,000 years. Or he could see just a few races, and eat a lot of hot dogs.

TV to be destroyed

"(Online games are) going to destroy TV - and it's going to happen in short term," said Daniel James of Three Rings during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco (BBC story).

This is crackpot nonsense of the highest order highly speculative. James has been intoxicated by his dreams -- and his stock options.

And Mark Kern of Red 5 Studios is almost as dumb hopeful: "Five years from now a social networking site without a 3D universe will look like a dinosaur."

We heard all about the 3-D world of Virtual Reality in the mid-1990s. Remember the movie, Johnny Mnemonic? It never came to pass because a "3D universe" is a huge, inefficient, pain in the ass. Kern isn't going to change that in five years.

The predictions spinning out of the Game Developers Conference remind me of something Bill Gates said in January -- the internet will revolutionize TV within five years.

Is Hussein's ship taking on water?

The New York Times is reporting that Barack Hussein Obama, Democratic candidate for president, made stock purchases that smell of corruption:

Less than two months after ascending to the United States Senate, Barack Obama bought more than $50,000 worth of stock in two speculative companies whose major investors included some of his biggest political donors.

One of the companies was a biotech concern that was starting to develop a drug to treat avian flu. In March 2005, two weeks after buying about $5,000 of its shares, Mr. Obama took the lead in a legislative push for more federal spending to battle the disease.

The most recent financial disclosure form for Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, also shows that he bought more than $50,000 in stock in a satellite communications business whose principal backers include four friends and donors who had raised more than $150,000 for his political committees.

These shady dealings probably won't hurt his chances, because Democrats forgive any behavior from people with good public speaking skills (see: Bubba).

Commies seize control of Reddit

Reddit, a competitor to Digg, has been hijacked by impeachment monkies. So, it's gone from my sidebar.

Cross restored at College of William and Mary

The college removed a cross from the campus chapel after receiving complaints. Fox News:

A compromise announced today will permanently return a brass cross to the chapel at the College of William and Mary in a prominent display rather than its previous altar post.

The compromise was offered as a recommendation by a panel comprising alumni, students and others formed by President Gene Nichol in response to outcry created by his decision to remove the cross.

"This has been a challenging task for the committee, but it has produced a compromise that allows for permanent display of the cross in the chapel, while remaining welcoming to all," Nichols told the Associated Press.

O'Reilly had a college alumnus on his show Tuesday evening who used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain complaints about the cross. There was only one complaint! The college removed a cross from its chapel because of A SINGLE COMPLAINT.

This is a job for Blobby! Neutral in color, shape, gender and religious affiliation, he's the only religious symbol incapable of offending anyone. Blobby is "welcoming to all."

Vomit gun

The U.S. military is working on a new gun that will make people vomit.

'Coultergate'

Absurd French law bans filming violent acts

This is just pathetic; from Macworld:

The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

The council chose an unfortunate anniversary to publish its decision approving the law, which came exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday on the night of March 3, 1991. The officers’ acquittal at the end on April 29, 1992 sparked riots in Los Angeles.

If Holliday were to film a similar scene of violence in France today, he could end up in prison as a result of the new law, said Pascal Cohet, a spokesman for French online civil liberties group Odebi. And anyone publishing such images could face up to five years in prison and a fine of 75,000 (US$98,537), potentially a harsher sentence than that for committing the violent act.

I hope the frogs do what socialists do best -- defy authority.

Hippie roundup

I went into the bombed out liberal wasteland again...

TPM Muckraker

Nineteen of the first 20 postings are dedicated to the story about ousting federal prosecutors. It reminds me of the Nataleeeee Holloway coverage on Fox (repetitive, nauseating, boring).

AmericaBlog

A post titled "Gays declare war on Coulter" begins with, "Let the fun begin."

And John Aravosis believes he can see the future for Scooter Libby:

It's a done deal, Libby is getting pardoned. Hell, I'd be surprised if he doesn't get a medal. No one, no one, no one is ever held responsible for anything in this administration, and if George Bush has to put the final nail in the coffin of his political legacy by pardoning Libby, trust me, he will. It's a tale of lawlessness. Of an adminstration that thinks it's holier than thou. Holier than the laws of this great country, holier than the courts, the Congress, the Constitution. Nothing gets in the way of a zealot, and Scooter Libby is just the latest zealot in a long line of Republicans in the Bush White House and Congress who simply don't believe in the rules that govern our country, our society, and our world.

I'll check back to see if John is correct.

Old John is an excitable sort:

Just got back from CNN. I suspect I'll have more to add tomorrow, but the Hotline perhaps summed up best my feelings on Ann Coulter: If conservatives really think her hate doesn't represent them, then stop inviting her.

Such powerful, insightful writing from John.

Crooks and Liars

Nicole Belle on the Walter Reed scandal:

Grover Norquist famously said he wanted to shrink government to the point he could drown it in a bathtub. Therefore, in honor of this pillar of the Party of Coulter, I dub the latest salvo on the part of the Republican party to deflect accountability and rationalize corruption and ineptitude "The Norquist Defense."

SilentPatriot gets his news from Jon Stewart, as do most hippies:

In the second bit, Jon digs through the Bush administration video vault and shows how the "party of responsibility" blames everyone else for their screw-ups (missing WMD, lack of body armor, Abu Ghraib, troop levels, etc.). And we all know there are plenty of those to go around.

Hippies are calling Ann Coulter's "faggot" comment "Coultergate". Strange that a single word uttered by a far-right writer warrants "gate", as if Coulter has the power to destroy an entire ideology.

I know most of you are probably sick of Ann Coulter already (I don't blame you), but I thought this clip was really worth posting. Air America's Rachel Maddow was on Countdown last night and hit all the right notes, making the important point that Ann is the face of — and represents and speaks for — the rabid CPAC crowd and young conservative movement that continues to encourage the Ann Coulters of the world and allows them to thrive. That's the lesson we should all take away from this.

John Amato is breathless after hearing Libby's guilty verdicts:

Breaking…Libby found guilty on 4 of 5 counts…Sentencing date…June 5th…Up to 25 long, hard years..

Harry Reid calls for the " no pardon" rule on Scooter…Wells is very disappointed in the jury. Really? He does believe in the justice system still…Wells gave a minute statement and ran away from the cameras…

FOX NEWS is trying to figure out all the angles how Libby can get off…Another host is telling us how busy his life is and he couldn't remember much of his own conversations…

"Up to 25 long, hard years..." John is demonstrating a common problem with liberalism -- he's confusing the liberal utopia he dreams about with reality. I predict Libby will get 2-3 years at a federal country club because this isn't very important.

SilentPatriot on Coulter's first TV appearance after the slur:

In her first television appearance since the CPAC slur (she bailed on Paula Zahn tonight), Coulter ventures into friendly territory to "explain" herself. Colmes gets first crack and, of course, she dances around, downplaying it as just another example of her conservative "humor," and even goes so far as to say it's like "the old Soviet Union" because people are trying to silence her — the standard (and laughable) Melanie Morgan/"I'm the victim" defense. As predicted, Hannity assumes the role of Apologist-in-Chief and deflects blame onto, who else, Democrats.

I don't approve of Coulter's use of the word "faggot", but if it rattles hippies this much, it can't be all that bad.

Daily Kos

Daily Kos founder Markos Zuniga believes "the conservative movement craves ... a steady diet of hate and rage," citing Michael Savage as an example of that "hate and rage". Markos also says Savage's views are what most conservatives think.

And Markos is still fighting to kill the Nevada debate because it's on Fox News:

The issue is to deprive the right wing's premier propaganda outlet an easy opportunity to take cheap shots at our guys.

It's easy for Democrats to shun right wing TV news outlets because there is only one in the entire nation.

ThinkProgress

Faiz is beating the impeachment drum:

According to a new report in Esquire magazine, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) has suggested that Congress may consider the impeachment of President Bush before his term ends.

The hippies at ThinkProgress are still mistaking "redeployment" for "withdrawal":

Americans want redeployment -- 60 percent of Americans “want Congress to set a timetable to withdraw all U.S. troops by the end of 2008,” according to a new USA Today/Gallup poll. “The share of people who now call the war a mistake is 59 percent — the same as September 2005 and the highest level in the 58 times the question has been asked since the war began.”

Hippies choose to live in an obscure version of reality. The poll mentioned in the short blog post says "withdrawal," but the post's headline says "redeployment". Geeez, talk about clinging to talking points.

FiredogLake

Among all the hippie blogs I read today, Eli at FiredogLake had the best offering. I disagree with most of what he says, but at least he's thinking and writing, rather than just complaining about the right (and, yes, I realize my blog does a great deal of bashing liberals):

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, more destructive to our electoral process than our current campaign finance system. Thanks to the ever-increasing costs of saturation advertising, candidates are becoming more consumed with chasing money than chasing votes. And most of that money is not coming from (financially) ordinary citizens like us, but from wealthy individuals, corporations, and industry PACs. In the so-called "money primary," we don't get much of a vote. And if, as the defenders of the status quo like to say, money equals speech, then we don't get much of a voice, either. Our elections should not be decided by who can raise the most money; that's way down there on my list of Skills It Is Important For My Elected Officials To Have, unless they want to use their fundraising powers to start chipping away at the national debt.

Jane Hamsher (hamster?) invites hippies to "take a victory lap" after learning of Libby's guilty verdicts. I think that's code for "fire up the bong".

Liberal Values

This was included under a post titled "Fairy Tales of The Right":

While libertarians and fiscal conservatives are correct in their opposition to many of Bush’s policies, the Republicans have never been the champions of small government which they claim to be. In past years they often blamed Democrats who controlled part of government, promising that things would be different if they could really do what they wanted. Finally we had several years of complete government control of all three branches of government, as well as a news media which allowed them to get away with virtually anything without meaningful exposure. We saw the nightmare which came of that.

And they're championing John Kerry:

The Washington Post reports that the problems with health care provided to veterans are not only occurring at Walter Reed. It is also not only Iraq and not only 2007. John Kerry reported the same type of problems in his testimony before the Senate in 1971. Kerry testified to represent the views of veterans who “feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country.”

If anybody lacks credibility on all things military, it's a guy (Kerry) who threw down his fraudulently obtained medals and worked tirelessly to weaken our country during a time of war (twice).

Welcome to Pottersville

Jurrasicpork has this strange bit of rambling:

There’s just something at once mournful yet strangely uplifting seeing children playing among ruins, youth and vitality triumphing over destruction. When it’s the ruins of a war zone, however, no poetry is possible and it’s just plain mournful.

How much time elapsed between his last bong hit and writing that graph? Three seconds? Five?

And supporting a presidential candidate who has only one thing going for him -- charisma:

The conventional wisdom about Barack Obama is that he’s smart and charismatic but so inexperienced that we should feel jittery about him in the Oval Office.

But that view is myopic. In some respects, Mr. Obama is far more experienced than other presidential candidates.

His experience as an antipoverty organizer in Chicago, for example, gives him a deep grasp of a crucial 21st-century challenge — poverty in America — that almost all politicians lack. He says that grass-roots experience helps explain why he favors not only government spending programs, like early childhood education, but also cultural initiatives, like efforts to promote responsible fatherhood.

If I understand this correctly, being an "antipoverty organizer in Chicago" is sufficient experience to be president of the United States. Hmmmmm.

On the Iraq War:

Certainly the answer to the question, “What does support the troops mean to you” depends largely if not entirely upon how we proceed in Iraq. Does it mean being honest with the troops for a change and admitting that the surge only has a one in four chance of succeeding as Gen. Petraeus let slip out or does it somehow involve continuing to lie to them when they’re up against virtually impossible odds fighting an insurgency of smoke and shadows in a foreign land?

"Insurgency of smoke and shadows" is nice imagery, I must admit. Rather than complain about how the stabilization of Iraq is progressing, why not offer something other than "run away"?

Should Alan Greenspan shut his piehole?

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke recently gave an "upbeat" opinion on the U.S. economy. Alan Greenspan said things aren't so good. Financial Times:

Alan Greenspan risked stirring renewed controversy on Tuesday when he told Bloomberg news agency that there was a “one-third probability” of a US recession this year.

The former Federal Reserve chairman’s comments are starkly at odds with the relatively upbeat assessment made by Ben Bernanke, his ­successor, in testimony to Congress last week.

Mr Greenspan’s latest remarks come barely a week after he told investors in Hong Kong that he thought a US recession this year was “possible”. The comments spread quickly through the investment community, spooking investors and ­contributing to turmoil in financial markets.

Following a global sell-off in equities and other assets, Mr Greenspan was forced to clarify his original statement, declaring he had said that a recession this year was “possible” but not “probable”.

Greenspan can have a dramatic impact on our economy and the stock market, even in retirement. But should he be opening his pie hole after stepping down? Why retire if he's still in the game?

My view is that he should speak his mind.

What would Mohammed (PBUH&trade) drive?

A cartoon from a few years ago, "What Would Mohammed Drive", prompted creator Doug Marlette to think about CAIR's victimology and the new censorship in America.

A CAIR follower, after being properly whipped into a frenzy, sent Doug a letter: "I will cut your fingers and put them in your mother's ass."

The most disturbing thing about the "Mohammed" experience was that a laptop Luftwaffe was able to blitz editors into not running the cartoon in my own newspaper. "WWMD" ran briefly on the Tallahassee Democrat Web site, but once an outcry was raised, the editors pulled it and banned it from the newspaper altogether.

The cyberprotest by CAIR showed a sophisticated understanding of what motivates newsroom managers these days - bottom-line concerns, a wish for the machinery to run smoothly, and the human-resources mandate not to offend. Many of my e-mail detractors appeared to be well-educated, recent émigrés. Even if their English sometimes faltered, they were fluent in the language of victimhood. Presumably, victimization was one of their motives for leaving their native countries, yet the subtext of many of their letters was that this country should be more like the ones they emigrated from. They had the American know-how without the know-why. In the name of tolerance, in the name of their peaceful God, they threatened violence against someone they accused of falsely accusing them of violence.

Maddox slams Mac users

Maddox is back, and this time he's attacking Mac users.


Image: Maddox

'Kentucky Fried Hillary' truly shameless

While speaking before a crowd in Kentucky, Hillarious Clinton adopted a fake southern accent. The psychotic Hillarious can't help herself. She has no identity of her own.



Fox News story
Audio recording

New York Times embarrasses itself (again)

In their Sunday editorial, The New York Times laid out for the world an appalling lack of understanding about what we're facing (via LGF). Called "The Must-Do List", the case for far-left hippies is presented. Each item can easily be defeated by comparing the socialist utopia The Times is pining away for and the actual reality in which we live.

I'll focus on one: Ban Extraordinary Rendition.

To destroy this argument, I'll rely on Dr. Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris, which is an anti-war, anti-Bush book that I happen to own. Scheuer is the former head of the "bin Laden unit" for the CIA; he has credentials that are second to none on the issue of rendition.

Scheuer published an op-ed piece in The New York Times on March 11, 2005, where he said:

The rendition program has been a tremendous success. Dozens of senior Qaeda fighters are today behind bars, no longer able to plot or participate in attacks. Detainee operations also netted an untold number of computers and documents that increased our knowledge of Al Qaeda's makeup and plans.

Read that again: one of the foremost experts on al-Qaeda, the hunt for OBL, and -- get this -- a rabid Bush hater, says "the rendition program has been a tremendous success."

"The rendition program has been a tremendous success."

Get it?

The Scheuer story is the gift that keeps on giving. I've quoted it numerous times over the years, and will probably keep doing so as long as wilfully ignorant people continue to advocate for shutting down something so obviously beneficial for national security.

Of course, Dr. Scheuer isn't the only person who has successfuly battled the hippie mindset. The case for rendition was made quite effectively by Charles Krauthammer, writing for The Weekly Standard, Dec. 5, 2005:

Let's Take An Example that is far from hypothetical. You capture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Pakistan. He not only has already killed innocents, he is deeply involved in the planning for the present and future killing of innocents. He not only was the architect of the 9/11 attack that killed nearly three thousand people in one day, most of them dying a terrible, agonizing, indeed tortured death. But as the top al Qaeda planner and logistical expert he also knows a lot about terror attacks to come. He knows plans, identities, contacts, materials, cell locations, safe houses, cased targets, etc. What do you do with him?

We have recently learned that since 9/11 the United States has maintained a series of "black sites" around the world, secret detention centers where presumably high-level terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed have been imprisoned. The world is scandalized. Black sites? Secret detention? Jimmy Carter calls this "a profound and radical change in the . . . moral values of our country." The Council of Europe demands an investigation, calling the claims "extremely worrying." Its human rights commissioner declares "such practices" to constitute "a serious human rights violation, and further proof of the crisis of values" that has engulfed the war on terror. The gnashing of teeth and rending of garments has been considerable.

I myself have not gnashed a single tooth. My garments remain entirely unrent. Indeed, I feel reassured. It would be a gross dereliction of duty for any government not to keep Khalid Sheikh Mohammed isolated, disoriented, alone, despairing, cold and sleepless, in some godforsaken hidden location in order to find out what he knew about plans for future mass murder. What are we supposed to do? Give him a nice cell in a warm Manhattan prison, complete with Miranda rights, a mellifluent lawyer, and his own website? Are not those the kinds of courtesies we extended to the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, then congratulated ourselves on how we "brought to justice" those responsible for an attack that barely failed to kill tens of thousands of Americans, only to discover a decade later that we had accomplished nothing--indeed, that some of the disclosures at the trial had helped Osama bin Laden avoid U.S. surveillance?

One simply doesn't combat inhumane monsters who behead people, kill children, and commit numerous other atrocities on a daily basis, with the childlike fantasies put forth in The Times editorial.

Fog of war shrouds The Lancet

What do you get when scientists with known anti-war views research civilian casualties of war? The Lancet. Times of London:

If you factor in politics, the heat increases. One of The Lancet authors, Dr Les Roberts, campaigned for a Democrat seat in the US House of Representatives and has spoken out against the war. Dr Richard Horton, editor of the The Lancet is also antiwar. He says: “I believe this paper was very thoroughly reviewed. Every piece of work we publish is criticised – and quite rightly too. No research is perfect. The best we can do is make sure we have as open, transparent and honest a debate as we can. Then we'll get as close to the truth as possible. That is why I was so disappointed many politicians rejected the findings of this paper before really thinking through the issues.”

[...]

Dr Richard Garfield, an American academic who had collaborated with the authors on an earlier study, declined to join this one because he did not think that the risk to the interviewers was justifiable. Together with Professor Hans Rosling and Dr Johan Von Schreeb at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Dr Garfield wrote to The Lancet to insist there must be a “substantial reporting error” because Burnham et al suggest that child deaths had dropped by two thirds since the invasion. The idea that war prevents children dying, Dr Garfield implies, points to something amiss.

So, if The Lancet is correct, the child mortality rate dropped because of the war. Raise your hand if you believe this.

Barbarians at the gate Hippies at the pump

The gas pumps in my neighborhood have been smeared with hippie noise.

Screamin' Dean demands apology from Coulter

Ann Coulter, a far-right writer known for sensationalism, called John Edwards a "faggot", and Howard Dean held a press conference to demand an apology (Fox News story here). Where was Dean when a foreign head of state, Hugo Chavez, called a sitting president "the devil"?

Screamin' Dean is nothing short of laughable. I have more respect for dogs.



Edwards is leveraging the slur, according to Fox News:

John Edwards' campaign, reacting to derogatory comments by conservative commentator Ann Coulter — she called the former North Carolina senator and presidential hopeful a "faggot" — is trying to turn it into a rallying point for fundraising, asking supporters to donate $100,000 in "Coulter Cash."

Appeals court won't hear torture case

From AFP:

A US federal appeals court on Friday upheld a refusal to hear the case of a Lebanese-born German man who says he was tortured by the
CIA, citing national security reasons.

Khaled el-Masri claims was detained by the CIA for several months in 2004 on suspicion of links to terrorism.

Masri, 43, filed suit in December 2005 saying he had been snatched while on a trip in Macedonia, taken to
Afghanistan, jailed, beaten and harassed before being set free without charge after five months.

He demanded an explanation and an apology from the United States for his detention, as well as 75,000 dollars in damages.

The US government had urged the court to reject the appeal saying that for national security reasons it could not confirm or deny any of the allegations because they were related to the activities of the CIA.

Flight of the Valkyries Venezuelans

AP is reporting on the flight of rich Venezuelans. It seems they prefer the land of "Satan" to the their own little tyrant. This is not unlike the flight of wealthy Europeans to Switzerland.

As Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez further tightens control of the South American country's economy, wealthy Venezuelans who once thought they could live with his socialist edicts are turning to their backup plan — flight to the United States, particularly Florida.

Venezuelans have long gobbled up condos and pre-construction deals in Florida as investments, but the latest buyers want homes where they can live and business properties that will help them earn a green card.

Julio Pinto hides behind 'free speech'

Kent State professor Julio Pinto writes for a jihadi website, global-war.bloghi.com. His picture is also posted online. When called on his radical views, the apparent terror supporter had this to say:

A Kent State University faculty member accused of authoring an anti-American Web site said Thursday he "absolutely" does not support jihad, even though his photo and writings by him appear on the site.

Julio Pino, 46, said he calls the truth as he sees it.

"I am not the issue," he said calmly as he prepared for a class in Afro-Latin American History in KSU's Business Administration building. "The issue is free speech."

[...]

The site also includes a letter that Pino wrote under his name last year to the student-run newspaper the Daily Kent Stater. The same letter on the jihadist Web site is attributed to "Lover of Angels" but does not mention Kent State or Pino.

"You attack, and continue to attack, us everywhere," reads the letter on the Web site and in the student newspaper. "The ill done to the Muslim nations must be requited. The Muslim child does not cry alone; the Muslim woman does not cry alone; and the Muslim man is already at your gates."

The Web site attributes three other postings on its speech page to the unidentified Lover of Angels, one of which reads, "Bush, why don't you tell your people that your soldiers are committing suicide, taking drugs and hallucination pills to make them sleep? By God, your dreams will be defeated by our blood and by our bodies."

Pino exhibits the same hatred for his own country as Ward Churchill, and he uses Churchill's shield -- the 1st amendment. Since the U.S. is never going to transform itself into the country these folks want it to be -- terror-supporting and appeasing -- why don't they leave? The green fields of Ireland are calling...

Qadaffi wants rewards for being non-nuclear

The BBC is reporting that Mick Jagger Muammar Qadaffi of Libya wants to be paid for not having nuclear weapons. Other nations are getting paid, so he has a point. This is why the stick almost always works better than the carrot -- it's less expensive for sane, Western countries, plus it carries some honor. Does a kid who got beaten by the playground bully pay the bully not to hit him again?

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has said his country has not been given adequate compensation for its decision to renounce nuclear weapons in 2003.

Speaking to the BBC, Colonel Gaddafi said the failure by the West to reward Libya meant Iran and North Korea were reluctant to follow Tripoli's lead.

Burqa Blue

Via LGF.

There can be only one

AP is reporting on a sword fight:

A man toting a 3-foot sword apparently met his match when he broke into his ex-girlfriend's apartment: The woman's roommate grabbed a sword of his own and sliced the intruder, police said.

Al Gore circumvents airport security

Algore circumvented security at the Nashville Airport on his way to the mansion that consumes 20x the electricity of the average American home. Algore seems to be out of control.

The ultimate repo: ships

The Los Angeles Times is running a spectacular story about F. Max Hardberger, a "vessel extractor" who repossesses ships from seedy ports all over the world:

If a repossession is requested, Hardberger and his team quietly enter the country involved. They seek out friendly officials and trusted local contacts such as ship agents who tend to a vessel's logistical needs in port.

"You need to pick up clues about the ship and what is said in the bars, at the ship chandlers and in the local whorehouses," Hardberger said. "Crews are not that sophisticated and talk about their orders and departure times. You can really keep track of a vessel this way."

Hardberger said he does not carry a firearm, though he has hired bodyguards, as he did with the Aztec Express. Stealth and trickery are the preferred methods.

"I do not want my face seen," he added.

Such tactics were employed in April 1999, when Hardberger was asked to extract a 280-foot cargo ship that had put in for repairs at Drapetsona, a part of the Greek port of Piraeus. "It's a place," he says, "where ship names are repainted quickly."

Photoshop post is finished

I compiled most of my photoshopped images here.