Posted on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 at 04:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Not only did they win, now they're bragging about it. This has been predicted. Among others David Bogner saw it coming and outlined the process in one of the best articles/posts on the recent Israel/Hezbollah conflict I've seen. That article is a must-read. Don't miss it.
Here's the formula, outlined on 16 July - near the beginning of the conflict:
President Lahoud of Lebanon, a big Hezbollah supporter and a close ally of Syria, has been shrieking non-stop to the UN Security Council for the past two days to get them to force Israel into a cease fire.
Clearly he has been reading his autographed copy of 'Military Success for
DummiesArab Despots' by the late Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Ever since Nasser accidentally discovered the trick in '56, every subsequent Arab leader has stuck to his tried and true formula for military success:
This tactic has never failed. Not once.
Posted on Monday, August 14, 2006 at 09:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Everytime this guy opens his mouth something stupid falls out. Malkin had a little to say about Dean's recent performance on Meet the Press. Dean called Saddam a "pain in the neck." Observes Malkin:
Dean's comments are just more proof that Democrats really, truly, wholly don't get it. Saddam Hussein invaded two sovereign countries, brutally murdered the Kurds, his thug sons raped women and young girls, cut off limbs, slaughtered whole families, built prisons for children, and rained down pain and destruction on the people of Iraq like Howard Dean can not possibly imagine. His downplaying of the evil of Saddam Hussein shows he's unfit for any sort of leadership role. I can't wait for Dean's statement that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is such a jerky face and that Kim Jong Il is so, like, annoying.
Indeed. I got to reading the transcript of the interview she references and found this wasn't the only dumb thing he said, and I didn't think it was even the dumbest thing he said.
Before I get started, one thing you get to see is a look at the Democratic Party Leaders mindset about his party's agenda - oppose George Bush. Why did Lieberman deserve to be eaten alive by the party he's been so faithful to? Because he didn't oppose Bush on one issue:
MR. GREGORY: Let me ask you about the big political news of the week, that of course related to Senator Joe Lieberman. Six years ago he was the vice presidential choice for your party. What happened?
MR. DEAN: I think he embraced George Bush’s policies, and the American people are tired of George Bush’s policies. They want a new direction in this country, and, and the voters have spoken.
He embraced George Bush's policy. That was the same policy that goes back to Bill Clinton, and Democrats who voted for it are now applauding Lieberman being abandon by the party for continuing to support it on principle rather than sway with the political wind.
But never mind that.
This speaks to the mind of the Democratic Party. What is the most important thing a Democrat has to do? What's the litmus test for determining whether they are worthy to serve the country as a Democrat? Is it honesty? No. Is it dedication to the party and his constituents? No. Consistency? Definately not. Integrity? No. Faithfulness to core Democratic and liberal principles? Nope. Lieberman has maintained all those qualities, but that wasn't nearly enough. He got fired for not taking the opposite opositional stance on not most, but ALL of Bush's policies. Most isn't enough - it has to be all, because that's the DNC's core agenda - to oppose Bush. What will they do if they take power?
Dean said it himself:
The way to help this country is to limit Republican power.
It only gets better.
MR. GREGORY: On the issue of the war, is the Democratic Party welcome to differing views about the war?
What can Dean say? He just fired Lieberman for having a differing view on the war. First he has to lie - here's his answer:
MR. DEAN: Sure we are. I think we very much are.
Uh...yeah. Sure. Dean goes on:
...the problem that Joe had was he embraced the president. This is a president who’s been bad for America.
Its ok to have differing views, so long as you don't agree with Bush. That's what Dean is saying - "you can disagree with us, just make sure you disagree with Bush." Dean knows he's begun to paint himself in a corner, so what does he do? Why, he brings up...you know...North Dakota.
You should see what’s going on in North Dakota—farmers who’ve not had any drought relief, people losing their health care. There’s a—the president’s paying no attention to the middle class. Kids want to go to college; they can’t do it now because the president’s cut their Pell grants. There’s a lot of problems in this country that are not being addressed, and Ned Lamont will address those questions.
For crying out loud - North Dakota people! Never mind I just showed my ass and revealed what a political disaster I am. Look what's happening in North Dakota! (Someone jog my memory, didn't he always pull this "look what's going on in North Dakota" tactic during his failed presidential campaign?) North Dakota just dried up because of Bush! People dying in the streets! Kids can't go to school! Its all Bush's fault what's happening in North Dakota, and by-god the next senator from Conecticut is going to solve North Dakota's problems, because Joe Lieberman sure as hell can't help them, he supports the war in Iraq.
MR. GREGORY: But, Chairman Dean...
But Chairman Dean indeed.
MR. GREGORY: ...you say that there’s room for other views on the war in Iraq. Senator Lieberman, supportive of the war, didn’t believe in a—in a date certain for troops. Is that view welcome within the party?
MR. DEAN: Sure. There are many other—many candidates running who don’t believe in a—in a deadline for the troops. The Democratic Party itself is on record saying that we ought to bring our troops home, but we’re not committing to bring our troops home immediately. I don’t know of any—or very few Democrats that want to do that. But we believe, along with the majority of the American people, that this war was a mistake and that—and that it’s, it’s a complete lack of leadership for the president of the United States to say, “Well, we’re going to leave this to the next president.” That is not leadership. This guy got us into this mess; he needs to get us out of this mess.
#1 If the majority if American people really think like you do, why has your party been losing so many elections?
#2 It's ok to not set a deadline, Bush hasn't set a deadline, you agree that we shouldn't bring our troops home imediately, how is your position different than the Administrations again?
#3 You want him to "get us out of this mess." Hypothetically, would you give him another term or two in the White House to do it?
MR. GREGORY: As you well know, there’s a number of, of Democrats, potential nominees, candidates in 2008, who have, in effect, recanted their support of the war, saying it was a mistake. A notable potential candidate who has not done that, of course, is Senator Hillary Clinton. She has not supported a date certain for withdrawal, nor has she said that her vote of support was a mistake. Does she need to recant that support in order to be the Democratic nominee, in your view?
MR. DEAN: Look, first of all, I don’t comment on 2008, I have to be the referee. Second of all, there’s plenty of room for differing points of view on how to defend America.
Except for Joe Lieberman's. Why was that again? Oh yeah, because he agreed with the president in not wanting to set a deadline. But wait, you said there's room for that...
Now Gregory corners him - or tries to - on what he actually wants to do besides oppose:
MR. GREGORY: You talk about defending America. What is the Democratic Party’s prescription for fighting and winning the war on terror?
MR. DEAN: Well, first of all, if you want to fight and win on the war on terror, the fact is Iraq is a distraction. Iraq never had anything to do with the war on terror and that’s just a fact and that’s what the 9/11 Commission said. So it’s not enough to listen to the right-wing folks that claim that we’re fighting the terrorists off the shore so they don’t come on the shore. That is hooey. The people who fought the terrorism best in the last couple of weeks have been the British, who uncovered this plot. We need to upgrade our airport security and we’ve tried to do that in the Democratic Party, and our additions to the budget in Homeland Security have been turned down by the Republican majority. We need a real tough fight on terror, but we need to be tough and smart, not just talk tough.
In other words, the DNC plan is to be more careful about taking tubes of Fixodent away from little old ladies who are flying to Florida.
Now here's one of my favorite parts of the interview.
MR. GREGORY: You heard the 9/11 co-chairmen. Does the Democratic Party believe—do you believe that a push for democratic reform in the Middle East is vital to winning the war on terror?
MR. DEAN: Yes, but...
He agrees with the motivation for the war in Iraq. But...
I think the way that the president went about pushing for democratic reform was incredibly foolish. It blew up in his face and now Americans are paying the price for that. We needed a much different strategy.
Hiring more people to take Fixodent away from little old ladies.
The truth was, we were controlling Saddam Hussein’s air space, he had no air force, he had little army.
We didn't remove him because of what was happening in Iraqi air space. We removed him for what happened on the ground - the collusion with terrorists.
Saddam Hussein was a pain in the neck and a bad person, but the fact is there are a lot of pains in the neck and bad people in this world. And what we should have been concentrating on is getting rid of the Taliban once and for all in Afghanistan who are now making a resurgence, making sure that Iraq—Iran does not have nuclear weapons.
Was that some sort of Freudian slip? If its ok to make sure Iran doesn't get nuclear weapons, why wasn't it ok to make sure that "Pain in the neck" Hussein didn't get nuclear weapons? And we did remove the Taliban from power, but the Taliban didn't attack us, they just helped the people who did - just as Saddam "Pain in the Neck" Hussein did.
...making sure that Iraq—Iran does not have nuclear weapons. That we cannot afford to have—to allow.
And why is that Mr. Dean? What might Iran do with nukes that Iraq wouldn't have?
And to make sure that North Korea is disarmed. Those ought to be the major priorities, because if nuclear weapons get in the hands of terrorists we have a much more serious problem than Saddam ever posed to the United States or to the region.
There you have it. The man has no clue.
Posted on Monday, August 14, 2006 at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Lately I've been having a cigar at the tobacco store downtown. I've always liked a cigar now and then. I've never spent more than $10 on a cigar, usually around $5 when I can. The other day I was at the package store picking up some Scotch and the bundles of cheap cigars next to the chewing tobacco display caught my eye. $14 for about 20 sticks. I pulled the trigger.
I can't tell much difference. To be honest, I can't tell any difference. These puppies are pretty good. They joys of being a cigar neophyte.
The brand is Quorum. Later I picked up a bundle of 25 Moya Casadores for around the same price - they're even better.
Posted on Sunday, August 13, 2006 at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Looks like the Lebenon thing is pretty much over. The terrorists win. The appeasers applaud. The bloodthirsty animals now get to regroup so they can start victimizing Israel again in the near future.
Bummer.
Posted on Saturday, August 12, 2006 at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I felt like blogging about something, but being my life has been pretty boring lately, I figured I'd get some use out of the junk mail I've been receiving. Since I began taking serious steps to curb the amount of spam in my inbox, I find myself reading it more, because now more real mail ends up in the junk folder.
Anyway, here's one from today:
Subject: Trick Mother Nature
Hi there!
Want to live forever? Or at least, longer than you was to? Here is the way to trick Mother Nature!
Its widely known, that there is a special hormone, which is responsible for the rejuvenation and growth of human tissues. Its produced by your anterior pituitary gland in the brain, and as you grow older its produced less and less by your body.
But what if bring this Human Growth Hormone from somewhere outside and into your body? The scientists has found a formula for a rejuvenation course, so dont wait and find the solution of the eternal problem here!
I wonder if there's a magic hormone that improves basic grammar skills along with longevity? Or maybe while making you younger, it causes you to write like a 10 year-old too?
Technorati Profile
Posted on Sunday, August 06, 2006 at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Daughter Who Surprised Mom With Birthday Visit Sues Parents.
She goes to her parents house a couple years ago to throw her
mother a birthday party. Next day she slips in the driveway and breaks
her ankle. (Who wants to bet this girl is so fat she leaves a ring on
the outside of the bathtub?) Now she's filed a lawsuit against
her parents for $75,000. She's even using a letter her mother wrote
with an apology about her fall as proof they're culpable.
I think her parents should file a counter-suit. Her mother's pain
and suffering during pregnancy and childbirth, 18 years of lost wages
and/or baby sitting expenses, the cost of feeding, clothing, and
sheltering the little brat, and throw in some more for all the mental
anguish this wretched little shit has undoubtably caused her parents
throughout her miserable regretable life.
Posted on Sunday, July 23, 2006 at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Power Line has some coverage and pics of a Pro-Israel Rally In Chicago.
More photos here.
Nice to see so many come out in support of our ally. They did it right. No violence. Just support. Of course, there had to be some moonbats leeching attention accross the street. Compare the sizes of the two crowds.
Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 at 12:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Howard Dean is saying the US has lost the moral high ground by going to Iraq. Aren't liberals supposed to think morality is relative? Or something like that? Anyway, Jeff at proteinwisdom.com sums it up really well:
Ah, how I do so love DNC calculus. To wit: freeing 50 million people from totalitarian regimes and spreading democracy = loss of moral high ground; pandering for international “respect” from those who took money from Saddam in exchange for blocking the way for the destruction of his regime = moral high ground.
Dean also fantasizes about an alternate utopian universe where Democrats would have prevented conflict between Israel and the terrorists by working on it day after day.
If you think what’s going on in the Middle East today would be going on if the Democrats were in control, it wouldn’t, because we would have worked day after day after day to make sure we didn’t get where we are today.
That's OK Howie, here in the real world, Israel is now working on it day after day after day to make sure it won't happen again. In the following breath, Dean lets of with:
We would have had the moral authority that Bill Clinton had when he brought together the Northern Irish and the IRA, when he brought together the Israelis and the Palestinians.”
If President Clinton did such a bang-up job bringing Israel and the Arabs together, why would you have needed to work on it day after day after day after day for the last six years?
Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 at 06:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
According to the liberal articles of faith, we are in big trouble because our deficit is growing, and all these "tax cuts for the rich" are just making the problem worse. But despite our "war for oil" in Iraq, the deficit is shrinking and tax collections are increasing. Did I miss something? Or are liberals just wrong as usual?
The federal deficit appears on track to register less than $300 billion for the budget year ending Sept. 30, as surging tax revenues continue to signal significant improvement over White House estimates released in February - though only modest gains over last year.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which makes estimates for lawmakers, said Friday that the deficit for the first three quarters of fiscal 2006 came in $41 billion less than the red ink recorded for the same period in 2005.
...
Indeed, tax collections are surging at a 13 percent growth rate, reflecting particularly strong growth in taxes paid on corporate profits and income taxes paid by wealthier people and small businessmen who pay taxes quarterly instead of having them withheld by employers.
Posted on Monday, July 10, 2006 at 10:07 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
A bunch of new words were added to the dictionary. I just found out I'm a mouse potato. I've evolved from my former status of couch potato when I used to waste my time in front of the TV rather than the PC as "mouse potatos" do.
For those who were on the edge of their seat, unibrow, soulpatch, and supersize were also added. Anyone heard the term "himbo?" That was added too - you can find out what it means in the new dictionary when its released. Or read the link.
Link: Mouse potatoes, himbos and googling go mainstream - Yahoo! News.
Posted on Saturday, July 08, 2006 at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
It's the people who don't drive with the flow of traffic that cause accidents. If speed was ultimate factor in vehicle deaths, no one would survive the Indy 500. The main factor in traffic safety is driving skill which incompasses common sense, knowing your limits, the limits of the road, your vehicle, road conditions, etc. Competant drivers know how fast they should drive.
Link: Safe at Any Speed.
We now have 10 years of evidence proving that the only "assault" was on the sanctity of the truth. The nearby table shows that the death, injury and crash rates have fallen sharply since 1995. Per mile traveled, there were about 5,000 fewer deaths and almost one million fewer injuries in 2005 than in the mid-1990s. This is all the more remarkable given that a dozen years ago Americans lacked today's distraction of driving while also talking on their cell phones.
Of the 31 states that have raised their speed limits to more than 70 mph, 29 saw a decline in the death and injury rate and only two--the Dakotas--have seen fatalities increase. Two studies, by the National Motorists Association and by the Cato Institute, have compared crash data in states that raised their speed limits with those that didn't and found no increase in deaths in the higher speed states.
Jim Baxter, president of the National Motorists Association, says that by the early 1990s "compliance with the 55 mph law was only about 5%--in other words, about 95% of drivers were exceeding the speed limit." Now motorists can coast at these faster speeds without being on the constant lookout for radar guns, speed traps and state troopers. Americans have also arrived at their destinations sooner, worth an estimated $30 billion a year in time saved, according to the Cato study.
More:
Just after posting that, I run smack-dab into another story that reinforces my point. A confused old man plowing into a crowd of people, injuring 27, at the ghastly speed of 15 MPH.
Posted on Saturday, July 08, 2006 at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Another case of a liberal being stupid and getting a pass.
"In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7/11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."
More:
Malkin doesn't think its that big a deal PC-wise, but notes the hypocrisy.
Posted on Saturday, July 08, 2006 at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Link: Editorial: Where are ‘Star Wars’ critics now? - Examiner.com.
As they debate and discuss various options at the United Nations and in capitals around the globe, the rudimentary U.S. missile defense system is poised to shoot down anything launched from North Korea that threatens the American homeland or the critical interests of our regional allies like Japan and Australia.
Noticeably absent are the voices of those who, since President Reagan first proposed such a system in 1984, have fought development and deployment of the missile defense system the U.S. must now depend upon in dealing with North Korea. These folks have claimed over and over that the system they derisively call “Star Wars” can’t possibly work, would be too expensive, would incite a new world arms race, etc., etc. Names that come to mind in this regard include senators like Joe Biden, D-Del., Jack Reed, D-R.I., Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., and the Clinton-Gore administration that delayed and dilly-dallied with work on missile defense for most of the ’90s.
Typical.
Posted on Saturday, July 08, 2006 at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Another fun column from Mike Adams is up. Now he's after the racists. As always, he has some fun while making a few good points - like the following:
Years ago, people who supported racial discrimination and racial segregation were called racists. Today, people who are opposed to racial discrimination and racial segregation are called racists.
Posted on Monday, April 10, 2006 at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Walter E. Williams explains how pandering to blacks is demeaning. I've always wondered what kind of people would be happy to be talked to the way so many liberals talk to blacks.
Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 at 09:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Liberals are taking flip flopping to new levels - they're turning it into an art form. How much grief has the government received for keeping the detainees at Guantanamo Bay? There were accusations of torture, maltreatment, so forth, so on, etc.
Now we're sending some of them back where they came from and we're taking heat for that.
It seems things are so bad for the detainees at Gitmo that they don't want to leave. They're begging not to leave. Meanwhile, the same bunch that was whining about us keeping them there yesterday is griping about sending them home today.
It also seems that for some Muslims, the thought of 72 virgins isn't as appealing when their own country is setting up the date.
A Saudi identified only as Yasim, who said he attended an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan and was jailed in his country for selling drugs, told the tribunal that after being repeatedly interrogated at Guantanamo, he fears his fellow prisoners as well as others back in Saudi Arabia.
"I can't go back to my country. I have been threatened to be killed by many people...
Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 at 09:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Here's a list of investments - see if you can guess what they all have in common by the time you get to the end of the list.
$1 Billion portfolio of 21,000 apartments
2.2% of Daimler Chrysler - cost $1 Billion
A building in Manhattan on Park Avenue no less
Manufacturing plants that make parts for military aircraft and tanks
Still haven't guessed yet? Ok, here's another one:
The purchase of a seaport management firm
You guessed it. These are all examples of Dubai investments on American soil. Paul Blustein at the Washington Post explains why this isn't such bad news.
Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Imagine this - a 16 year-old gives another kid a titty twister. Anyone who's ever been to middle school shouldn't be shocked. This certainly falls under the category of undesireable behavior. A judge thought so too and sentenced him to a $65 fine and three days community service. Fair enough I guess. They also sentenced him to some sort of sensitivity training in which he had to make some admission of guilt which he didn't feel was true, so he refused. For this he got four days in juvie jail.
Let me get this straight. Physically hurting someone gets you a puny fine and a few days raking leaves, but not putting checks in all the boxes and sensitivity school lands you in jail for four days? Why does this scare me?
Posted on Monday, March 06, 2006 at 09:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
An interesting read from Michael Barone on the connection between Iraq and terrorism.
Posted on Monday, March 06, 2006 at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)