Self-composed

Hillary didn't know?

This woman has a serious problem with her memory, and now what's going on around her.  If she becomes president, I wonder how often she'll be able to claim ignorance every time she does something controversial?  At least this president has the integrity to stand by his actions rather than claim he didn't know.

See the entire story

Regarded as the leading Democratic candidate for the 2008 presidential elections, she has used the deal - which polls show is disliked by most Americans - and the anti-Arab sentiment it sparked to attack the Bush administration on national security, an issue that has been seen as a weak point for Democrats. ...

Mrs Clinton's own senatorial financial disclosure forms reveal that her husband earned $450,000 giving speeches in Dubai in 2002. Officials from the UAE also donated between $500,000 and $1m to fund Mr Clinton's presidential library in Arkansas. It was part of an effort by the emirates, said a person close to UAE officials, to forge a close relationship with a former US president who is influential and highly regarded in the region.

O'Reilly on the Smoking Gun

From time to time something on The Smoking Gun interests me, and I pay their site a visit.  It's usually a mug shot of a celebrity or photos of a gruesome crime scene - something to do with a crime. 

So when I see O'rielly on The Smoking Gun RSS feed with the title "Big Pimpin'," I wonder what he's done now.  Has he been caught involved in prostitution?  Profiting of trafficking in persons? I surf over to the site, only to find out all he's guilty of is writing a letter, looking for job prospects, and having mutton chops. 

Uh... isn't this what ambitious 26 year-olds are supposed to do?  I know being ambitious is a little outmoded, but hey, this was the '70s - over 30 years ago.  Of course, that's not the worst of it.  They caught him misspelling "hear" in this handwritten note.

This cheap...I wouldn't even go as far as calling it a shot...this cheap attempt to embarrass someone by showing a 30 year-old picture of them dressed in 30 year-old fashion of the day, caught in the unspeakable sin of networking - looking for a better job, and highlighting a spelling error - it makes smoking gun look like a tabloid.  O'Reilly doesn't have anything to be ashamed of, but The Smoking Gun does. 

Mind you, I'm not big fan of O'Rielly. I used to be until he lost all his cool points when he caved on sexual harassment accusations.  I don't know if he was guilty of anything or not - had he either admitted what he'd done, or continued to fight it like he promised he would, he'd have been much better off in my opinion.

If you are looking for something to complain about, you are absolutely certain to find it

Link: The Keys to Happiness, and Why We Don't Use Them - Yahoo! News.

A few days ago, people were talking about a poll that shows Republicans are more likely to be happy than Democrats.  I haven't seen liberals so spun up since I don't know when. 

This article helps explain the disparity.  Among the suggestions that promote happiness are:

the road toward a more satisfying and meaningful life involves a recipe repeated in schools, churches and synagogues. Make lists of things for which you're grateful in your life, practice random acts of kindness, forgive your enemies, notice life's small pleasures, take care of your health, practice positive thinking, and invest time and energy into friendships and family.

Have you ever seen a liberal that's grateful for anything?  The most noble state in the liberal mind is victimhood.  Liberals thrive on being mad about something, obstructing, etc. 

The article stresses that the onus is on us, not the government.  Who do liberals believe is responsible for all our problems?

Research shows that people who are grateful, optimistic and forgiving have better experiences with their lives...

I'm seriously sitting here trying to think of an example of a liberal being grateful for something or optimistic.  Do liberals tend to be grateful about the good news that comes out of Iraq, or do they dwell on the bad?  Ask a liberal how the economy is - its as good as its been in years, but liberals will tell you we're in dire straits.

How many Democrats in the Senate again?

I thought one of the liberal ariticles of faith was that the Patriot Act is bad bad bad.  So how did this get passed yet again 89-10?  Another case of say one thing, do another.  At least 89 senators were able to apply some common sense when they voted.

Mike Adams for President

You gotta love this guy's sense of humor. Read the entirety of this column :

There will also be important changes in foreign policy. My top advisors in this area will be Phyllis Schlafly (Secretary of State) and Ann Coulter (National Security Advisor). Unless they advise otherwise, I plan to withdraw troops from Iraq and send them into Syria to recover the WMDs hidden there by Saddam Hussein prior to the Iraq War. After they are recovered, our troops will head to Tel Aviv to hand the WMDs over to the Israeli Army. They will be used to immediately retake possession of the Gaza strip.
Shortly thereafter, our nation will experiment with a significant nuclear arms reduction by turning 10% of our nuclear weapons over to the Israelis.

We will also capitulate to the demands of left-wing American professors by withdrawing all troops from the Middle East. This will not be an admission that they are right but, instead, a safety precaution. We don't want our troops to be in harms way when Israel turns Iran into a glass parking lot. The fallout from this decision should be significant, literally speaking. "

Give Joel Stein a break

Give Joel Stein a break.  At least he's honest and much more, demonstrates some consistency.  I first heard of Steins column yesterday on the way home from work as I listened to Hugh Hewitt rake Stein over the coals.  I gotta say, I was impressed with Stein.  Not his views of course, but he maintained consistency and said exactly what was on his mind in the face of some very difficult questions.  Much more, he actually allowed himself to be asked the hard questions!  I wrote Hugh the following email:

I am proud to have served in Afghanistan and Iraq. I returned from Iraq just before Christmas. I'm happy with what we're doing there, and I'm ready and willing to go back and continue the effort.

You shouldn't be any more angry at Joel Stein than anyone else who doesn't support the war in my opinion. I just heard your interview, and to me it was a breath of fresh air. I was happy to hear him say he doesn't support me in my efforts because in saying that he's showing a degree of something nearly every liberal lacks in their views - consistency. What does make me mad, is when people try to eat their cake and have it too by saying they don't support the war, but they do support the troops. That's about as intellectually honest as saying "I don't like telemarketing but I support the telemarketers" would be. At least Stein is showing his true liberal colors.

Joel Stein is a boob, but not because of what he said in his column, but because out of mere bitterness about his side losing elections, or whatever petty political thing it is that makes him angry at the administration and Republicans, he can't connect the dots in the big picture between what our country is doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the rest of the world, and this country's long-term well-being.

I don't want or need Joel Steins support.

Actually, some of what Stein said in the interview and in his column does make him a boob, but not the part where he says people who don't support the war, shouldn't support the troops.  That's where he's right on.

You can't be against the war and for me.  Sorry.  I'm invested in the effort.  Now I'm not talking to those who'd only say the premise of the war was a mistake, I'm talking about those who accuse us of doing something evil -  killing innocents, freedom fighters, and terrorizing the country of Iraq. 

Liberal Racism

Shelby Steele wrote one of the most damning pieces on liberal racism I've seen. 

Snippet:

No one on the current political scene better embodies this Republican advantage than the current secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. The archetype that Ms. Rice represents is "overcoming" rather than grievance. Despite a childhood in the segregated South that might entitle her to a grievance identity, she has clearly chosen that older black American tradition in which blacks neither deny injustice nor allow themselves to be defined by it. This tradition, as Ralph Ellison once put it, "springs not from a desire to deny the harshness of existence but from a will to deal with it as men at their best have always done." And, because Ms. Rice is grounded in this tradition, she is of absolutely no value to modern liberalism or the Democratic Party despite her many talents and achievements. Quite the reverse, she is their worst nightmare. If blacks were to take her example and embrace overcoming rather than grievance, the wound to liberalism would be mortal. It is impossible to imagine Hillary Clinton's "plantation" pandering in a room full of Condi Rices.

Give Congress a raise - a BIG raise

I hadn't thought about this one.  I always figured if we would decrease the benefits of going to Washington we'd get people there who want to be there for the right reasons.  I think Thomas Sowell's theory is better.  Make it more inviting to be a representative and the pool of qualified people trying to become one will widen with candidates. 

He can explain it better than I can.

Here's a healthy snippet from the column:

The stakes are too high for us to be penny-wise and pound-foolish by putting trillions of dollars of the taxpayers' money in the hands of elected officials who are paid less than the beginning salary of a top student from a top law school.

If we paid every member of Congress $10 million a year, that would not increase the federal budget by one percent.

Chances are that it would reduce the federal budget considerably, when members of the Senate or the House of Representatives no longer needed campaign contributions or the personal favors of special interest groups and their lobbyists.

One term in the Senate would bring in $60 million, which most people could live on for life, without being beholden to anybody and without having to seek a job afterwards for special interests, much less having to sell their soul to continue a political career.

Money is not the only thing that corrupts. Power also corrupts and some people go into politics for power.

Nothing can be done about such people — except force them to compete with other people, drawn from a far larger pool, including top people in highly paid professions who today can seldom afford to serve in Congress at the expense of their family's standard of living and financial security.

Do we want laws made by people who would sacrifice their families in order to get their hands on the levers of power? Or people who can serve in Congress because they inherited wealth — and therefore have never had to personally experience what ordinary people experience and learn from, including government red tape?

More thoughts on Nagin

I should never have made the comparison to Pat Robertson - there's two entirely different things going on with the two.  Robertson is a whacko, but like all crazy people, doesn't know it.  He believes his own BS. Nagin is not crazy - he's a liberal politician trying to get elected again.  So, of course, he'll say anthing, act like a fool - do whatever it takes to get elected by pandering to his constituency.

I had it wrong at first.  The story here isn't that Nagin said some crazy things, much less that Nagin is crazy - he's not. The story is that he said them on purpose, knowing they're crazy things to say, in order to pander to a group of people. That this group can be pandered to by having someone talk like an uneducated loon to them - that's the story.

Sowell - Senate Condemnation Hearings

The Dems tried to do I don't know what, but suceeded in making fools of themselves.  Thomas Sowell can tell you better than I can.

The ridiculousness                 of the charges was classically illustrated by Senator Joseph Biden's                 claim that Alito had been part of a group that was trying to keep                 minorities and women out of Princeton. Apparently wanting everyone                 to meet the same admissions standards is considered to be the                 same as being against minorities and women.

It all comes down to who'll get the swing vote.