Stupid Euros panic at Floridians' right to self-defense

Leave it to the Euros to completely overreact and be wrong about Florida's new self-defense law. In short, the new law does away with the fatally flawed liberal approach of giving the criminal your belongings (or kids) and running away, or waiting on a "reliable" government agency to help you out (worked well in New Orleans, didn't it?). Instead, it gives citizens the right to defend themselves, with deadly force if necessary, against threats to themselves or their family/friends. Oh, the horror!!

Anyway, gun-controlling Euroweenie reaction and misrepresentation story here:

"Warning: Florida residents can use deadly force," says one of the adverts. Another reads: "Thinking about a Florida vacation? Please ensure your family is safe. In Florida, avoid disputes. Use special caution in arguing with motorists on Florida roads."

Well hell, road rage is certainly common here and in other countries. It's also illegal, and was just as illegal before this new Florida self-defense law came into existence. Road rage shootings aren't going to increase because of this law...how stupid to think it will! If Euros want to insure their families will be safe in Florida, then don't try to commit an act of crime while here! It's that damned simple! Maybe Florida should run ads that read as follows:

"Warning: you are welcome to come to Florida, as long as you obey the law and don't harm anyone! If you choose to be a violent criminal while in our state, then you choose to be a shooting range target while in our state! Commit no crime, and worry not...enjoy your visit!"

Look, if some trigger-happy Floridian shoots a tourist because the tourist is arguing with him, then said Floridian will be arrested, tried, and convicted...unless he can prove that the tourist was attempting to harm or kill him AND that shooting the tourist was the most logical, reasonable, and viable alternative. You underestimate people's intellect if you thnk the average Joe/Jane will think "Well, how else was he supposed to handle the tourist? Walk away from the argument? Hell no, shoot the bastard!" Instead, the average Joe/Jane will think "Geez, he didn't have a reasonable purpose to shoot that tourist! He needs to be locked up forever!"

Satire piece of the day: "FEMA too late to rescue Congress"

Blatantly stolen (but properly credited) from Scrappleface. Great satire:

Former FEMA Director Mike Brown told a House investigative panel yesterday that he takes much of the blame for the agency's response to "a national disaster of horrifying proportions which continues to cause pain, heartache and devastating financial hardship for millions of Americans."

"I should have come to Congress sooner to witness this tragedy in person," Mr. Brown told lawmakers. "As the government official in charge of coordinating disaster relief, I must take a large share of the blame for the dysfunctional organization, petty bickering, turf wars and massive amounts of wasteful spending that continue to this day."

The departing director acknowledged that the agency had been "overwhelmed by the scope and sequence of the disaster."

"FEMA is set up to handle storms that blow hard, and pass quickly," he said. "Congress has only one of those characteristics."

So does Monica Lewinksy! Ooooooohhhhhhhhh! Did I just say that?

Point to ponder: Bull Connor

Recently, Harlem moonbat House member Charlie Rangel called President Bush "our Bull Connor." For those of you who need a quick history lesson, Theophilus "Bull" Connor was a "firehose-directing, dog-siccing racist" police official of Birmingham during the segregation days of the 1960's.

Ignoring the obvious disparities in comparing the two, which aren't even worth meriting a discussion, there's just one inconvenient little tidbit that Rangel and his race-baiting ilk overlook:

Bull Connor once sat where Howard Dean now sits: member of the Democratic National Committee! Yep, Connor was a Democrat, the single Democratic National Committeeman from Alabama.

Oops...stepped in a little dog squeeze there, didn't ya, Charlie?

Thanks, Anchoress!

FBI's "porn squad"

The war on terror isn't enough to concentrate on. No, instead the feds want to save us from orgasms ourselves, via an anti-porn task force. Not kiddie porn, but the kind that consenting adults spend billions on per year.

Hat tip to the Farkers for this logo...I wonder if the feds will see it quite this way?

Weird news item of the day

Headline: "Danish Air Force Compensates Santa"

If Johnny Cochran were alive today, he's probably say: "If Donner is dead, then show me the bread!"

You gotta love those Euros!

DeLay indicted

Those of you who've been here for a while know that I am no fan of Tom DeLay. I think he's an arrogant blowhard, drunk with power. Yet I can't help but wonder how much of this indictment is a political witch-hunt.

Michelle Malkin has a great post (frequently updated) detailing the goings-on with the case. I'll let you read it for yourself, but here are a few things of interest about the Democrat prosecutor, Ronnie Earle:

The Travis County, Texas, prosecutor investigating Mr. DeLay has a history of using his office for partisan ends."(Congressional prerogative, The Washington Times, November 19, 2004)

Earle has demonstrated a past zeal for indicting conservative figures and even liberals with whom he has personal or professional disagreements. (Target: DeLay, National Review, April 11, 2005)

Earle's partisan prosecutions - which have frequently failed - are designed for political harm, not legal harm. Earle is the same partisan prosecutor who politically indicted and failed to convict:

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (1994, Earle made a series of trumped-up charges, including that the demure Hutchison had physically assaulted an employee. Earle dropped the case during the trial.)

Conservative Democrat Bob Bullock (when he was Comptroller - later he was Lt. Governor)

Democrat Attorney General Jim Mattox (political foe in the 1980's, charges fell apart at trial)

Ronnie Earle's three year political vendetta against Rep. DeLay has been marked by:

Illegal grand jury leaks,
A fundraising speech by Earle for the Texas Democrat party that inappropriately focused on the investigation,
Misuse of his office for partisan purposes, and
Extortion of money for Earle's pet projects from corporations in exchange for dismissing indictments he brought against them.

Ronnie Earle has been frequently criticized for his methods:

The Dallas Morning News criticized Earle in the Hutchison case:

"the impression of partisan unfairness has certainly been reinforced by the leaks and public comment about Hutchison's case from the District Attorney's office throughout the summer. That the Grand Jury investigation has been conducted with so much fanfare such as the tip-offs to the new media when key records were seized from the former treasurer's office has added a darker tone to the cloudy proceedings." (Hutchison Probe; Fair and Speedy trial is essential, The Dallas Morning News, September 28, 1993)

The Houston Chronicle called into question Earle's impartiality and judgment:

"The fact that Earle refuses to recognize his blunder and would do it again calls into question whether he has the necessary impartiality and judgment to conduct the investigation that to a great extent will determine whether Texas election campaigns will be financed and perhaps determined by corporations or by individuals."

(Self-inflicted wound; District attorney's poor judgment in speaking at a Democratic fund-raiser provides an unintended boost for DeLay's defenders., The Houston Chronicle, May 20, 2005)

If this guy is drawing the ire of some pretty GOP-unfriendly MSM sources like the Houston Chronicle and the Dallas Morning News, and considering the above points (which are a drop in a bucket), one has to question his objectivity.

Having said that, if DeLay is guilty, he'll rightly pay for it. If DeLay is innocent, he will remain a free man. However, his national image will be tarnished (more than it already was before this), and he will likely not get his leadership post back. Hmmmmm...maybe that's the point?

Finally, I reflexively question the charges when I see the MSM getting worked up more than Barney Frank at a front-row table at Chippendale's. Especially when one considers that Nancy Pelosi was actively (and illegally) circumventing election laws, and that Chuckie Schumer's staff was actively invading privacy and stealing credit info on a political foe...yet the MSM has been quieter than Hillary Clinton during lovemaking.

Nope...no liberal media bias!

UPDATE (9/29/05 - 8:55 p.m. EST): Byron York tells us that for the last two years, Prosecutor Earle "has given a film crew 'extraordinary access' to make a motion picture about his work on the case." But I'm sure this isn't a political witch hunt, though...just as I'm sure that the National Organization for Women (NOW) is just a group of average Janes with no lesbian agenda!

Air America panhandling

Air America, being thoroughly entrenched in a socialist mindset, since its inception has completely ignored the single most important fundamental rule of broadcast media survival: bring in advertiser revenue. If you don't sell advertising, your media outlet doesn't survive. It doesn't matter if it's TV, radio, magazines, or newspapers. No money, no workee!

Well, poor AA (relax, Ted Kennedy...I'm talking about Air America)! They've not learned that lesson, and they've had to resort to looting charities just to generate enough operational revenue to keep the lights on. Now, we see other forms of AA's panhandling from the network that was supposed to rival Rush Limbaugh:

Air America, the liberal radio answer to Rush Limbaugh, is now asking its listeners to send in money, leading some analysts to say the network is "crumbling."

The network, featuring voices including Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo, has developed a program where people become "associate" members by contributing cash.

On its website, Air America lists the benefits of membership, stating, "In return for your help, we'll send you a monthly Associates insider e-mail with the backstage news from our shows and our headquarters. When we take Air America Radio on the road, we'll invite you to meet our hosts and progressive leaders in your community. And for gifts of $50 and up, we've got free stuff to send you."

Chuckle...snortle...snicker! Yes, you did read that right..."FREE...for $50!"

Quite pitiful, isn't it? They have to resort to a fund-raising model instead of a business (i.e. capitalist) model. If this doesn't convince you that left-wing liberalism is largely incompatible with capitalism, I don't know what will.

More on Democratic identity theft

Recall the story of how Maryland Republican Lt. Governor Michael Steele had his Social Security number used, without his permission or knowledge, to illegally obtain his credit report. The culprits were none other than staffers of Mr. Anti-ID Theft himself, Chuckie Schumer. Smell the wonderful aroma of irony?

Anyway, Michelle Malkin has a follow-up column, along with the observation that the MSM is avoiding the story like Teddy Kennedrunk avoids AA meetings:

Law enforcement officials are taking this criminal intrusion into private records deadly seriously. But left-wing partisans are nowhere to be found. Steele's staff tells me that longtime crusader against identity theft Sen. Schumer, who denies having any knowledge of the scheme, has still issued no apology for the abuse of Steele's personal data. And there has been no outcry from the ACLU, the champions of clean campaigns, or any major national newspaper editorial board.
(Protecting privacy only seems to matter to liberals when it comes to 14-year-old girls seeking abortions behind their parents' backs, illegal aliens seeking sanctuary from the police, and registered sex offenders objecting to community registration requirements.)

Needless to say, if it had been Republicans involved in this outrageous breach of privacy and the target had been a liberal minority politician, it would be front-page news.

Nope...no liberal media bias.

Media connect dots on one side, ignore gaping holes on other side

This is beginning to be predictable from that bastion of "long since gone" credibility, the New York Times. They're getting all hot and bothered over FEMA no-bid contracts, because presumably, it is better to take time and bureaucracy to bid out aid contracts? You think the bitching is loud now about how long the federal government took? What if they didn't do fast-track bidding or no-bid contracts? The same MSM would be aghast at the delay. Damned if you do, yada-yada-yada. Anyway, from the Godfather:

There aren't too many people that do this kind of work, there aren't too many companies. Halliburton is one, Bechtel is one, and there's another group that does this called the Shaw Group. Now, one of the people coming under fire for these no-bid contracts is a lobbyist by the name of Joe Allbaugh. Now, Joe is from southeast Missouri like I am. Joe was one of Bush's campaign managers in 2000, was the first head of FEMA in the Bush administration. And as MSNBC reports, it's the same thing the New York Times said, "At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast. One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton."

Notice that the Slimes mentions the Bush connection (Allbaugh) to corporate clients who received no-bid contracts to clean up battered Gulf states; and they mention the obligatory "Halliburton, who Cheney used to work for" line. What they leave out about the Shaw Group, though, is damned telling.

Yeah, we all know that Cheney headed up Halliburton, but we don't know anything about the Shaw Group. Well, now we do. "J. M. Bernhard, Jr., is the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of the Shaw Group, a Fortune 500 company offering a broad range of services to the power, process, environmental, infrastructure, and emergency response markets.

(snip...)

Now, you know where I'm reading this from? I said all you have to do is go to the website. I didn't say the Shaw Group website, because I'm not reading from the Shaw Group website.

You know what I'm reading from? The Louisiana Democratic Party website. And you know what the headline is over the details I just read to you, "about our chairman." Turns out that J. M. Bernhard, Jr., founder, chairman, chief executive officer of the Shaw Group is the chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party. Now, why couldn't the New York Times tell you this? Why couldn't NBC tell you this on their website? Why couldn't Chris Matthews tell you this on Hardball last night? Why can't Katie Couric tell you this? Why can't anybody at CNN pass this on to you? Why doesn't anybody at any of these networks or newspapers, the Washington Post, tell you who this Shaw Group is?

(snip...)

Well, they're going to be pretty embarrassed when they find out that Joe Allbaugh, evil Republican crony of Bush and lobbyist, gave one of these no-bid contracts to the chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party.

Repeat after me: "Nope...no liberal media bias."

The French were targets of Islamic terror attack?

Yes, the French foiled an Islamofascist terror attack today. Story:

Authorities fear that a suspected Islamic terror cell broken up in France was plotting attacks on the Paris subway, an airport and an intelligence agency's headquarters, newspapers said Tuesday.

Police arrested nine people Monday in the sweep, including an Islamic militant previously convicted on terrorism charges and freed from prison two years ago, officials said.

So how's that appeasement working for you, Chirac? I wonder if the Boston Globe still thinks we need to negotiate with al Qaeda, in light of the plan to attack a nation that was capitulating to Islamic terrorism and wasn't trying to offend those poor little killer weird-beards. After all, haven't the bloodthirsty camel jockies been telling us that if we just leave them alone, they'll leave us alone?

Looks like they...gasp!...LIED! Who knew?

al Qaeda in Iraq's #2 terrorist killed

Bad news for the Sheehanistas: one less "freedom fighter" to advance the cause of Islamic terrorism. Story:

U.S. and Iraqi authorities said Tuesday their forces had killed Abdullah Abu Azzam - the No. 2 official in the al-Qaida in Iraq organization - in a weekend raid in Baghdad, claiming to have struck a "painful blow" to the country's most feared insurgent group.

Oh, well, until our "evil, imperialistic, murderous" troops kill or capture bin Laden or al Zarqawi, the Sheehanistas still have someone to cheer for. Plus, they can take comfort in knowing that Azzam is partying his turban off with his 72 new virgin wives, now that he's taken his eternal celestial sand nap...courtesy of the red, white, and blue!

Sheehan's protest "backers"

Neal Boortz best describes She-man's backers:

Sheehan's protest was organized by International A.N.S.W.E.R. I've told you about this group before. One of the moving forces behind International A.N.S.W.E.R is a cuddly little group called the Worker's World Party. That's a communist organization, in case you didn't know. The Worker's World Party supports governments like those of Kim Jong Il in North Korea and Fidel Castro in Cuba. The Worker's World Party and other like-minded organizations formed International A.N.S.W.E.R following the Islamic terrorist attacks of 9/11 in an attempt to forestall any U.S. military response to those attacks. In the leadership of International A.N.S.W.E.R you will find people who have been supporting communist causes and working for the weakening of America for many many years. The groups behind International A.N.S.W.E.R have also called for the abolition of private property. This is the group that Cindy Sheehan, for now, at least, has adopted as her own. She sure knows how to pick her friends.

By the way, for those of you who are so naive as to think that the protest is all about Iraq, how about these gems, signs from the "anti-war" rally? Thanks to Jason Smith at Generation Why?

"From New Orleans to Iraq: Stop the war on the poor."

"Free the Cuban Five."

"We need to make a strong connection between Katrina and the Antiwar Movement on September 24."

"End Colonial Occupation: Iraq, Palestine, Haiti, Afghanistan and Everywhere"

"Support the Palestinian People's Right of Return"

"Stop the Racist Anti-Immigrant, Anti-Labor Offensive"

"U.S. Out of the Philippines"

But hey...just because she fraternizes with a gaggle of 1960's retreads trying to recapture their glory days much like the balding 50-year-old driving the Corvette convertible trying to score with chicks half his age, doesn't mean that she is advocating all of that other loony excrement, does it?

Uh, yeah...it does. She's demanded our "occupying troops" to get out of Afghanistan and...New Orleans. Yup. Let the looters and snipers run roughshod like the streets of the Wild West, just so long as none of those horrible troops (of which her son was one) are there!

Plus, she's getting damned tired of the cameras not having been all in her grill for a while now. The blog best described (by me) as the bastard child of Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich, the Daily Kos, was graced by Mother Moonbat's presence yesterday with this screed: "I am watching CNN and it is 100 percent Rita .... even though it is a little wind and a little rain ... it is bad, but there are other things going on in the country today .. and in the world." Day after day more and more liberals are discovering that this woman is the barking rabid moonbat we've been saying that she is.

But no...she's just a griefstricken mother whose son was killed by Islamic terrorists George Bush. Nothing more, right? Right...and Ted Kennedy is sober and monogamous.

Jihad Cynthia not too bright on American geography

"Jihad" Cynthia McKinney, deposed-then-reinstated black Congresswoman from a gerrymandered district in Georgia, has a little trouble with the geography of the country she lives in. From a paranoid anti-American ranting in DC yesterday:

A cruel wind blows across America, starting in Texas and Montana and sweeping across America's heartland! It settled here in Washington, DC! And despite our presence today, it continues to buffer -- to buffett and batter the American people!

By "Texas and Montana", she means "Bush and Cheney." Someone tell Congresswoman Magellan that Cheney is from Wyoming and not Montana. I know both states are close together, and they're both redder than Cynthia McKinney's face on Election Night '00 and '04...but they are actually different states.

It could have been worse for Georgia's geographically-impaired Congresswoman. She could have pulled a Maxine Waters and called Salomon Smith Barney "Salomon Barney Frank." These CBC women are so unintelligent, it's downright laughable and impossible to take them seriously.

The Congressional Black Caucus..."Stuck on Stupid"!

Cops arrest Mother Moonbat and her flock

Ever wonder what profession these losers are in, where they can take weeks or months to go galavanting across the country protesting le cause du jour? Nah...I haven't wondered either. It's clear these are the unemployable wretches...life's losers. No responsible people have that kind of time on their hands.

Not content to stop pimping her dead son, Cindy She-man's tab on her 15 minutes of fame is long overdue, and has exceeded its available credit limit. Story:

Sheehan, carrying a photo of her son in his Army uniform, was among hundreds of protesters who marched around the White House and then down the two-block pedestrian walkway on Pennsylvania Avenue. When they reached the front of the White House, dozens sat down _ knowing they would be arrested _ and began singing and chanting "Stop the war now!"

Police warned them three times that they were breaking the law by failing to move along, then began making arrests. One man climbed over the White House fence and was quickly subdued by Secret Service agents.

The climber is lucky that Secret Service didn't riddle him with bullets and make Swiss cheese out of him for his little stunt.

Just as no-talented Yoko Ono continues to gravy-train off of her departed talented hubby John Lennon, and just as no-talented Courtney Love continues to gravy-train off of her departed talented hubby Kurt Cobain, no-talented (and useless as tits on a boar) Cindy She-man is gravy-training off of her heroic son Casey...whom, by her own words, wasn't killed by Islamic terrorists but by "freedom fighters." The left has really mounted its saddle on a bum mare in this horse race.

A West Virginia woman, Mitzy Kenny, who lost her husband in Iraq, said that the She-him anti-war demonstrations "can affect the war in a really negative way. It gives the enemy hope." Mrs. Kenny, I regret to inform you that this is exactly what these worthless pieces of human excrement want to happen. Their disdain for America in general and Bush in particular runs that deep.

Why I might become a Notre Dame fan

I've never liked the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Ever. However, after reading this, I just may change my mind. From CNN/SI:

Charlie Weis doesn't usually let anyone else call plays on offense. He made an exception for 10-year-old Montana Mazurkiewicz.

The Notre Dame coach met last week with Montana, who had been told by doctors weeks earlier that there was nothing more they could do to stop the spread of his inoperable brain tumor.

"He was a big Notre Dame fan in general, but football especially," said his mother, Cathy Mazurkiewicz.

I can't reveal anymore, so please read. It's not long. If you aren't moved, you're not human.

What a class act Charlie Weis is. Notre Dame should be proud to be represented by such a fine man.

Old Gray Hag making up stories...again

No, not Helen Thomas...the New York Times. From NewsMax:

Saying his paper "flunked" the test of basic journalistic fairness, New York Times public editor Byron Calame said Alessandra Stanley's Sept. 5 report claiming that the Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera "nudged" an Air Force relief worker out of the way so he could film himself rescuing a Katrina victim had been made up out of whole cloth.

"Since Ms. Stanley based her comments on what she saw on the screen Sept. 4, the videotape of that segment means everyone involved is looking at exactly the same evidence," Calame noted.

"My viewings of the videotape - at least a dozen times, including one time frame by frame - simply doesn't show me any 'nudge' of any Air Force rescuer by Mr. Rivera," the Times internal watchdog said, adding, "Ms. Stanley declined my invitation to watch the tape with me."

The story goes on to document other cases of the Hag's fabricating patterns:

Two weeks ago, columnist Paul Krugman was forced to admit that he falsely claimed media recounts in Florida showed Al Gore winning the 2000 presidential election. In August, a Times profile of Hillary Clinton changed a quote first reported by NewsMax where Clinton said she was "adamantly opposed to illegal immigrants."

In the toned down Times version, Clinton's opposition was to "illegal immigration" rather than the immigrants themselves.

Of course, who can forget Jayson Blair fabricating sources...like CBS News did with fake documents? However, for some strange reason, the left keeps granting undue credibility to the NYT.

Libs: Insurance policies that excluded flood coverage should pay anyway

With the logic (or semblance thereof) that only a liberal or trial lawyer (pardon the redundancy) can muster, there is an effort in Mississippi to force insurance companies to pay for flood damage from Hurricane Katrina.

Never mind the fact that flood insurance was excluded from the policies that the homeowners and businesses willfully signed. Never mind the fact that the federal government has a flood insurance program (which they shouldn't...it's not a constitutional responsibility for the federal government to be in the insurance business). No, those "evil, greedy" insurance companies are being heartless by enforcing the policies that they wrote and to which policyholders agreed.

What would be the fallout? From Opinion Journal:

Both men [Dem. state SG Hood, and tort ambulance chaser Scruggs] are demanding that private insurers pay for Katrina flood damage, though the companies never collected one dime of flood premiums over the years and have no such reserves. As it is, insurers may be on the hook for $60 billion. Sticking them with flood damage could add another $15 billion to the tab, which would certainly send several insurers into bankruptcy.

Insurance companies that survived would have to assume that flood liabilities are now theirs to pay, regardless of the contracts they write. They'd then have to charge everyone in the region higher premiums--by one estimate, as much as $500 a year--to cover this flood risk. Or they could take the more rational option of fleeing a state where contracts aren't worth the paper they're written on.

In other words, Mr. Hood is guaranteeing that victims of the next hurricane will have even less financial protection than Katrina's. And he's complicating the entire reconstruction effort by raising the cost of insurance for the contractors, union workers, homeowners and businesses that are all going to need liability and/or property and casualty insurance before they rebuild. The attorney general is a Category 5 destructive force all by himself.

Hey, but it makes them media darlings (and enriches the lawyer), so screw Mississippians, huh?

Poll: Most Americans are not IN Iraq

Great satire from Scrappleface:

Hours after a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll revealed that fewer than half of respondents believe the U.S. can win the war in Iraq, a second survey showed that more than 99 percent of Americans are not in Iraq, and almost as many form opinions about the war based exclusively on what they learn from CNN, USA Today and other news organizations.

Of the 818 Americans telephoned by pollsters, according to an unnamed Gallup spokesman, roughly zero percent are currently stationed in Iraq, where about 150,000 U.S. troops spend their days providing security, hunting down terrorists, training Iraqi police and soldiers and rebuilding schools, water systems and other infrastructure elements.

Almost 97 percent of those surveyed answered "strongly agree" to the statement: "Every single thing I know about U.S. efforts in Iraq, I learned from news reports in the mainstream media."

Of those people, the vast majority said they believe U.S. troops spend their days "driving around in Humvees, trying to detonate improvised explosive devices with their tires."

A unnamed CNN reporter, stationed in a Green Zone hotel lounge in Baghdad, said the new surveys "simply reinforce what I've known for two years -- the war in Iraq is unwinnable. For some reason, America seems to have lost her will to fight for freedom."

Girl expelled from Christian school for having gay parents

This makes me madder than Hillary Clinton having seen a uniformed soldier. From the AP:

A 14-year-old student was expelled from a Christian school because her parents are lesbians, the school's superintendent said in a letter.

Shay Clark was expelled from Ontario Christian School on Thursday.

"Your family does not meet the policies of admission," Superintendent Leonard Stob wrote to Tina Clark, the girl's biological mother.

I recognize that a private school has the legal authority to accept or reject whomever it wishes. While legally I concede their position is strong, I am offended by their "moral" reasoning.

The girl's parents are lesbians. Whether one supports parental rights for gay/lesbian couples is irrelevant, because the fact is that this child DOES have gay parents...whether anyone likes it or not. It's reality. But why should the girl be expelled from a school that is trying to teach Christian values and morality just because her parents are gay? Hell, I think her parents should be commended for (a) caring enough about her education, and (b) wanting to lay a strong religious foundation for her, despite their own contra-Christian lifestyle.

For the record, I believe every word of the Bible, and I do not dispute the Bible's view of homosexuality being contrary to Christianity. However, I also believe that it is up to God to judge, not us. If God wants to cast gays into the pit of Hell, then He will do so. If, however, He has no more problem with homosexuality than with lying, murder, sloth, greed, theft, or anything else that Christians seem to be more forgiving of than gayness...well, He will deal with that, too. And if gay couples want to come to church, introduce their kids to church, etc., then they should be welcomed with open arms. After all, accepting gays into the church is not an endorsement of their lifestyle...just of their humanity.

But read this again: "at least one parent may not engage in practices 'immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian life style, such as cohabitating without marriage or in a homosexual relationship'." So if parents of other students tell lies, big or small, then are these kids to be expelled? After all, lying is "inconsistent with a positive Christian life style." What if one student's parent takes some copy paper home from the office, for use on the home PC's printer? That's theft...so kick his kids out? I mean, we want to be consistent, right?

This is not a post about gay marriage, gay adoption, gay priests, etc. If you want to comment on those things, fine with me. However, I hope that many of us can agree that the actions of this religious school may be legal, but they are also short-sighted. Christians are supposed to be like Jesus Christ as much as is humanly possible, who fraternized with prostitutes, thieves, and other unsavory elements in society. Alas, many of today's Christians would rather preach to the choir than jump at the chance to bring more lambs into the fold.

Daschle to run for...president?

From the Washington comPost:

Former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle's interest in public office isn't necessarily latent: he has set up a new political action committee and plans a Jefferson-Jackson Day speech in the politically pivotal state of Iowa.

Daschle, who was considered a possible candidate for president in 2004, has quietly eschewed most publicity since his defeat to Republican John Thune last November. But Steve Hildebrand, director of the new committee and Daschle's former campaign manager, said the well-known Democrat from South Dakota "is not going to rule out opportunities to play important roles in public service."

"It could be president, it could be vice president, it could be something else," Hildebrand said. "It could be nothing."

Could be nothing...as in, "What do the folks back in South Dakota think about Tommy?"

I know what you guys are thinking: "He couldn't even win his home state as the Senate leader of his party, so how can he win his party's nomination for President?" Valid question, my friends, but you underestimate the sheer ignorance of the Democratic Party.

Think about last year, and the party's nominee for President: John F'ing Kerry. Here's the most liberal Senator in the country, a Jane Fonda clone in the Nam protest days, and an inconsequential legislator who had never passed a significant piece of legislation in his life. His only accomplishment since his medals (the ones he threw away...BEFORE he didn't) was to marry into wealth, which to the left, is somehow more honorable than inheriting it (unless you're a Kennedy).

Bush was vulnerable last year, no question about it. And the Democrats chose...Jean-Francois Kerry?

Needing to somehow convince the nimrods in red states that they were too supid to properly hear the Democrats' message, the savior of the Dems turned out to be...Howard "Primal Scream" Dean. He's since then gone on to notch abysmal donations, insult people in the states he purports to court, and causes enough humiliation to his party that some (not nearly enough) have begun to denounce him or distance themselves from him.

True, Tom Daschle didn't give a wet fart on a dry January Monday about the people and values of South Dakota, as evidenced by his day-after-Election-Day-2000 encouragement of Al Gore to steal an election from a man who won Daschle's state by 23%. In that act, Daschle told the people of South Dakota: "Screw you, hayseeds! You need a cultural D.C. elite like me to make this decision for you, since you obviously botched that at the ballot box! Geez, at least the bluehairs in Palm Beach County had an excuse...they couldn't read!" He fought the man that South Dakota loved (for those of you in blue states, that would be Bush) tooth and nail, and he paid dearly for his arrogance and nosethumbing last November.

However, Daschle wouldn't run for president for the folks of South Dakota. Hell, he doesn't live there anymore, and he barely lived there when he was Senator. No, he'd run for the left's elite and kook base. Therefore, it's not hard at all to believe he'd run for President, and that his party just may be stupid enough to nominate him.

Dems commit identity theft

Thanks to Michelle Malkin.

Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who is considering a U.S. Senate bid for the seat being vacated by Maryland Senator Paul Sarbanes, has just been a victim of identity theft

Dem. NY Senator Chuckie Schumer had a pair of staffers, one of which used to do research for David Brock's leftist and truth-challenged Media Matters (a site that laughably asserts that the MSM isn't liberal enough), purloined a copy of Steele's credit report by using his Social Security number, reportedly obtained from public documents. You do know that it is against federal law (for those of you in blue states, that means "it is illegal") to knowingly and willfully obtain a credit report under false pretenses, don't you?

Flashback to 2003, headline from CBS News: "GOP Staffer Eyed In Memo Leak" CBS and the rest of the MSM jumped on this story like Michael Moore on a Whopper Deluxe (the burger, not a euphemism for his movies). Why? Because the story accomplished two things: (1) made the GOP look bad; and (2) expressed outrage at the appearance of "violating privacy."

However, as of this moment (subject to change when pressured by the new media), the MSM isn't touching this story quite yet. Newsday reported on it, but the other New York publication, the Old Gray Hag New York Times, doesn't seem very interested in the activities of the staff of their senior Senator. Oh sure, the Washington comPost tries to report on it, but the headline reads "Democrats' scrutiny of Steele assailed", implying that the felony of identity theft counts as "scrutiny" and that Republicans are just being partisan in their complaints. The comPost story also neglects to mention Schumer's connection to the staffers.

Not only was privacy raped, but so was the law. The MSM's reaction? (Yawwwwwnnnn!) While Schumer may have had no knowledge and was correct to report the matter to authorities, you'd figure that the story would still get some play...like it did when Hatch dealt with his staffer, right?

Nope...no liberal media bias.

CNN: "Katrina worse than beheadings"

Soledad O'Brien, CNN's eye candy reporter who once referred to a cow in a puddle of water as "that poor water buffalo", has graced us with another poignant observation. From NewsMax:

CNN's "American Morning" host Soledad O'Brien said Tuesday that Hurricane Katrina evacuees housed at the Superdome were worse off than beheading victims in Baghdad.

The normally mild-mannered newswoman offered the overwrought observation while speaking at Redbook Magazine's "Movers and Shakers" awards luncheon in New York.

According to the New York Daily News, O'Brien blurted out:

"It is a sad thing to watch military veterans cry as they tell you the beheadings in Baghdad were less horrific than what they saw as 30,000 people marched from the Superdome through a shopping mall and onto buses to who knows where."

Ms. O'Brien didn't identify the veterans who told her that Katrina victims would have been better off being beheaded.

Emphasis mine. What you rather experience: (A) A category 4 or 5 hurricane through which you would likely (though not guaranteed) live; or (B) Having your head sawed off by bloodthirsty Islamofascist terrorists while you were awake, and would have a 100% chance of not surviving it?

Hmmm...decisions, decisions.

Quote of the day, part II

Hat tip to RadioBlogger. Lt. General Honore to a male reporter asking dumb questions: "Don't get stuck on stupid!" Transcripts and audio here. Partial transcript follows:

Honore:...You're asking last storm questions for people who are concerned about the future storm. Don't get stuck on stupid, reporters. We are moving forward. And don't confuse the people please. You are part of the public message. So help us get the message straight. And if you don't understand, maybe you'll confuse it to the people. That's why we like follow-up questions. ...

Male reporter: General, a little bit more about why that's happening this time, though, and did not have that last time...

Honore: You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question.

Aside from the embarrassed reporter, who doesn't love this guy?

Bush screws up again...or did he?

Bush creates another hurricane (Rita), but this time, the bumbling idiot screws up and steers it towards Texas! Why would he decimate his own state?!?

A-ha...there's a method to his madness! The hurricane is projected towards Houston. Who's in Houston? Katrina evacuees, that's who! He wasn't able to smite enough of them when he created Katrina and bombed the levee wall, so he created another one to send to Houston to finish the job!

For those of you in blue states, the above is sarcasm and meant to make fun of the conspiracy theory moonbats.

Libs: "Pay for Katrina, keep the death tax!"

Many liberals are calling for Congress to scrap their plans on repealing the death tax...or as they'd rather call it, the "estate tax." Yes, this is to help pay for Katrina relief. Hey, credit them with at least floating an idea this time...it's been a long time since they've proposed an idea on anything related to public policy. Cut them slack, though...when does one find time to craft policy if the entire day is spent bitching about Bush and the GOP?

The death tax is the most grossly reprehensible tax that exists today. There is something sick and perverted in the thinking behind it: If you buy stuff (house, land, investments, etc.) with your after-tax money, you can still be taxed on said possessions (i.e your "estate"), up to a grotesque 55%! In short, the government confiscates part, sometimes more than HALF, of your kids' inheritance after you croak. Double taxation, and one where you pay the second time around after you meet your Maker.

The mentality driving the death tax is also the mentality that thinks we ought to have a "progressive" income tax. You know, the higher your income, the higher the percentage of your income should be confiscated. It's not enough that everyone pay the same percentage, which would still assure that those with higher incomes would naturally pay more in income taxes! No, they should pay at a higher RATE. By God (insert newest fad religion's deity here), now that will teach those damned achievers a thing or two about achieving!

By the way, here's a quick history lesson for you. The ideas of the estate tax and progressive income taxation are both found in Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. Marx and Engels concoct 10 things that must occur in order to implement the "worker's paradise" they envisioned. Number 3 is "Abolition of all rights of inheritance." The death tax attempts to do just that, albeit in baby steps. Number 2 is "A heavy progressive or graduated income tax." Sound familiar?

So the next time you hear someone advocating the death tax and a progressive income tax, just keep in mind that these ideas have been around since Marx and Engels wrote about them in 1848. Good company to keep, eh?

Pork and bureaucracy kill New Orleans, plus the "quote of the day"

John Stossel has a great column on how government bureaucracy and pork screwed New Orleans, both before and after Hurricane Katrina. Please read the column, though if you read nothing else, read his quote below (emphasized):

The deadliest government mistake was made by Congress. The Army Corps of Engineers had said it wanted $27 million to strengthen the levees protecting New Orleans. Congress said no, though our can't-spend-your-money-fast-enough representatives did appropriate more than that for an indoor rain forest in Iowa.

Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, blamed the president. "The president could have funded it," she said.

Someday, she should read the Constitution. Only Congress can appropriate federal money.

She's only a Senator, and a Democratic one at that...how is she supposed to know about the Constitution? "Someday she should read the Constitution"...that's classic! :-)

More:

Former Louisiana senator John Breaux also told me the state never got what it asked for. "I'm part of the effort to try and get more money, and many times we were not successful," he complained.

But, surprise! It turns out Louisiana got lots of money for Corps of Engineers projects -- hundreds of millions of dollars more than any other state. Congress just spent it on pork projects instead of on the levees.

I confronted Breaux about his own state's pork, such as subsidies for ship builders and the sugar industry.

"I object to you using words like squander and pork," he said. "What is pork in one part of the country is an essential project in another part."

My, my, my...touchy, ain't he? At the time he was lining the pockets of Louisiana sugar barons and shipyard magnates, he wasn't prioritizing the funding of his state's levees over the aforementioned special interests.

But fear not...it was Bush's fault. Yes, these "cuts" to the levee spending could not have been offset by...oh, I don't know...not subsidizing the LA business community? Breaux's and Landrieu's short-sightedness are undoubtedly Bush's fault.

Time for some much deserved "Bushwhacking"

I gotta call it like I see it, and this looks like another case of cronyism. Apparently, I'm not the only one who sees this. Michelle Malkin has an in-depth post on her blog, an excerpt of which follows:

This is Julie Myers, President Bush's nominee to head the the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security.

Her nomination is a joke. A bad joke.

As pointed out within Malkin's post: "Her uncle is Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She married Chertoff's current chief of staff, John F. Wood, on Saturday."

Cronyism is nothing new, and it manifests itself in both parties. However, isn't this just a tad bit ridiculous?

I mean, did he learn nothing from the Michael Brown FEMA fiasco? Granted, the Senate was complicit in the hiring of Brown, since he won bipartisan support during his confirmation. However, Brown was in way over his head, and his hollow resumé should have set off alarms in people's heads. Well, those alarms are going off in many heads with the selection of Myers to replace Brown.

I hope Bush reconsiders or the Senate rejects the nomination. While Myers' uncle, General Richard Myers, is a man of impeccable character and credentials, I hardly see how those traits qualify his niece to head an agency that is in sore need of good leadership and committment to law enforcement. Color me with the "skeptical" crayon.

Crazy Howie: "I'm the Dems' savior!"

From NewsMax:

DNC Chairman Howard Dean is now boasting that he's the savior of the Democratic Party, in a none-too-subtle slap at former party chief Terry McAuliffe, not to mention the last Democratic standard bearer, Sen. John Kerry.

Asked why he wanted to run the DNC, Dean told ABC's "The View" last week: "Somebody had to save the party."

Arrogant, isn't it? That's surprising, since Dems' never come across as arrogant, aloof elitists, do they? For those of you in blue states, the prior sentence was sarcasm.

How about this doozie?

But when it came to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Dean turned defensive, saying it wasn't Nagin's fault that the city's school buses weren't used to evacuate his trapped constituents.

"The school buses were controlled by the school board, not the mayor," Dean insisted. "You can't blame the mayor for that."

Thanks for clearing that up, Howie: it was local bureaucratic bungling that kept the buses from being used for evacuations! N.O. Mayor Ray Nagin couldn't have made an executive decision to commandeer the buses? Why no, he needed the school board to sign off on the deal! That is arguably the lamest excuse I've heard from the left yet as to why a few hundred buses weren't used to get people out of there, and instead became submerged. Had a Republican mayor done the same thing, is there a doubt that the MSM would be madder than Jesse Jackson in a packed room with NO cameras?

You're not doing Nagin any favors by flapping those gums, pal.

Bitter Rather decries "new journalism order"

I wonder if he means the new standard of journalism whereby the MSM's liberal bias is countered by alternative sources giving the electorate all information and not just the parts that they (the MSM) want you to see?

Perhaps Rather laments the new standard (which used to be the original standard) of actually (gasp!) doing real investigative reporting, instead of the rampant lazy reporting we see today in the liberal MSM. Such "tricks of the trade" not likely taught in journalism schools (but introduced once the naive journo grad hits the newsroom) include the following: reporting hearsay as fact, not investigating facts, making up sources and interviews, using clearly forged documents from partisan hacks, etc.

Or maybe, just maybe...Rather's just a bitter old has-been whose career is now defined not by the excellence it may have once represented, but by the unabashed partisanship and incompetence it reflected at the end before he was pressured out of CBS.

Oh, yeah...Rather's sob-fest is here.

Bird flu: could kill millions, or "Chicken Little"?

The bird flu is a lethal disease, and warning sirens are being sounded right now. Is the threat exaggerated or real? Read for yourself here.

Whatever bad things may happen as a result of the bird flu will no doubt be George W. Bush's fault, right?

Some gems from Billybob Clinton

Some of Billybob Clinton's recent quotes, making their rounds on the wire today, are a hoot.

Demonstrating how keenly aware he is of current events, Billybob had this to say about New Orleans evacuation planning (or lack thereof):

"You can't have an emergency plan that works if it only affects middle class people and up. . . . If we really wanted to do it right, we would have had lots of buses lined up to take them out and also lots of empty vans."

Lots of empty buses, kinda like...these?


Billybob gives a compelling reason for Hillary not to pledge to serve out her full second Senate term:

"For figures that are large figures in their parties who honestly don't know and can't know this early whether they're going to run [for president] . . . I don't think they should make commitments," Clinton told NBC's "Meet the Press.".

Hey, if anyone knows about hedging on vows (such as his marital vows, his 1990 vow to finish out his term as Arkansas governor, his vows in January of 1993 and 1997 to defend the country and uphold the Constitution, etc.), it would be Bubba.

Should we engage the terrorist groups of the world? Bubba thinks "You bet!":

Antendees at the Clinton Global Initiative were told on Friday that terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas should be "engaged" by the world's peace loving nations - even if their members persist in trying to destroy Israel and America.

He must have read that Boston Globe column advocating negotiating with al Qaeda. Great minds think alike, eh?

President Bush has rewarded Bubba with a prominent role in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, and what thanks does he get? Bubba blasts Bush's economic policies as racially divisive and asserts that New Orleans' black population was right not to trust him. Now that mentality is helpful during relief efforts, isn't it?

Particularly galling that a disgraced, impeached, and disbarred philanderer has the temerity to break a couple of centuries of presidential protocol by not criticizing successors while they're still in office, wouldn't you say? Bush the Elder made a similar observation a couple of years ago, when he noted angrily that "God knows there are a lot of things I could throw back on that man (Clinton)! Out of respect for the office, I refrain." Such a respect for the office has never existed within Billybob, who viewed himself as bigger than the office.

Can we drop this "new tone" business now, Mr. President?

We need to be more like the Germans, huh?

Thanks to Van Helsing at Moonbattery for this insight into the deep, politically nuanced, enlightened thinking of the Germans:



The female portrayed as your typical San Francisco urbanite (or proctologist) is Angela Merkel, a pro-Western politician running for the German chief executive job being vacated by the anti-Western Gerhard Schroeder. Why, if I didn't know any better, I'd think that there are a lot of Germans that just don't like us very much! Then again, they have a lot in common with many American liberals, don't they?

This is why we need to be more like those "thoughtful, brilliant, and deep-thinking" Germans?

al Qaeda in my hometown?

We've seen al Qaeda strike New York, PA, and DC. Now, it appears disturbingly close to home for me in that the good guys (for those of you in blue states, that would be us, the U.S.A.) have now nabbed a possible al Qaeda terrorist-in-training in Memphis. Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the heads-up:

A federal magistrate has ordered a University of Memphis student held until trial.

Prosecutors say F-B-I agents found an airline pilot's uniform, a chart of Memphis International Airport and instructional D-V-D's. One was titled "How an Airline Captain Should Look and Act."

Mahmoud Maawad is charged with wire fraud and fraudulent use of a Social Security number.

Describing what agents found, Assistant U-S Attorney Steve Parker argued yesterday against releasing Maawad, saying the acts and circumstance of the case are "scary."

Parker said Maawad -- a 29-year-old Egyptian -- has been in the country illegally since 1999 and had used a phony Social Security number to enroll in schools and open a bank account.

Fortunately, we can always resort to the Boston Globe's idea of negotiating with al al Qaeda. What a relief!

Sheehan: "Pull troops out of occupied New Orleans"

Defend that crazy moonbat now, people! Observe:

CINDY SHEEHAN CALLS FOR U.S TO 'PULL OUR TROOPS OUT OF OCCUPIED NEW ORLEANS'
Mon Sep 12 2005 12:42:11 ET

Celebrity anti-war protester, fresh off inking a lucrative deal with Speaker's Bureau, has demanded at the HUFFINGTON POST and MICHAEL MOORE'S website that the United States military must immediately leave 'occupied' New Orleans.

"I don't care if a human being is black, brown, white, yellow or pink. I donÕt care if a human being is Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or pagan. I don't care what flag a person salutes: if a human being is hungry, then it is up to another human being to feed him/her. George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power. The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they donÕt fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest."

No, she's not a publicity whore who is riding her fifteen minutes of fame into overtime...she's just a grieving mother!

Right...and Michael Moore is a svelt young stud.

Racist t-shirt in my neck of the woods makes national news

This was mentioned on the Neal Boortz show today.

Fleming Island High School in Orange Park, FL, is about 10 miles from my house. It is in an affluent part of Orange Park, which itself is where people who don't want to subject themselves and their kids to Jacksonville's crime and crappy schools live.

Well, a student decided to wear a bigoted, racist, t-shirt, and he got his ass beat for it. While I don't condone the crime, does anyone doubt that this kid didn't have it coming to him? From the Jacksonville newspaper:

The undershirt the white student wore had a confederate flag on the front with the words "Keep it flying." On the back, a cartoon depicted a group of hooded Klansmen standing outside a church, waving to two others who had just pulled away in a car reading "Just married."

Two black men in nooses were being dragged behind.

I figured I would have known if Robert "KKK" Byrd moved to my neck of the woods, but I guess not!

Sounds like his parents weren't aware of it, since he wore the t-shirt under something. But wow...how does a kid this young learn such a vile thing? I'd expect that kind of race-baiting if he had come from an NAACP household in Jasper, Texas, but not here.

ABC aghast: N.O. evacuees mad at Nagin, Blanco

From Newsbusters:

ABC News producers probably didn't hear what they expected when they sent Dean Reynolds to the Houston Astrodome's parking lot to get reaction to President Bush's speech from black evacuees from New Orleans. Instead of denouncing Bush and blaming him for their plight, they praised Bush and blamed local officials. Reynolds asked Connie London: "Did you harbor any anger toward the President because of the slow federal response?" She rejected the premise: "No, none whatsoever, because I feel like our city and our state government should have been there before the federal government was called in.” She pointed out: “They had RTA buses, Greyhound buses, school buses, that was just sitting there going under water when they could have been evacuating people."

Not one of the six people interviewed on camera had a bad word for Bush -- despite Reynolds' best efforts. Reynolds goaded: "Was there anything that you found hard to believe that he said, that you thought, well, that's nice rhetoric, but, you know, the proof is in the pudding?" Brenda Marshall answered, "No, I didn't," prompting Reynolds to marvel to anchor Ted Koppel: "Very little skepticism here.”

Reynolds pressed another woman: “Did you feel that the President was sincere tonight?" She affirmed: "Yes, he was." Reynolds soon wondered who they held culpable for the levee breaks. Unlike the national media, London did not blame supposed Bush-mandated budget cuts: "They've been allocated federal funds to fix the levee system, and it never got done. I fault the mayor of our city personally. I really do."

What do these rubes know? They only LIVED there!

Right after the president's misplaced apology, too. ABC must be beside themselves!

Nope...no liberal media bias.

Headline of the day

NewsMax: "Vatican Probes for Gays"

Some things just don't require further commenting or "anal"yzing, do they? :-)

D.C. homeless resent Katrina victims

I couldn't make this up if I tried, yet the Washington comPost runs the story that would normally look like satire. Hat tip to Michelle Malkin:

Advocates say the homeless have noticed -- and many resent -- the difference in perception and treatment. "Local homeless people are saying, 'Nobody cares about us -- we were here all the time,' " said Imagene Stewart, who has 17 homeless families from the area at her House of Imagene in Northwest Washington. "For Katrina people, they find money. We've been out here begging for years...."

Isn't there something a tad bit perverted about the line of thinking that we're seeing? People in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast were the victims of Mother Nature, i.e. forces beyond their control. The homeless in D.C. and elsewhere are by and large in their predicament due to addictions, poor planning, lack of initiative, or in some cases, mental disorders (the latter clearly would fall under the category of "forces beyond their control"). Most of the Katrina victims were productive members of society, or were retirees after having a lifetime of hard work and productivity.

Yet here come a group of people who are resentful at the fact that society seems to sympathize with victims of nature instead of victims of choice. The last sentence sums up their mentality: "We've been begging for years." Yes, you have been, and Katrina victims were not begging for years! Instead, they were busy working and planning and saving and sacrificing for years, and through no fault of their own, had it wiped out in one fell swoop. We Americans tend to sympathize greatly with people who play by the rules. And while I harbor no animosity towards the homeless, I've seen enough "Why lie? I need a beer!" panhandlers to siphon my sympathy tank dry.

I'll be accused of being insensitive, but I need you folks to do me a huge favor and remind me later to give a damned...m'kay? Much appreciated!

UPDATE: Reuters doctored photo; was "The President actually pees!"

The left has finally found a weakness they can exploit: Bush has to urinate! Yes indeed, this counts as wire news for al-Reuters. You know, Reuters, the "we can't call terrorists 'terrorists' -- one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" network? This counts as news for these people!

U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005.

Bush needed a bathroom break at the UN, likely due to the sickness that the UN causes people. And this passes for hot-of-the-press news? What about Hillary Clinton? Does she pee, too? And if the MSM ever did this to her, would she "stand" for it? Oh...wait...poor choice of words, huh? ;-) I meant, "stand for the story", not "stand to pee"! My bad...

Just when you thought the MSM couldn't sink any lower. But not to worry...no liberal media bias.

UPDATE:Looks like al-Reuters PhotoShopped the image (for those of you in blue states, "PhotoShopped" means the image was doctored, or like Reuters prefers to think of it, "enhanced"). Perhaps they can enroll in the Dan Rather school of investigative journalism, hmm?

al Qaeda kills, yet Boston Globe says we should talk with them

al Qaeda kills more people in Iraq. Link.

Boston Globe has an op-ed suggesting we meet with al Qaeda to negotiate in good faith to address their grievances. Link.

The Globe's columnist thinks that al Qaeda is like a political organization, rather than a terrorist organization. So let's ponder this for a moment:

Let's say that Senate Democrats kill John Roberts because they think he'll overturn Roe v. Wade, and that they'll threaten to do the same to any other judge that Bush nominates unless their grievance (a pro-life judge) is met and dealt with. Would the proper response be to (a) address the grievance, or (b) punish the bastards? How would we deal with these Democrats: as politicians, or as murderers? By the way, feel free to use your own Republican-based analogy (e.g. GOP kills pro-choice judge) if you like...you get the point, though.

Absurd, isn't it? Of course it is. So is the Globe's columnist and his nutty-ass idea.

Tom DeLay not crazy after all?

Someone brought to my attention this gem, after reading my piece yesterday regarding Tom DeLay's "we've cut all the fat we can cut" statement. It seems that the possibility exists that DeLay was being facetious. From El Rushbo:

You understand what DeLay is doing here? The key sentence here is, "My answer to those that want to offset the spending is, sure, bring me the offsets, I'll be glad to do it, but nobody's been able to come up with any yet." Meaning, "Hey, you want to offset some of this Katrina spending with budget cuts, I'm all for it, but nobody is getting any ideas to me. Not one member of Congress is willing to do without their pork." This is my interpretation. DeLay didn't say this.

But early on in this program I suggested if you really want to find a quick cash infusion for Hurricane Katrina relief, go to the transportation bill, the highway bill, there's like $25 billion of pork in that bill. Over 6,000 projects. Go tell Congressman Blowhard to give up the bridge that's being built to nowhere in Alaska. Go get these guys to give this back, but none of them are doing it. DeLay says, "Well, I guess we're running at peak efficiency, there's nothing to cut out there, why, if we can't cut any more, why, I guess this is as thin as we're going to get."

Interesting angle. I hope Rush is right, because if he's not, then DeLay looks like he's off his rocker for issuing such a preposterous (if he's serious) proclamation.

Pledge shot down in (where else?) San Francisco

A federal judge yesterday in the looniest city in the country, San Francisco, banned the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools. Story here. My main beef with the ruling has nothing to do with the argument itself, but with the legal reasoning the judge used.

[Judge] Karlton said he was bound by precedent of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 2002 ruled in favor of Newdow that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools.

The decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court! A judge was basing his decision on an overturned ruling? Does that not strike anyone as just a tad bit insane?

As a result, this ruling will most likely be overturned, for that very reason. Also, the first ruling was overturned because the atheist father (and publicity whore) Michael Newdow had no standing in the case. He sued because his daughter was in the school where the pledge was recited, and he argued that his daughter was offended by the pledge. She wasn't, nor was her mother (who has full legal custody of the daughter). Thus, he had no horse in the race.

Well, who initiated this suit? You guessed it. The same publicity whore atheist father, Michael Newdow. According to the story, he filed this suit on behalf of three unnamed parents. One wonders if the Supreme Court will rule that (1) he still has no standing, (2) "unnamed parents" have to have names if they're going to sue, (3) the judge erred in basing his ruling on an overturned ruling, or (4) considering we have money, intros in Congress, swearing-in ceremonies, etc., that reference an ambiguous "God" (even if one infers the Christian God, other religions (like Islam) reference "God"), how is a pledge any different? Attempts by the ACLU (Asshats, Crazies, and Leftists United) in years past to stop the aforementioned practices have failed, so why would this be any different?

For the record, my position is that each school district ought to be able to set its own policies as far as the pledge goes, so long as no student is forced to recite the pledge. If a kid doesn't want to pledge, he/she shouldn't have to. if the class stands to recite it, he/she should stand with the class...but may remain quiet. That is but one idea.

The funny thing is that this ruling by a liberal activist judge comes at a time when liberals in the Senate are grilling John Roberts about what kind of judge he'd make. The American public deplores yesterday's ruling, so Senate libs are going to have a hard time convincing the American public that we need more judges like this Karlton guy, and fewer judges like John Roberts. I'd be surprised if Senate libs ask Roberts about his views of yesterday's ruling. If they did, he should say that he can't comment because that very case is going to land in his lap.

Cool! No more wasteful spending!

The Gingrich Revolution of 1994 has been realized, and the government has trimmed all the fat it possibly can! Rejoice, one and all! Link:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) today declared “victory" in the battle to eliminate wasteful federal spending. There is simply no fat left to cut from the federal budget, he said.[1]

This comes as quite a surprise to most Americans. With federal spending now topping $22,000 per household, polls indicate that 71 percent of Americans are more bothered by how their taxes are spent than by the amount of taxes they pay. The average American believes that about half of his or her tax dollars are wasted.[2]

There's an old Southern saying that says "Try as hard as you may, you just can't polish a turd." It's amazing how far the party of the purse has moved the goalposts since they came to power 11 years ago. Previously ambitious (and proper) goals, such as defunding the NEA and public broadcasting, as well as abolishing the bloated and unneeded Dept. of Education, have been completely abandoned...and Tom DeLay thinks this is a success?

Well, the Heritage Foundation decided to accept his challenge to "bring me the offsets" to spending. Here are but a few of their findings that I've snipped and Joe Bidened copied for purposes of brevity, but feel free to check out the story for the full numbers...you'll be amazed:

Waste, Fraud, Abuse

The federal government made $20 billion in overpayments in 2001;

The Defense Department wasted $100 million on unused flight tickets from 1997 to 2003 and never bothered to collect refunds, even though the tickets were reimbursable;

Massive farm subsidies go to several members of Congress and celebrity “hobby farmers” such as David Rockefeller, Ted Turner, Scottie Pippen, and former Enron CEO Ken Lay; and

Numerous government programs are wastefully duplicative, such as the 342 economic development programs; 130 programs serving the disabled; 130 programs serving at-risk youth; 90 early childhood development programs; 75 programs funding international education, cultural, and training exchange activities; and 72 federal programs dedicated to assuring safe water.
More

Pork

$450,000 for the Baseball Hall of Fame

$350,000 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio

$950,000 for the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (WTF?)

$2,000,000 to relocate a kitchen in Fairbanks, Alaska
More

Failed Programs
Because good intentions alone are not enough to make good government, President George W. Bush created the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) to assess whether government programs actually achieve their objectives. After the first three years of PART, 60 percent of all federal programs have been examined. Out of 1,236 programs measured, only 38 percent were rated “effective” or “moderately effective.” By contrast, 40 percent were deemed either “ineffective” or unable to demonstrate results. Yet in FY 2004, $154 billion was appropriated for programs classified as ineffective or unable to demonstrate results. Congress largely ignored President Bush’s calls to terminate many of these programs. (No! Who'da thunkit? - ed.)

Unauthorized Appropriations
List here.

Dammit, Bush...use your damned veto pen! Either you are a "fiscal conservative", or you are not (here's guessing the latter).

Clinton's response to disasters?

The short-term memory displayed by the MSM is breathtaking, but thanks to the new media, it's not lost on the rest of us proper-thinking Americans. From NewsMax:

Critics say President Bush's personal response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster was too little, too late - with an Air Force One flyover the day after New Orleans' levees broke and a trip to Baton Rouge two days later.

President Clinton, on other the other hand, got glowing reviews for responding to his administration's biggest disaster, the Oklahoma City bombing - even though he took a day longer to arrive on the scene than Bush did last week.

New Orleans' levees broke on a Tuesday - and Bush had his own boots-on-the-ground just three days later on Friday.
When the Alfred P. Murrah Building exploded on Wednesday morning, April 19, 1995, President Clinton didn't travel to the scene for four full days.

And when he finally arrived, there was no grumbling by troubled pundits about the delay. In fact, Clinton's response to Oklahoma City is remembered to this day as the turning point of his political fortunes.

Writing this week in New York Magazine, John Heilemann recalls Clinton's April 23 speech about the bombing:

"With breathtaking subtlety and nimbleness, Clinton used that act of terrorism to illustrate the dangers of the wild-eyed anti-government rhetoric then in vogue among the Gingrichian GOP — a move that set him on the road to political redemption." (Sidebar: note how the media tried to link limited government right-of-center people to a wacked-out deranged extreme-right serial killer like McVeigh? How'd that linkage serve them in elections since then? - ed.)

The real difference, of course, was that Clinton had a sympathetic media that was just as anxious as he was to blame the disaster on right wing Republicans. Bush, on the other hand, faces a press corps that couldn't wait to use Katrina against him.

The double standard becomes even more obvious when reaction to Katrina is compared with what remains the worst law enforcement debacle in U.S. history - the Clinton administration's decision to rout the Branch Davidians from their encampment at Waco.

More children were killed in that April 19, 1993, assault than died in Oklahoma City. Yet the Clinton administration received little if any blame - and no one was forced to resign.

In fact, after then-Attorney General Janet Reno publicly accepted responsibility, she was hailed as a hero by sympathetic reporters, an irony that's likely not lost on Bush's allegedly "disgraced" ex-FEMA Director Michael Brown.

Funny, isn't it? Reno barbecued a bunch of women and children in a church, and yet she remained the AG for the next 7.5 years with no MSM calls for her resignation. She said "I take responsibility", and the MSM said "Hey, she apologized. That's enough for us!" After all, it was only a bunch of religious nuts and their offspring that she flambéed, right? Yet the inept Brown resigns, and the left and MSM (pardon the redundancy) is screaming "That's not enough for us!"

Nope...no liberal media bias.

Now it's the federal government's job to collect bodies?

Wow...the scope of things that the federal government is supposed to do just gets bigger and bigger, doesn't it? From the AP:

The updated Louisiana death toll was released as Gov. Kathleen Blanco lashed out at the federal government, accusing it of moving too slowly in recovering the bodies. The dead "deserve more respect than they have received," she said.

However, Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman David Passey said the state asked to take over body recovery last week. "The collection of bodies is not normally a FEMA responsibility," he said.

So the incompetent Democrat governor blames the feds for NOT moving fast enough to collect the bodies...that...the STATE is supposed to be collecting? I mean, how did that transpire?

Guv: Can we take over body collection?

Feds: Well, OK.

Guv: Thanks...(pause)...the feds are not moving quickly enough to recover bodies!

Must be Bush's fault.

Interestingly, the story begins as one that mentions the reprehensible (and criminal) behavior of these Louisiana nursing home owners who left the frail and helpless elderly to fend for themselves in a Category 4 hurricane. They are being charged for the deaths of 34 patients, and by God, they should be charged!

However, the story goes all over the map after that, especially with more "blame game" crap.

Fun with moonbats...again

Attempting to come back in here with a different IP address (yet still possessing the same moonbat identity) doesn't work. You will get banned again. You moonbats should have thought about that before you started dropping "Hitler", "fascist", "1936 Berlin", or other gratuitous (and intellectually vacuous) references.

Just as trying to have a reasonable conversation with a resident of the Bremner Mental Facility in Crazy Ass, Colorado, would be pointless, trying to bait me into acknowledging your paranoid moonbat existence is pointless, too.

Read the profile, unless you went to a CA government school or live in a blue state, in which case have someone read it to you. Keep it civil. Otherwise, move along please.

"Chappy" Kennedy skips out on Roberts confirmation hearing for CNN

While Sen. Grassley (R-IA) was asking nominee John Roberts questions, Senator "Chappaquiddick" Kennedy left to grant an interview with CNN. Yes, Grassley was still asking questions, and Roberts was still answering questions. "Chappy" didn't stick around to hear the questions or answers, and CNN wanted to talk to the blowhard instead of covering the hearings.

Two observations:

1. Nope...no liberal media bias.

2. "Chappy" isn't even pretending that he's going to seriously deliberate on Roberts, is he? I mean, we all knew he had his mind made up to vote "No", but you'd think he's at least act like he really wanted answers, right?

We should cut "Chappy" some slack, though. He gets easily distracted before Happy Hour.

Union shafts workers it paid to protest Wal-Mart's "shafted" workers

You must absolutely love the condescension and gall displayed by unions! How about this gem? A union hires people to picket Wal-Mart with the complaint of low wages and unaffordable heath insurance. The union pays these picketers $6/hour with no benefits.

They're not union members; they're temp workers employed through Allied Forces/Labor Express by the union—United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). They're making $6 an hour, with no benefits; it's 104 F, and they're protesting the working conditions inside the new Wal-Mart grocery store.

"It don't make no sense, does it?" says James Greer, the line foreman and the only one who pulls down $8 an hour, as he ambles down the sidewalk, picket sign on shoulder, sweaty hat over sweaty gray hair, spitting sunflower seeds. "We're sacrificing for the people who work in there, and they don't even know it."

These union boobs don't get it.

First of all, for their righteous indignation about purported poor pay and bennies that Wal-Mart gives to its employees, the union sees no hypocrisy in its use of poorly paid "wage slaves" (to borrow from union terminology).

Secondly, the last quote typifies union (and, to a larger extent, leftist) mentality: "You rubes don't understand how bad you really have it, so we need to enlighten you imbeciles! And we'll endure conditions 100 times harsher than Wal-Mart's air-conditioned, higher-paid, benefits-ridden hellhole to help you morons see how your job really sucks!"

One less moonbat to worry about

Sometimes, it just doesn't pay to be rational.

An old high school acquaintance of mine is a paranoid liberal conspiracy theorist type, but has always been pretty good about never making comments personal. Well, until yesterday.

See, she has a LiveJournal site (that I won't link to) where she rants about, among other things, how her life sucks and how Bush sucks. Her site, so whatever. Anyway, I was invited to the site, and invited to "feel free to ignore" her "Katrina response is Bush's fault" rants. Well, I said I would contribute, so long as comments weren't made personal. I felt assured they would not be.

Long story short, she became (more) unhinged when I had the temerity to infer that state and local officials were more to blame for the response, and when I pointed out her irrational and contradictory positions. For those unspeakable offenses, I was told that by voting for Bush, who "butchered 2000" people (funny, I thought it was Islamic terrorists who did that!), I had blood on my hands. I guess that puts me in dubious company with the other 51% of the country who also voted for Bush.

Blood on my hands? Sounds like it just got personal. So much for the "liberals are tolerant" myth, huh?

Anyway, I prefer to associate with people who aren't complete miserable losers, who don't find reasons to blame life for their own pisspoor choices (and while we ALL have our fair share of those, my God (insert Pagan deity here), did she have a boatload!), and who are maybe a tad bit more respectful of dissenting views. I strive for the latter here (sarcastic retorts notwithstanding...it's not personal), and when I fail, please bring it to my attention. Unlike liberals, I actually try not to be hypocritical and try to rectify things if I have been.

Anyway, quite a burden has been lifted from my shoulders, now that I have rid myself of excess baggage. Hmmmm..."rid myself of excess baggage"? Sounds like a bowel movement! Well, I guess in a way, it was...I removed the crap from myself and feel better! HAHAHAHAHA! Now there's an image I'm sure you fine folks wanted to see! ;)

OK...now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Fun with Haloscan comments

Folks, if you've had trouble posting comments here lately, I had a few hiccups with Haloscan (the commenting and trackback engine used here). Looks like things are working now...for the time being, anyway.

CNN coaches guests to "get angry"

From Drudge:

CNN PRODUCERS TOLD ON-AIR GUESTS: GET ANGRY
Mon Sep 12 2005 12:42:11 ET

After weeks of intense Katrina coverage from the main press, LA TIMES guru and former CNN host Michael Kinsley divulges that CNN was coaching guests to artificially enhance emotions!

Kinsley writes:

"The TV news networks, which only a few months ago were piously suppressing emotional fireworks by their pundits, are now piously encouraging their news anchors to break out of the emotional straitjackets and express outrage. A Los Angeles Times colleague of mine, appearing on CNN last week to talk about Katrina, was told by a producer to 'get angry.'"

"You're not angry? At Bush? Well, look, you peon, if you want your 15 minutes of fame on our scarcely-watched pseudo-news network, then you'll learn during the next break how to properly get angry!"

Nope...no liberal media bias.

Mayor: "Not my problem!"; LA Senator: "feds should control city workforce"; and Guv Blanco absolves Bush

Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, on why it wasn't his fault the school buses that could have been used for evacuation out of New Orleans got flooded:

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said Friday that it wasn't his fault city school buses weren't mobilized to facilitate the Hurricane Katrina evacuation he ordered.

Appearing on NBC's "Dateline," Nagin was asked by host Stone Phillips: "What was mobilized? I mean were national guard troops in position. Were helicopters standing by? Were buses ready to take people away?"

"No. None of that," the Big Easy mayor replied. (Really, then what's this? - ed.)

"Why is that?" an incredulous Phillips asked.

Nagin replied: "I dont know. That is question for somebody else."

Yep. "Not my problem." The elusive "Somebody else." Stark contrast to Rudy Giuliani's response on 9/11/01, wouldn't you say?

The article explains how this was the second time Nagin was asked about using the 2,000 school buses for evacuation. His response the first time?

"One of the briefings we had they were talking about getting, you know, public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out of here," Nagin said.

"I'm like - you've got to be kidding me. This is a natural disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."

Wow...just, wow. Right, Ray, it's much easier and more efficient to bring a couple of thousand of Greyhound drivers IN to New Orleans AND THEN have them turn around and leave OUT of New Orleans...than it would be to simply get ANY drivers (public school bus drivers, volunteers, evacuees, etc.) to simply get on and leave. Also, does his response seem to imply that conditions were too dangerous for N.O. drivers but that somehow private drivers would be more expendible?

Of course, Senator Moonbat Landrieu (D-LA) blames the refusal to use N.O. school buses...on...you guessed it. Bush. Somehow, the city budget of N.O. and their citizens' poor work ethic she exposes...are the fault of the federal government. Don't fault her, folks. She just believes, like every good little liberal does, in central planning of every detail of every level of government.

Nope...it's all Bush's fault! Except...unless...uh, that is...you ask the other primary failed cog in this engine, Governor Blanco (Dem.) of Louisiana. Link:

As she has before, Blanco, a Democrat, refused to blame President Bush, a Republican.

"Help in those critical moments was slow in coming, not through any fault of the president," she said.

Oops.

Good Lord, moonbats! Kinda hard to try to pin this one on Bush when the governor herself can't do it!

Roberts interrogation...er, hearings...begins today

The hearings ought to be a hoot, especially since the Senate Democrats have received their marching orders from the shameless MoveOn, NARAL, and DailyKos groups.

I wonder if Leahy, Teddy K., and other libs on the Senate Judiciary Committee plan to ask Roberts the question that is on the minds of all libs:

"Are you queer?"

OK, Uncle Chappaquiddick has a different take:

"What the American people have seen is this incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out, and those people who were impoverished died," Kennedy said. The question for Roberts, he said, is whether he stands for "a fairer, more just nation" or will he use "narrow, stingy interpretations of the law to frustrate progress."

You morbidly obese drunk louse! A Supreme Court Justice's job isn't to guarantee "a fairer, more just" nation or to advance or inhibit your perverted view of "progress"! It's to interpret the Constitution as it is written! If you want to force your sick brand of public policy on the electorate, then by God (insert Marxist ideologue here), vote on it yourself! That's the role of legislators, NOT the courts!

Also, his first sentence is spoken like a true class-envy socialist. One could interpret the same sentence thusly: "It would have been preferable for an equal number of rich and/or middle-income Gulf residents to have croaked in the hurricane. We here on the left are all about equality of outcome! Not enough well-off folks died for my liking, and we need investigations to see how we can remedy that tragedy for the next natural disaster!"

These people believe it is better than everyone be equally miserable, equally destitute, and equally enslaved to their god of government than for there to exist a disparity between producers and non-producers, between individualists and groupthinkers, between the independent and the wholly dependent.

I keep forgetting: Why do they keep losing again?

Pics of the day

Hat tip to The People's Cube

Poor Cindy:


Whew!

Do you do your budget for ten years out?

Congress does, and they're rarely anywhere near close to accurate. How come Enron, Global Crossing, Worldcom, etc., can't cook their books with shell games and creative money tricks...but our federal government can?

AP Story: "Analysis Sees Deficits Growing Under Bush"

Even before the cost of Hurricane Katrina is added to the federal ledger, a Congressional Budget Office study commissioned by Democrats predicts President Bush will fail to keep his promise to cut the deficit in half by the time he leaves office.

The study by the nonpartisan CBO assumes that Congress will heed Bush's call for new tax cuts and for making those passed in 2001 and 2003 permanent. It also assumes a big slowdown in spending on the Iraq war, tight caps on domestic agency budgets and new individual Social Security accounts.

Anyone see the irony of the two statements stressed above? Democrats? Nonpartisan? Anyway, continuing:

The study predicts that the $331 billion budget deficit projected for the current budget year would rise to $370 billion by 2009, the year Bush has promised to cut the deficit to at least $260 billion. Bush promised to cut the deficit in half from a projection in February 2004 of a $521 billion deficit for 2009.

By 2015, the deficit would hit $640 billion under CBO's study.

Like I said above, a ten-year budget forecast? TEN? Hell, these guys are wrong every year, so we should believe them when they tell us TEN years? Continuing:

"Instead of complaining about the deficit, how about doing something about it?" said Bush spokesman Trent Duffy, noting that Spratt opposes Republican efforts to trim just $35 billion from federal entitlement programs over the next five years.

How about doing something about it?? How about vetoing a damned spending bill...or ANY freaking bill...for ONCE in your term, Mr. President? Good grief, he's ready to veto a bill that adds additional federal funds to stem-cell research (which I agree with, but for a different reason: it's not the federal government's job to fund ANY medical research); but he refuses to veto a bloated, pork-laden spending bill? Since elected Democrats started acting more like socialists, did that mean that Republicans had to start acting more like Democrats?

Democrats got complacent and arrogant over the course of 40+ years of ruling the House. Republicans won total control of Congress in 1994 by promising to roll back the Big Government mentality, massive reforms to entitlements, abolishing unnecessary federal departments (like Education), giving states more power that the federal government had unconstitutionally usurped, cutting taxes, and getting spending under control. With the exception of welfare reform in 1996 (which Clinton signed in order to get re-elected...it worked) and tax cuts, none of those other things occurred!

Instead, Republicans have now become drunk with power, arrogant in their ruling, and abandoning most of the platforms that they ran on 11 years ago. The government is more bloated than ever. I realize that Democrats would be no better and would likely be worse, especially given their disdain for the military (don't try to defend them...I can point to decades of reliable anti-defense votes and rhetoric). But I do have to wonder: how long until the American public gets fed up with this and votes smooth-talking and deceptive Democrats into power, over equally deceptive Republicans?